Five Thai women recognised power businesswomen in Asia by Forbes

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Five Thai women recognised power businesswomen in Asia by Forbes



BANGKOK: -- Leading American business magazine, Forbes Magazine, has recognised five Thai women among 50 powerful businesswomen in Asia in its fourth annual Asia’s Power Businesswomen list.

The candidates are chosen for being active in the upper echelons of the business world in Asia, wielding significant power and having access to robust financial resources.

The list saw 27 newcomers join Forbes annual “50 Power Businesswomen in Asia” published in the March 2015 edition of Forbes Asia. The other 23 women have been on the list from previous years.

Sixteen countries are represented on the list. China and Hong Kong dominate with 14 women; India with 6; Thailand, 5; and Singapore, 4.

South Korea, Australia, the Philippines and Indonesia each have 3, while Japan and Vietnam each have two. Malaysia, Taiwan, Myanmar, Mongolia and New Zealand have one each.

Among the five Thai power businesswomen, three are newcomers while two, Chadatip Chutrakul, 54, and Somporn Juangroongruangkit, 64, were named in the 2014 list.

The three new comers are Yuwadee Chirathivat, 61, Wandee Khunchornyakong, 56, and Sunee Seripanu, 50.

1. Yuwadee Chirathivat is the CEO of Central Department Store Group. With a recent reorganisation of Central Group into 8 divisions, Yuwadee became CEO of Central Department Store, overseeing expansion in Thailand and overseas.

Last year the company’s first stores opened in Vietnam (under the new Robins name), along with another Central store in Jakarta. Malaysia will join the Central map in 2016 or 2017.

Meantime, its La Rinascente brand, purchased in 2011, is renovating and adding stores in Europe under her guidance.

2. Wandee Khunchornyakong is the chairman and CEO of SPCG. She founded the company in 1996, but business boomed only in recent years. With Japanese partner Kyocera, SPCG has constructed 36 solar photovoltaic farms in Thailand since 2010.

It plans to increase energy capacity 67% to 500 megawatts by 2019. Further expansion should include its solar-rooftop construction.

Ranked No. 48 on the Forbes Asia list of wealthiest Thais with net worth of $345 million (she owns almost 43% of the listed company), Wandee stands to gain from an estimated tripling of SPCG’s profits in 2014. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in December cited her for “leading a women-powered solar energy transformation.”

3. Sunee Seripanu is CEO and Chairman, MC Group. Sunee has led MC Group for almost 2 decades, turning it into one of Southeast Asia’s leading producers of jeans wear, with 2013 revenue of $236 million, up 16% on year. In 2014 it added 114 points of sale within Thailand to boost its network to 819 locations and furthered its international expansion, adding Vietnam to sales outlets in Laos and Myanmar. She has also stepped up diversification, highlighted by the 2013 acquisition of Time Deco, a watch company, and the promotion of a wider range of brands that includes MC Pink (women’s casual wear), Blues Brothers (premium jeans wear) and Mc Mc (value jeans wear). Sunee owns 45% of MC Group, which was founded in 1975. She joined in 1996 as CEO and became chairman in 2014.

4. Chadatip Chutrakul is CEO of Siam Piwat, Siam Paragon Development.

While retail sales in 2014 in Thailand were depressed by months of political strife, and department stores were the biggest losers, but after the May military coup, luck began to turn for Chadatip.

The stylish CEO of some of Bangkok’s flashiest shopping malls finally broke ground in July on the riverside IconSiam, a $1.54 billion, 20-acre shopping and residential complex. It will be the country’s largest-ever investment by the private sector. Among privately owned Siam Piwat’s partners in the project is a Charoen Pokphand property company headed by Tipaporn Chearavanont, daughter of Thailand’s second-richest man. She is also in 2014 list.

5. Somporn Juangroongruangkit is President and Director of Thai Summit Group. Somporn and her late husband built Thai Summit into an auto- and motorcycle-parts powerhouse with 23,000 employees and operations in 7 countries in addition to Thailand. The privately held company said its 2013 sales were around $2 billion. But that figure probably declined last year as domestic vehicle sales nose-dived in concert with political instability and the end of rebates for first-time auto buyers. The jury is still out on a 20% stake in Matichon newspaper group that Somporn purchased in 2013. Matichon was supportive of the elected government ousted by a military coup in May; its stock spiked from March to May at the height of the political turmoil but ended the year as it began. Ranked 28 on the FORBES ASIA list of richest Thais, with wealth of $900 million, Somporn is a founder and former president of the Thai LPGA (Ladies Professional Golf Association). Her Pattana Golf & Sports Resort boasts a 27-hole golf course and golf academy.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/five-thai-women-recognised-power-businesswomen-in-asia-by-forbes


-- Thai PBS 2015-02-27

[Costas2008]

After reading this, I'm reconsidering my decision of getting married to my wife.

