Food
It may come as a surprise that Thailand not only boasts one of the world’s largest number of women entrepreneurs. It is also one of the few countries in the world where there are as many female business owners as there are male.
At Echelon Thailand 2015, we are dedicating a panel solely to female entrepreneurs — their struggles, their drive, their rise in participation in business and why female entrepreneurs are here to stay. The discussion will include, but is not limited to, female entrepreneurship in different cultures around the world, existing policies and their issues and more.
Araya Noo Hutasuwan is currently Vice President at Ardent Capital, an operator VC based in Bangkok with 15 companies in portfolio across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. She is focussed on advising current portfolio companies on their business strategies, helping drive subsequent funding rounds and potential M&As, sourcing potential deals, due diligence and making investment recommendations.
Prior to working at Ardent, Araya co-founded several fashion retail brands with a presence in the US and Thailand, spent time setting up a factory in Myanmar and spent four years in Investment Banking at Phatra Securities with a focus on M&A.
Shannon Kalyanmitr is superwoman: Entrepreneur, women’s advocate, World Connector, Thai-American and Mother of Siamese-Viking Twins. She is also the Founder and Group CMO of MOXY, the shopping destination in Southeast Asia focussed on women.
Coming from a long line of business development roles from Investment Banking (Lehman Brothers and PwC) to Television and Media (Singha Beer & Building a Digital TV Station from Scratch) – to Social Development (Tsunami Humanitarian work) and now Tech, Shannon has been able to marry the best of all her global experiences into MOXY, along with carrying on her passion for women’s development and entrepreneurship.
An international marketing and communications professional with over 20 years experience, Pacharee Pantoomano-Pfirsch delivers winning solutions for some of the world’s most influential brands. From brand management to direct marketing to internal communications and community relations, her proven expertise and solid grasp of market communications come together with stellar results for leading-edge marketing strategies for her clients around the globe.
Today, in addition to serving her clients at Brandnow, she is also the Chairwoman for the Bangkok Now, an organisation she founded in 2003.
Juliette Gimenez, is highly passionate, a serial entrepreneur and currently Co-founder of Goxip, the mobile-first app that allows users to search, discover and shop fashion by image recognition and celebrity stylefeed. Gimenez has extensive experience in starting up companies and driving multi-million dollars sales growth in e-commerce, particularly from an early stage level onwards in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong at companies such as Cdiscount Thailand and LivingSocial. Previously, she was a VP at ubuyibuy, which got acquired by Groupon.
Linh Thai is Founder and CEO of Stitch Appeal, an online fashion brand that creates custom tailored women’s fashion.
Prior to this, she was a Director at DFJ VinaCapital, a leading venture capital fund based in Ho Chi Minh City. Before that, she was an Investment Banking Associate at Bank of America Securities in New York City, where she worked on equity, debt and M&A deals. Her experiences also include roles in marketing and operations at Internet startups in the US.
