Ashley Nguyen Ahn experienced more trauma, death and desperation by age three than the rest of us face in a lifetime.
The associate general counsel at Texas Capital, Ahn and other lawyers spent the last three years rebuilding and transforming Texas Capital into a premier financial services firm in the state. Citing her extraordinary achievements, the Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook have named Ahn one of two finalists for the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Senior Counsel of the Year for a Midsized Legal Department.
“Ashley is truly a prime example of the American dream,” says Texas Capital Chief Legal Officer Anna Alvarado, who is Ahn’s boss. “Ashley’s background, upbringing and story is truly inspirational. I deeply respect and admire her.”
What happened to Ahn as a small girl is something she lives with every single day.
Ahn’s story starts in 1981 in a small village south of Saigon. She was three years old when her father, an engineer who had escaped prison and certain execution by the Viet Cong, built a wooden boat with a hidden engine to help their family and neighbors escape the communist regime of Vietnam.
“He had to be secretive to avoid any suspicion from spies from the VC … until the day came to escape,” Ahn recalls. “On that fateful day there were 30 of us hiding under a bunker on the beach near our hidden boat.”
Ahn’s mother, who was pregnant with a son, heard the Viet Cong “patrolling the beach” and was “terrified of getting caught while waiting for the signal to flee.”
Then came the “all clear” signal.
I knew life is hard and unfair. I accepted all of this early on. I figured out that acceptance and adaptation is the key to survival, and, if resilient enough, I could thrive as well.
“We all rushed out to the boat, pushed it in the water and drifted off to sea,” she says. “My parents did not know where we were heading. All they knew was that anywhere was better than war-torn Vietnam and communist rule. They had no idea how long we would be at sea.”
The group packed enough food — bread, dried fruit and dried fish and pork — for four weeks and water for five weeks. The days and weeks passed. The food ran out in late June. A neighbor’s eight-year-old child “succumbed” to lack of nourishment first.
“Our boat had drifted hundreds of miles off the coast of Vietnam and was literally in the middle of the ocean,” Ahn says. “Out of desperation, the mother offered her son’s body as food to save the rest of us on the boat from starvation. My parents, as owners of the boat and being Catholic, refused, even though they had heard of other boats resorting to cannibalism in desperation.”
On day 39 at sea, her mother’s youngest brother, who was 16, died due to starvation and dehydration. The next day, Ahn’s father passed away. He was 33.
“I have a distinct memory of being on the boat during our journey,” she says. “I was laying on the wood floor of the boat with my sister (who was five) on my left side and a wood panel on my right side. The wood was damp and cold from the ocean water against my back while the sun was blazing on the other side of an old blue tarp covering us from the sun and splashes of ocean water. I could see the sun rays shining through the small holes in the tarp and the shadow of water drops on the tarp. The waves crashing into the boat rocked it back and forth endlessly.”
“There was a black ant on the wood panel to my right and I remember using my fingers, one at a time, to block its path as it wandered on the panel for hours,” she says. “I had found something to play with.”
On day 41 — the day after her father died, the surviving passengers noticed a ship on the horizon. It was a Greek freighter on its way to Japan. The ship’s captain circled Ahn’s boat several times before stopping to rescue her family and neighbors.
“We were all mere skeletons at this point,” she says.
Ahn concedes that her childhood — or lack of it — “was rough” and that she was “forced to grow up very quickly.”
“Being present when your father died of starvation — where there was no choice but to push his body into the ocean as the boat drifted away — and the resulting hardships of growing up in new lands raised by an immigrant single mother with three mouths to feed was hard to deny or ignore,” she says. “I knew we were boat people and refugees. I knew we were poor. I knew life is hard and unfair. I accepted all of this early on. I figured out that acceptance and adaptation is the key to survival, and, if resilient enough, I could thrive as well.”
“Being raised by an immigrant single mom in a country where she did not even know the language, I had no childhood, no guidance and raised myself and my siblings and often my mother as well, mostly due to the language barrier and cultural differences,” Ahn says.