What did you say?

They are already married?

That can be fixed.

Don't think they can resist my hansumness.....as long as they don't look into my pocket

[greenchair]

And yingluck is in the poorhouse with the rest of us. ??

[scorecard]

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After reading this, I'm reconsidering my decision of getting married to my wife.

What did you say?

They are already married?

That can be fixed.

Don't think they can resist my hansumness.....as long as they don't look into my pocket alt=whistling.gif>

Well don't rush to think most of these so called power women, whether here in Asia or in any country (not specifically meaning those mentioned above) are sweet and balanced and compromising, etc.

Edited February 27, 2015 by scorecard

[gandalf12]

One big difference in Thailand is that the way business is conducted is not the same as in the USA, UK or West in general.

Competition within the country is held back in Thailand compared to Thai companies so it probably doesnt mean quite as much as if they were in the West. Still god but not a level playing field

[TooPoopedToPop]

And yingluck is in the poorhouse with the rest of us.

Yingluck might have been on the list herself if she hadn't allowed her slimebag brother to dominate her.

[DaveinAsia]

It doesn't stop to amaze me how people, who became rich through exploitation of the poor, are widely respected and admired. Perhaps there is only one way to become mega rich; by being unscrupulous

[wabothai]

Wouldn't want to touch them with a 10-foot pole.

[Star Dust]

Hmmm..? Forbes? Hmmm...? American standard business magazine? Haven't they figured it out yet?

in LOS is EVERY human female a businesswomen.

The words "woman" + "businees are inseparable in LOS and if ignored may cause sudden bankruptcy,

followed by a sudden urge of jumping off some cheap Charlie Hotel in BKK, or other suicidal actions.

The entire LOS is run by women and they know it. In Thailand it is the women who wear the pants.(mostly)

Saying otherwise would make the Thai men lose face.

Sad thing is though that in a country like Thailand, this so high praised business, is based on exploiting, plotting, swindeling, corrupting, misleading, selfcentered self-interest that is anchored deep in the genes of all Thai women.

Yes there are exceptions. But the genes of those ladies are just not activated yet.

example:

In every larger city in LOS you find a multiplicity of business establishments and venues, we find businesswomen at any age, where only 80% have completed primary school, are fully coordinated with each other from the north to the south of LOS, who specialized in pleasing, pleasuring entertaining, and sexually satisfying men, women, gays, etc., no matter what nationality they have, implementing a multi-billion business annually and then let the whole world still believe that the Thai men are actually in charge of the country making all the countries revenue.

best example;

My wife is Thai. From Udon Thani, Born as the youngest of 6 children of a poor rice farmer's family, where her father passed away when she was just 5 leaving the family even deeper in poverty with no options other than sending the children off to work as whatever makes money, instead of finishing at least basic education to at least work at 7Eleven if Bhudda willing, and on top of that, was impregnated by Thai guy, whose mother didn't tolerate him marrying a buffalow girl, leaving her not only poor and uneducated at the age of 15, but also with child and no work, or employment.

Her two brothers are to this day scrounging off everyone in the family contributing nothing but Macho posturing, acting to play the big man who can shoot the testicles of a squirrel right off, making 5-800 Baht/Week fathering already 3/4 of a soccer team.

So it was the daughters of LOS, like my wife, who went to find business.

1995 she started on the rice fields of course, then Insect Farms, and many other farming jobs in the Issan. Becoming a teenager (a damn beautiful teenager) she learned about the trade of the flesh, and that those white Farangs do finacially support their spouses quite well, compared to a Thai (male) costumer where they usually had to get the fee for the deed from the guys mother personally, cause Thai Issan guys NEVER have a single Satang anywhere near them for the taking. I always am in stitches when my mother in law tells me stories from her sons.

We often had Bargirl or two walking up and down our road asking us if we could pay her off in his absence. Pfffffff.....never did.

Then Bangkok as an underpaid waitress/service girl some English Breakfast Guesthouse in Soi Sukhumvit where she learned English, looking for rubish and trash to recycle, and doing the "freelancer lady" at night. Then Singapore, HK, and Malaysia working farangs.

