Editorial | Andrew Stocks: Catering to Golden Agers' Needs and Yearnings

Weather wise, it’s been a beautiful, cool and sunny winter. And hopefully we are instore for an even brighter New Year with the ceasefire between Thailand and Cambodia holding and the elections in early February leading to the formation of a new government. Therefore, on behalf of the Elite+ team, I would like to wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

To help you celebrate, we have a very interesting and optimistic issue to close 2025 and welcome 2026. In our cover story, we introduce Andrew Stocks, the co-founder and CEO of Sunshine International, which caters to the golden agers sector. With his six worry-free retirement resort residences and hotels all currently located in the Cha-am and Hua Hin neighbourhoods quickly filling vacancies, he is now expanding his properties to include Pattaya, Phuket and Chiang Mai. Later, in our Travel column we take you to one of Mr Stock’s premier luxury retirement resorts, Sunshine Prestige.

We are also pleased to present MIT Sloan’s new Southeast Asia Office (MSAO) in Bangkok which, as a pioneer in Action Learning, recently launched its new Global Entrepreneurship Lab project with the support of Bangkok Bank.

After this, we welcome back to Thailand, Japan’s ambassador, HE OTAKA Masato, and discuss his plans to continue strengthening Japanese-Thai relations and later introduce Madame Afaf Al Shayea, the wife of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador, HE Abdulrahman Alsuhaiban, as she discusses her life as an educator and diplomat’s spouse.

As AI and education are currently hot topics, we meet Ms Duangporn ‘Pear’ Sudthisomboon, project leader of the Thai “HappyMe – Making Books Come Alive” interactive digital platform project, an innovative educational initiative that reimagines how children can interact with books and learning materials, to make reading much more fun.

Then, in our Arts & Leisure column, we take you to Frankfurt, Germany’s Deutsches Architekturmuseum to explore the exhibition, Sulog: Filipino Architecture at the Crosscurrents, which presents a continuous negotiation across borders, cultures, histories and climates. After this, Khun Pongpol Adireksarn takes us back for another adventure in the Antarctic, and to end this issue, we share a sweet, loving short story by national artist Seksarn Prasertkul, “Father and Son”, before closing with a photo essay, Monkey Magic, which presents the many personalities of these primates through pictures.

To conclude, let me once more wish you a very Happy New Year from all of us at Elite+.

Arthorn Techatada
Executive Editor