“All of these early events made me who I am today.”
‘Lead by Example’
In nominating Ahn for the 2024 DFW Senior Counsel of the Year Award, Bell Nunnally partner Dania Duncan Moreno says she has a “lead-by-example philosophy” that has made her so successful at Texas Capital.
“What distinguishes Ashley is her holistic approach to her role,” Moreno says. “She seamlessly combines her legal expertise with her deep understanding of business operations, ensuring that her advice not only mitigates risks but also drives strategic growth. Her entrepreneurial spirit, cultivated from years of diverse experiences — including running her own practice — gives her a unique perspective that few in-house counsel possess.”
Alvarado, Texas Capital’s CLO, says Ahn has been “instrumental” in shaping and building the Texas Capital Bank legal department.
“Ashley is truly the heart of the legal team, bringing insight and knowledge across all areas of the business,” Alvarado says. “She was instrumental in operationalizing the legal department and our legal infrastructure. She was key in negotiating the firm’s corporate real estate footprint, especially with the transformation of the headquarters — the new Texas Capital Center, setting record rates, facilitating the deals and creating significant cost savings.”
“Ashley is one of the most caring and intuitive people I know,” Alvarado says. “She sets the standard for caring and collaboration. I consider myself extremely lucky to have her in my life and personal and professional circle.”
Bell Nunnally lawyers point to specific successes that Ahn achieved during the past two years, including:
- Leading the legal strategy and execution for the 15-year lease of 200,000 square feet in the Texas Capital Center — the state-of-the-art facility at 2000 McKinney Avenue in Uptown Dallas that serves as the bank’s headquarters;
- Guiding the legal group’s successful efforts to lease four floors of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas building in Richardson for the bank’s new North Dallas campus;
- Developing the eight-attorney legal department’s first-ever internal publication, Legal Tender, which provides practical legal guidance across the firm;
- Building and mentoring the corporate legal team to foster a culture of excellence and collaboration;
- Driving efficiencies in procurement, corporate real estate, corporate security, technology, informational security and internal auditing that led to measurable improvements in the firm’s bottom line; and
- Getting promoted recently to director and head of legal operations.
“Ashley is a very astute technician due to her years of experience and her commitment to be a true student of the law, always seeking to learn more,” says John A. Bonnet III, a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings. “More importantly, she has a can-do attitude, and she seeks practical solutions to problems. She is not afraid to tackle difficult projects, and she is always friendly and engaging with her coworkers and others. As a result, people want to work with her.”
I no longer wanted to be an outsider. I wanted to help [clients] prevent and build as opposed to just fixing a problem and leaving.
“Ashley never seems overwhelmed, even when the problem or task seems overwhelming,” Bonnett says.
Alston & Bird partner Kyle Healy says Ahn has “terrific attention to detail and the ability to connect the dots to ensure cohesive and consistent approaches.” He says she has the “ability to be nimble and business minded” to help Texas Capital pursue a “diversified growth strategy and navigates the recent turmoil in the banking industry.”
“Ashley is willing to recognize what risks are real and what risk aren’t and uses that filter to drive decisions that work and protect the business,” Healy says. “She has the ability to go from one unrelated matter to another and utilize her knowledge of the bank and other areas of law to ask the right questions to get the right answer for the bank.”
Rescue, Recovery and New Roots
The Greek ship captain took Ahn and her family to Japan in July 1981, where she says they “became a local spectacle, as that part of Japan had never seen boat people/refugees from Vietnam.”
Days after arriving, a local member of the Japanese mafia visited Ahn’s mom in her hospital room while she was recovering.
“One of them asked her what she wanted as he promised to bring to her anything she asked,” Ahn says. “After being starved and dehydrated and pregnant for 41 days, all she could think about was watermelon while on the boat, so she asked for watermelon.”
“Shortly thereafter, he filled her hospital room with watermelon,” she says.
After living in Japan for 13 months while immigration paperwork was being sorted, the family was transferred to a refugee camp in the Philippines for six months and then was allowed to immigrate to the U.S. based on political refugee status in 1983. The family spent three years in Oklahoma City and then moved to the Dallas area, where they have lived ever since.
