Page 22 - ELITE PLUS MAGAZINE VOL4

NEW WAVE EXECUTIVE‘One of our philosophies is to think scientifically. You don’t have to be a scientist or an engineer, but you should have the ability to ask questions, solve problems and work as a team’the time was the vice-president for operations, also an engineer. She said, “Well, you’re studying engineering. After you graduate why don’t you come work at the Scholastic warehouse as an engineer, so when you go back home you’ll have experience in sales and marketing, as well as engineering.” As for the family’s footwear business, my younger sister is now overseeing it and really enjoys it.What’s your educational back- ground?I studied at Dulwich International College in Phuket, then I studied industrial engineering at the Univer- sity of Michigan in Ann Arbor. After that I came back to work at Nanmee- books for three years, then I went to Shanghai to study Mandarin for a year because we work a lot with Chinese and Taiwanese publishers. From 2011 I studied part-time for an executive MBA at Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration at Chulalongkorn University. I graduated just last year.Does your background in engineering help with publishing?One of our philosophies is to think scientifically. You don’t have to be a scientist or an engineer, but you should have the ability to ask questions, solve problems and work as a team. My back- ground in engineering helps me with that. As a manager, whenever I see a problem or a challenge I calculate it as an engineer, work with my team and we solve the problem together. We’re now working with the TPA (Technology Promotion Association Thailand-Ja- pan) to help train our staff to think this way, with the “PDCA” mindset, which is “plan, do, check, act”. You plan something, do it, then reflect on what went wrong and make it better. That’s very engineer-like in a way.How did you come to work with Nanmeebooks?I’ve been at Nanmeebooks since I was five years old. I came after school to help pack the parcels and prepare materials for teacher training. Publishing has always been a part of my life, and at home we’re all avid readers. At first I planned to work with my dad in the footwear industry, but because of my passion for reading and for community I later decided that Iwanted to be in publishing.Did your family have to decide who would go into publishing and who would stay in the footwear business?We had a family meeting about this, and once I decided that I would be in publishing I planned my intern- ship to prepare for this. I worked at Scholastic, the largest children’s book publisher in the US. My mentor at20 Elite+