My first meeting with Khun Thana was in September 1999 at Oriental Hotel. I remember a young, smart, finance guy-black suit, tie and gel in his hair. I was then working for Telenor and trying to buy a stake in DTAC.
The next time I met Khun Thana was in 2000. Telenor had now become a shareholder in DTAC and I was a Board director. We were discussing rebranding of TAC to DTAC and also launches of new promotions. He was still a young guy, still smart, stll talking fast, but now talking about marketing, not finance. He still had a black suit and a tie, but the gel in his hair was not there anymore.
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The third time I remembered was in 2001. We were then discussing to implement a mobile portal, Djuice, in DTAC. I was still a Board of Director from Telenor. This time he spoke a bit slower, still smart, but now also a bit cool, and now this guy talked about product, not marketing or finance. Still wearing a suit, but the tie was gone. I start to think, who is this guy and how come he changes professions faster than most people are changing shirts?
The forth time I saw him was November 21,2002. It was my first management committee meeting as Co-CEO. I saw a very concerned and skeptical Khun Thana sitting there observing this two new guys coming into the company. It was like him saying “is this going to make things even worse?” Not long after this meeting , Khun Vichai and I decided to take a chance with Khun Thana.
We had both seen something in him that we wanted to test out, and right there after I remember we called up Khun Thana in Japan where he was on vacation with his family to ask if he could take the challenge of creating the best prepaid brand in Thailand. We asked him to create a historical turn around story that people would talk about.
We really asked him for a lot. We took risk with this young talented guy, and he took even bigger risk when he said, “yeap!” This time he really talked slower and we could hear both his nervousness but also passion, coming through the telephone line.
Sine then I have seen Khun Thana almost everyday for four years. He is still talking finance, still talking marketing, still talking product, but now also combining these all in overall commercial sense. He is still talking fast, but the suit, the tie and the gel are all gone.
Khun Thana is what we would describe as a multi-talented executive. And he has what I regard as the most important quality of it all – passion and ability — to motivate and lead people. I know he is talking about me in this book, and I will also be talking about him when I am writing my book.
Not only has Khun Thana been an architect for building the best prepaid brand in Thailand, actually not only in Thailand, both the brand name “happy” and the marketing concept have been adopted in many other countries already, all inspired by the tremendous success it has had in DTAC.
But not only this, Khun Thana has only been instrumental in the DTAC’s overall success. In addition to this , I am very grateful for what Khun Thana has given me personally. I have always could rely on his advice and trust. Being a farang CEO is not always easy, thanks to Khun Thana, I have managed to understand DTAC and a bit of the Thai culture. DTAC would not have been what we are without him
Let me end with a quote from President Reagan who once said
“You ain’t seen nothing yet”
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This is the best I can say about Khun Thana’s future