Ahn is the first lawyer in her family.
“My mother was initially disappointed when I told her I wanted to be a lawyer,” she says. “Her perception of what lawyers are is based on how law works in Vietnam — corrupt or lacking in all aspects. She, like most other Vietnamese parents of her generation, dreamed that their children would become doctors or engineers if given the choice. Happy to report her perception of lawyers changed around my tenth year into the practice of law. It took some time, but she came around.”
Ahn became interested in law after graduating from Southern Methodist University with a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics. She worked for a financial services company but “was more interested in the legal aspects of financial services.” Then she took a job as an underwriter for a mortgage company “but again was more interested in the legal aspects of mortgage financing.”
On a whim, Ahn took the LSAT without studying and applied to Texas A&M University School of Law — then called Texas Wesleyan University School of Law — in Fort Worth, where she earned her law degree in 2005. Her best grades were in contracts, taxation, secured transactions and trial advocacy.
“These areas just made sense to me,” she says. “Criminal law and torts were my weakest areas. The words ‘mens rea’ still gives me PTSD after all these years.”
Ahn started her legal career at the Small Business Administration, securing mortgages and business loans across all 50 states and U.S. territories. She practiced litigation at two law firms and then opened her own firm, where she practiced for six years.
During the pandemic, she started missing the in-person interaction with clients.
“The isolation of Covid left me feeling disconnected,” she says. “I no longer wanted to be an outsider. I wanted to help them prevent and build as opposed to just fixing a problem and leaving.”
In 2022, a legal recruiter called with an in-house opportunity.
“She thought I would be a great fit at Texas Capital,” Ahn says. “It was a role requiring the ability to be adaptable, move quickly and hit the ground running as the firm was going through some huge changes. Right up my alley and piqued my curiosity.”
The power of teamwork and collaboration resulting in success for all involved is what excites me at Texas Capital.
Ahn researched Texas Capital and its new leadership at the time and scheduled an interview with CLO Alvarado in March 2022.
“After an hour and a half of the most intense interview I have ever done, I had a job offer,” she says. “I trusted my gut and accepted. The opportunity to be challenged at every level, to build and grow from ground up, and to be integral in building a dream legal team and working with some of the most intelligent and hard-working people was an opportunity I could not pass.”
Ahn says she “wears many hats as primary legal partner for multiple areas” at the bank.
“Building a dream team, creating structure and processes within the legal department and in other areas of the firm, working with other departments to help them achieve their goals is what I enjoy the most,” she says. “The power of teamwork and collaboration resulting in success for all involved is what excites me at Texas Capital. I am honored every single day to be a part of the legal team at Texas Capital and to work across with firm with some of the best people I know.”
ACC-DFW and The Lawbook will celebrate Ahn and other DFW Corporate Counsel Award nominees/winners on Jan. 30 at the George W. Bush Institute, which is adjacent to the Bush Presidential Library.
Many years after Ahn’s rescue at sea, her aunt located the captain of the Greek freighter to ask him why he stopped to save them, pointing out that there were laws at the time prohibiting boat captains from picking up Vietnamese refugees stranded in the ocean.
“He said he could live with his decision if he lost his job and his ship, but he would not be able to live with his conscience if he left us in the ocean and where death was imminent but for his help,” Ahn says. “My aunt was also able to get copies of the pictures the crew took of us during their rescue. Those images are permanently etched in my mind and a constant reminder that I can and will survive.”
FUN FACTS: Ashley Ahn
- Favorite music group: I like all music that I can dance to.
- Favorite movie: Wicked.
- Favorite restaurant: I am a foodie, so too many to choose just one. My last meal would be an aged ribeye, fresh shellfish in a wine broth, handmade pasta and a yuzu sorbet.
- Favorite beverage: Anything citrusy
- Favorite vacation: A two-week trip to Japan last summer with my husband and our daughter.
- Hero in life: My mother. She is the strongest woman I know when it comes to her children.