Thai cash distributions lead to ‘very good’ September: CEO Berli Jucker

However, Thapanee Techajareonvikul, CEO of Thai retail conglomerate Berli Jucker, is already seeing the effects of the cash handout. “September was a very good month for us,” she says, nothing that the cash allowances helped boost sales, even though they were only paid in the last week of the month.

Thai officials said the first phase of the stimulus could boost growth by 0.35 percentage points.

However, some economists argued that the stimulus could only lead to a short-term boost, as many beneficiaries will prioritize paying down household debt over consumption. Thailand has one of the highest levels of household debt in the region, at 16.4 trillion Thai baht ($484 billion), equal to 90 percent of its GDP.

Thapanee also expects a good October, but warns that consumer confidence is still “very weak”.

Thais are “getting rid of their personal debt and only buying one-time expenses,” she says.

Who is Thapanee Techajareonvikul?

Thapanee Techajareonvikul, ranked 47th in this year’s Asian edition a wealth’The Most Powerful Women ranking was taken over by Berli Jucker in June 2023. She is the first female CEO of the 142-year-old Thai company. Thapanee has held senior positions with the company since 2003.

“I didn’t even think about (being Berli Jucker’s first female CEO) until I was in this position,” she says.

Thapanee replaced her husband, Aswin Techajareonvikul, as CEO of Berli Jucker, who had moved to take over Big C, a hypermarket owned by Berli Jucker. Big C is targeting international markets and planning a list. (Thapanee suggests the IPO could happen by the end of 2025).

Courtesy of Berli Jucker

She is also the daughter of Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, one of the richest people of the country. Through TCC Group, Charoen owns Berli Jucker as well as ThaiBev, the maker of Chang Beer.

That gave Thapanee an early experience in corporate management. “I got so involved in the senior management team from a very young age – I think I was lucky,” she says.

How did Berli Jucker become part of her family’s empire?

Albert Jucker and Henry Sigg, two Swiss merchants, founded the trading house that eventually became Berli Jucker in 1882. The company first engaged in rice milling, mining and shipping, then expanded into manufacturing, packaging and distribution after the Second World War. The company was one of the first listed on the Thai stock exchange in 1975.

When her father took a majority stake in Berli Jucker in 2001, Thapanee had just graduated from MIT and was preparing to enter Harvard. However, she still played a role in the deal, from factory visits and interaction with key partners to “flipcharts”, she explains.

Courtesy of Berli Jucker

Berli Jucker’s revenue at the time of the acquisition was 11.2 billion baht ($334 million at current exchange rates). In 2023, the company’s revenue grew to $4.8 billion, ranking it 79th on wealth’the inaugural Southeast Asia 500 ranking, which tracks Southeast Asia’s largest companies by revenue.

Thapanee as CEO of Berli Jucker

Since taking the top position at the company last year, Thapanee has focused on building relationships with stores in Thailand through the company’s “Donjai” program.

The program provides funding to small stores for projects ranging from using Berli Jucker software to a complete store renovation. Store owners then pay commissions to Berli Jucker based on the level of investment; at higher levels of investment, the stores have an agreement to source their goods from Big C, the hypermarket owned by Berli Jucker.

Berli Jucker gets another benefit: consumer data on last-mile and last-minute purchases, something Thapanee says has been sought for a long time.

Thapanee says she is also trying to strengthen female power in the Thai conglomerate. Sixty percent of Berli Jucker’s 55,000 employees are women, and the Thai conglomerate’s management team has an equal number of men and women.

She credits the late mother Khunying Wanna Sirivadhanabhakdi for normalizing women in positions of power in family businesses. Thapanee describes her parents as a duo: her father “drives the business forward” while her mother is “the bottom line for risk control”. Khunying Wanna was Vice President and Executive Vice President at Berli Jucker and also Vice President at ThaiBev.

“On diversity, we’re very open,” she says of Thai society.

The World Economic Forum recently ranked Thailand 21st out of 146 countries for women’s participation in the economy, ahead of wealthier economies such as France and Japan. (Thailand ranked 65th in the WEF’s overall Gender Gap Index). However, diversity in the workforce does not yet translate into top management: just under 20% of Thai company board directors are women, according to a recent Deloitte study. Only 12% of Thai company CEOs are women.

Still, Thailand compares well with the global average: globally, 23% of board directors and 6% of CEOs are women.