By the time she was 23 she managed with her sisters to financially support their home, paying off the depth for the land, build 2 propper concrete houses (small) and enough on the side for her daughter and 3 motorbikes, and a chopper.

Never startet smoking, drinking, or drugs, and avoided getting pregnant again.

By the time I met her she was 24-25 she had enough money in the Bank to avoid freelancing totally, just working with friends in the beauty saloon. I was working full time at the time earning 46.000 THB as a teacher. She had more money back then, than me. Because I have spent it on booze and women, naturally. 3 years later I had her. Well, the yes didn't come without conditions. Much like a businesswomen, don't you think?

Today, 14 years after we have met, and 6 years after we have married, with our son becoming 6 years old just yesterday she stays home with our kids (daughter has already boyfriend but still at home) having a car and bikes, without having any occupation, earning at least 15-20.000 THB a month without the daily rat-race we all sought in our youth, but all try to escape so much by now.

Some so called "CEO's of some Shopping Mall" who comes from the upper echelons, and enjoyed a good education while being well fed , and probably never suspected a spark of evil in the world to this day, is maybe in the eyes of some western mammon magazine a powerbusiness woman of Asia, which still.......... none of us............ has ever heard of.

Every Thai woman out there, who is fighting poverty on her own, in or outside of LOS, is a power business woman to me, and therefore deserves to be looked after, treated politely, respectfully and with restraint, no matter the outcome.

Hmmmm...? Time for me to go to work.

I'd prefer the great wisdom of a yellowshirt Mamasan for Prime Minister rather than a mammon's pampered, overeducated, and if just on her own , probably completely inefficient, in making a tough decision which brings a lasting results for the greater good of her people, and not putting her carrer, income, and suggested power mentioned by Uncle Sam's Forbes magazine.

Best Regards my fellow "farangthai(lao)" friends, and keep posting.

[umbanda]

WHO SAID THAT MONEY CANNOT BE MADE IN THAILAND?...EVEN BY PIONEERS?

Ms. Wandee history is amazing, and was big news months ago.

A very young woman, starting with no funding but with a strong social interest. Now she is not making just money, also a big difference in poor farming communities with its solar power installations....Now going to big projects....

Good for her! Good for Thailand!

[gandalf12]

<script type='text/javascript'>window.mod_pagespeed_start = Number(new Date());</script>

It doesn't stop to amaze me how people, who became rich through exploitation of the poor, are widely respected and admired. Perhaps there is only one way to become mega rich; by being unscrupulous

As John Lennon said "you have to learn to smile as you stab them in the back if you want to live on nob hill"

[than]

And yingluck is in the poorhouse with the rest of us. ??

She is in the top 5 of most corrupt politician woman of the World

[stoli]

One big difference in Thailand is that the way business is conducted is not the same as in the USA, UK or West in general.

Competition within the country is held back in Thailand compared to Thai companies so it probably doesnt mean quite as much as if they were in the West. Still god but not a level playing field

Some people just don't understand the difference between using logic for your facts, and making emotional decisions. Smart, educated, successful people, the world over, all think the same. How do you think they got where they are? There are not different formulas for different regions, not when you are talking success. Do you think successfully investing in the U.S. stock market is done differently by Asians than it is done by Bill Gates or Warren Buffet?

[Stargeezr]

I was glad to see that Yingluck's name was not on this article.

I hope that her and her family have to spend lots of their own personal money

from now on, and not the money of the Thailand people. I guess that is what her

brother is also doing, where ever he is living.

It would not make me sad at all, to see the family of Ms. Yingluck and Thaksin, have to

live on their own fortunes.

I am surprised that there are still people who think that these two former PM's were

good for Thailand. I heard all about them from my Thailand family over the years

and I am convinced that Thailand will be better, not to be ruled by them, or any of their family

members, or course this is only my Farang opinion.

[umbanda]

Still......many farangs here cannot recognize something positive and inspiring from this country.....

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/11/25/thailand-solar-industry-momentum-for-change-award-winner

[Thai at Heart]

And yingluck is in the poorhouse with the rest of us. ??

She is in the top 5 of most corrupt politician woman of the World

Joint ventures or protected businesses.

And you think these companies keep their legal protection through which mechanism other than brown envelopes?

[NCFC]

Yuwadee Chirathivat came to my daughter's wedding. She's a very charming lady. Gave my kid an all expenses paid honeymoon trip to the Maldives, staying in Yuwadee's hotel, as a wedding gift.