g up to the countdown was Siam Piwat, the company that developed, owns and operates Icon Siam. Siam Piwat didn’t cut any corners with the show, which was headlined by Thai rapper Lisa Lalisa Manoban, a music icon in Thailand and one of the four members of girl group Blackpink. Siam Piwat marketed the whole shebang as “Amazing Thailand Countdown 2025” and claimed 30 million viewers, not implausible in a nation of more than 70 million on New Year’s Eve. As a purely marketing stunt for Icon Siam, this was impressive, but shouldn’t be surprising in view of the track record of the company, which, apart from Icon Siam is owner or part owner of several of the country’s — and Southeast Asia’s — most high-profile shopping centres, including Siam Center, Siam Discovery and Siam Paragon. The latter of these three will celebrate its 20th anniversary later this year and it is sure not to lack for glam. For its 19th birthday in early December, it staged a gala hosted by its senior executives, who included Khunying Chada Wattanasiritham, Supalak Ampuch, Pasinee Limatibul, Ketwalee Napasap, Kritsana Ampuch, Kriengsak Tantiphipop, and Siam Piwat’s CEO, Chadatip Chutrakul. What is particularly interesting about this list of names is that all but one of them (KriengsakTantiphipop) is a woman. The female powerhouses of Thai retail The global retail real estate industry (or ‘shopping centre’ industry if you will), has traditionally been dominated at the highest levels by men. Except in Thailand, where women rule the roost. And in the space of a couple of decades, Bangkok has gone from being a retail backwater to arguably Southeast Asia’s leading retail destination (although Singaporeans might have something to say about that). Part of the reason is on the demand side: Thailand boasts a world-leading tourism industry, with Bangkok its main port of entry and exit. A burgeoning urban middle class has helped too. But the sheer weight of demand isn’t enough to create a retail destination: you need to get the supply side right too and that is where Thailand has done a remarkable job. More specifically, it has three major mall developers — Siam Piwat, The Mall Group and Central Pattana — which have an enviable track record in coming up with groundbreaking shopping mall designs and making them actually happen on the ground. The companies have also developed effective partnerships with global retailers while at the same time vigorously promoting Thai culture and local Thai designers. They each have another thing in common: they are all run by women, and the women are all hands-on perfectionists who obsess over every detail. Three great companies run by three great women The CVs of these women are impressive. In 2019, the World Retail Congress inducted Siam Piwat’s CEO Chadatip Chutrakul into the World Retail Hall of Fame and her ambitious retail projects — she would recoil at the term ‘shopping malls’ because she sees them as much more than transactional — have won a string of international awards. Prior to the Hall of Fame honor, her accolades included a guernsey in the top 50 ‘Forbes Asia Power Woman’ list for three consecutive years from 2014-2016, and ‘Outstanding Asian Women Entrepreneur’ by the ASEAN Women Entrepreneurs Network in 2018. She has strong political connections: her father was the founder of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, and she is on a number of semi-governmental committees promoting Thai culture, tourism and human capital development. Supaluck Umpujh is chairwoman of The Mall Group, which is part owner of Siam Paragon and amongthe projects it owns and operates is Em District, the pre-eminent cluster of three malls — Emporium, EmSphere and Em Quartier — that peel off Bangkok’s busy Phrom Phong BTS station. While Em Sphere andEm Quartier are of very recent vintage, Emporium, which opened in 1997, was the first genuinely high-end mall in Thailand and the first to introduce global luxury brands into the country. But the country’s biggest mall owner is Central Pattana, which owns and operates more than 40 malls around the country, including the massive Central World just around the corner from Siam Paragon in downtown Bangkok. Central World is often the first mall in Thailand for global retailers to get a beachhead because of its critical mass of desirable cotenants and its unmatched location in the heart of the city. CEO of Central Pattana since 2022 is US-educated Wallaya Chirathivat, who was awarded ‘CEO of the Year’ and Central World was crowned ‘Mall of the Year’ at the Retail Asia Awards in 2024. Elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the peak leadership of the top retail real estate firms is still the preserve of men, with the notable exception of Ayala Land in Philippines, whose CEO Anna Ma. Margarita B. Dy became the first woman to take the role in 2023. But for now, at least, Thailand is a notable outlier with respect to the female prevalence at the CEO level and, arguably, the innovativeness of its retail projects. The other Central Just around down the street from Central World on Phloenchit Road is one of Thailand’s oldest andmost venerated shopping institutions: Central Chidlom, which first opened in 1973. In December, abadly needed makeover was completed with the addition of a new three-level, 8,000 square metre wing called Luxe Galerie. The new look store has been dubbed “The Store of Bangkok” and sports a phalanx of designer brands including Versace, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Celine, Emilio Pucci, Kenzo, Loewe, Missoni, Versace and Dolce & Cabbana. The store is the work of Central Department Store Group, a sibling company of Central Pattana. It operates the Central and Robinson department stores in Thailand and a bunch of famous ones in Europe, including Rinascente in Italy, KaDeWe in Germany and Selfridges in the UK. And naturally, its CEO, Natira Boonsri, is a woman. You can make what you want of the presence of female CEOs and the brilliance of Thailand’s retail projects. It might just be a coincidence. But maybe there is a creative element at play that is gender- related, and maybe it has given Thailand’s retail industry a leg up on its peers in Asia.