Thai Businessman, Dhanin Chearavanont is Honoured in the Neusroom 100 Project
Dhanin Chearavanont is a Thai businessman, born on April 19, 1939, in Bangkok where he received his early education before attending Shantou No.1 High School, China. He is a graduate of Education University, Hong Kong, and the National Defence College of Thailand.
His entire career of six decades, mostly in corporate leadership was in Charoen Popkhand where he grew to become the CEO and Chairman of the group.
Once the family’s expanding business, Chia Tia, which later became Charoen Popkhand Group (CP) was passed down to him, he became excessively obsessed with turning it into a global empire. And, in the process of trying to meet that target, he ended up becoming the richest businessman in Thailand ($14.6B) and 75th in the world; while the Chearavanont family rose to the rank of the fourth-wealthiest family in Asia with an estimated net worth of $36.6 billion.
Dhanin is known for building Charoen Popkhand Group into a giant conglomerate and that has earned him the name Chao Sua or tycoon, as the company joins the leagues of Chaebols in Korea and Zaibatsu in Japan. The almost a century-old firm which was founded in the 1920s by his father and uncle who were immigrants from China began as seeds and agricultural products retail store. Gradually, it diversified and now includes supermarket chains, agriculture, and food business, finance, automobiles manufacturing, telecommunication, media, e-commerce, and real estate – among other subsidiaries.
As Senior Chairman of the largest private company in Thailand and head of the Chearavanont family, Dhanin’s wealth of leadership experience is in high demand and some have rumoured that he could be named as Thailand’s prime minister or senator.
To respond to the COVID-19 crisis, Chearavanont’s company has put $3million to build a factory that will produce 100,000 surgical masks that can be donated for free to health workers. The company is also providing free food delivery to patients and workers in over 40 Thai hospitals.
In May, he wrote a letter to the Thailand Prime Minister, Prayut Chan-o-cha, where he said:
“CP and I have already donated over 700 million baht [to fund projects helping vulnerable people affected by Covid-19] and are ready to propose further projects to be carried out in the next phase.”
Additionally, the company had donated protective equipment and test kits worth around 30 million baht. Charoen Pokphand Foods had also spent about 200 million baht to provide healthy food to healthcare workers and quarantined patients, and another 120 million baht to provide communication devices to hospitals.
Dhanin Chearavanont was honoured in Neusroom’s list of People, Organisations, Countries, and Things helping the world fight COVID-19. See the full list here.
Writer: Humphrey Anyim
Designer: Kume Akpubi
