Le Ho (1981 - )
Owner of one of the largest privately owned and operated waste management companies in Sydney.

(Source: Daily Mail UK)

Introduction

She was 18 days old when she arrived on a fishing boat with her parents as Vietnamese migrants.

Originally from Vietnam, her family fled when she was a baby - just 18 days old. They spent a year in a Thai refugee camp before coming to Australia, settling in South Australia in 1981.

"When we enrolled in the primary school, [my brother and I] were the first Asian people to ever be enrolled. There was a lot of outcasting."

Le Ho and her family on Australian shores
(Source: SBS)

Le Ho is a Vietnamese refugee who took over a commercial waste management company for recyclables in Sydney and turned it into a multi-million dollar company with expansion plans to other states this year.

“Le’s a really special woman to me because she came here as a migrant -- and we know now 30 percent of SMEs are either owned by migrants or children of migrants so we have a really high growth area there that we need to acknowledge,” she said.

“So for her to go through that by definition makes her tenacious. To take on a business that is male dominated but also go through the journey she’s had to come and prosper in Australia, it makes me a proud Australian.

“She has this attitude that she will never, ever give up. When she started with the business in 2010 she had just had a baby, and then she tackled a male-dominated industry with hardly any capital and she was running it from her car -- she didn’t even have an office. Even when she was turning over $5 million she was still running it from her car.

“It’s a highly unusual industry but she saw an opportunity and she knew she could turn it around because of her tenaciousness and skills and attitude and that’s exactly what she did.” (Source: Huffington Post)

Generation Y female entrepreneur, Le Ho, who owns the company Capital City Waste Services is featured in #IfSheCanICan, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. She says she would “get in the truck at 6am” because people in the male-dominated industry “were making bets on how long it would take me to go under”. (Source: SMH)

Experiences and Opportunities

Le Ho has been the Director of Capital City Waste Services Pty Ltd since January 2009 when she brought the company for $50K.

Previously, she designed and manufactured evening and bridal dresses and opened a total of 6 shops throughout Sydney under the HoneyBee brand. (Source: LinkedIn)

Education

Le Ho studied at the University of Sydney graduating when she was 21.

Did You Know? Ho has always had an entrepreneurial streak, starting her first business, a bridal store at 20 years old. "In six years I grew that to six retail stores but the market for internet shopping changed things dramatically," Ho says. "I wanted to find a business that, whatever the economy, would be there would always be demand for it." Losing $20,000 a month It turns out the answer was waste management, with Ho first coming across Capital City when she helped oversee the business for a "friend and mentor" who was a director and had to go overseas. Ho says the business was losing about $20,000 a month and "on the brink of liquidation" when she agreed to buy it for $50,000. "I decided to take a leap of faith and buy it out," she says. "I had to take on board the risk of continually losing money if my strategies did work. I bought out all the shareholders and in the first month I turned it around to break even." Ho had to get rid of costs immediately so she took on all roles in the business from accounts, to sales, to driving a truck. She ran Capital City from the boot of her car starting the day with a waste collection run then changing clothes to go to meetings and find new customers. Evenings were spent doing the books and sending emails. "For me it was about working 18 hours a day for the first 12 months," she says. Ho picked the right industry with IBISWorld analysis valuing solid waste collection services at $6.2 billion for 2015-2016 and predicting annual growth of 3.8 per cent in the future. "A lot of people didn't want to deal with me" However Ho says she faced discrimination starting out in a male-dominated industry. "Given my young age when I went into owning a waste management business I was always dealing with men in their 50s and 60s who had been in the industry for 30 to 40 years," she says. "People were making bets on how long it would take me to go under." The chilly reception only inspired Ho. "That was a driving force for me to get in the truck at 6am," she says. "I had a lot of people who didn't want to deal with me as they thought I would be here one day and gone the next. I certainly had to prove who I was and what I was capable of." The lucky country Ho was only 18 days old when her parents fled Vietnam and she says her family was one of the "lucky few" to reach Australia. Their courage has inspired her. "For me, I faced barriers being an immigrant from Vietnam, being a woman in a male-dominated industry and being Asian which was unheard of [in the industry]," she says. "I think Australia is certainly changing, when I grew up my parents said to me I needed to study, go to university, get a degree and find a husband to look after me for the rest of my life. Growing up I saw the opportunities Australia could provide me and saw anything a man could do, I could do as well." Ho's son was only six months old when she took over Capital City and she says particularly at the start it was a challenge to find the right balance of being there for him and managing her business. (Source: SMH)

Le's turning her attention to her latest venture [launched in 2016], Sustainable Solutions Group, after selling Capital City Waste Services in 2018.

"Sustainable Solutions Group isn't just in waste management, it's a facilities management company. We don't only provide one solution, but many for our clients," she says. Services could include cleaning, as well as building maintenance, air conditioning, mail management, waste management and more.

SS Group
(Source: SBS)

Frances Moore: I cannot find any further information about Le Ho from 2018. If you have any information, please contact me on Frances.Moore@onthejob.education

Links:

ABC: Radio National Now at the WebArchive	Capital City Waste Services
Sydney Morning Herald: Garbage queen's $10 million business 23 November 2015	SBS - Garbage Queen talks making it in male-dominated industry

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