Roland Berger CEO invests in Vietnam-based online retailer Leflair

The online Vietnamese retailer Leflair has raised $3 million in Series A funding to bring its aggregate financing to nearly $5 million, with Charles-Edouard Bouée, the CEO of Roland Berger, one of the tech start-ups high-profile backers.

Founded in 2015, the Vietnamese-based online luxury brand retailer Leflair has successfully closed another round of funding to take the next step in its e-commerce journey. The latest $3 million in backing was led by Capital Management Group, and adds to the approximately $2 million in investment garnered from its previous rounds which had attracted the likes of Google’s Vice president for India and Southeast Asia, alongside Charles-Edouard Bouée, the CEO of international strategy consulting firm Roland Berger.

Currently operating out of offices in Ho Chi Minh City, with distribution warehouses situated both locally and in Singapore, Leflair, after its latest funding boost, will look to lure additional international brands to its luxury consumer portfolio with improvements to its warehousing and the tech side of its platform. As reported by the company, Leflair currently has 1,100 local and international brands already on board, along with 700,000 existing members.

As the young company looks to its path ahead, the investment from Roland Berger’s seasoned leader provides not just capital, but a very public vote of confidence. Bouée, Roland Berger CEO since 2014 and head of firm’s Asia business, has over twenty-five years of experience in the consulting industry, with expertise in reorganisation, post-merger projects and performance improvement, and a specialist interest in disruptive innovation, new technologies and digital transformation.

Bouée has been with consulting firm in 2013 prior to being elected its CEO the following year.

In addition to his Chief Executive duties with Roland Berger, Bouée sits on the Alumni Board of Harvard Business School (where he graduated with an MBA in 1995 before being joining management consulting firms Booz Allen and A.T. Kearney, where he latterly served as Vice President), and is a member of the Advisory Council of Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business based in Beijing. In 2012 he was presented with the Magnolia Gold Award by the City of Shanghai – the highest civic accolade open to foreigners. 

As the head of Roland Berger’s Asian practice, Bouée maintains a strong presence in the region, with a portion of his time allocated to the Shanghai office – which is one of five in China hosting a combined 360 of its 2,400-strong global network of consultants, alongside another seven offices dotted throughout East and Southeast Asia, including Seoul, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Jakarta.

The latest addition to Roland Berger’s Asian network is Myanmar, where the firm recently reported positive long-term sentiment among business leaders despite a sharp downturn in short-term optimism.