BizBuzz

Lars Ake Norling, the new chief executive of Total Access Communication (DTAC), is so active that he is not taking leave during this Songkran Festival, but is using the time to learn about Thai culture.

He is being assisted by DTAC chairman Boonchai Bencharongkul, who took him to learn Thai traditions such as to rod nam dam hua phu yai (pouring water on the hands of revered elders and asking for blessing).

Norling also made a surprise gesture by sending an e-mail to say Happy Thai New Year to reporters.

With the extra-long Songkran holidays this year, the DTAC boss has clearly decided not to waste his first month in the Thailand office.

Weighty work |schedule

Besides advising Advanced Info Service, the former chief executive of AIS, Vichien Mektrakarn, also sits on the board of Pruksa Real Estate, and of Aiful Corporation, a joint venture between Aira and Aiful, a Japanese personal-loan company, which is preparing to participate in the nano-finance business here.

At 60 years of age, Vichien is still very active in work. When he has free time, he will ask his wife and friends to search for delicious food. But it must only be for breakfast and lunch, not dinner, because he is dieting. Since retiring from AIS, Vichien has managed to cut his waist size and lose more than 5 kilograms.

No novice at |being involved

Despite his very busy work schedule, Suphachai Chearavanont, president and chief executive of True Corp, is known for being personally involved in choosing entertainment content, helping select Chinese, Korean and Western TV series for broadcasting on his company’s TV channel.

Most recently, he suggested that producers of True’s award-winning reality TV programme “Novice Monks” to add eight young nuns to the show, which already had eight novice monks.

What’s in a name

As more new firms are established under Asean integration and global liberalisation, the Business Development Department of the Commerce Ministry has seen some strange names for firms wanting to register.

Pongpun Gearaviriyapun, director-general of the department, said it had to be cautious with company names that might be inappropriate or potentially misleading.

One proposed name was “Kingdom of Thailand”, while others were very similar to the names of multinational companies.

Pongpun said that in all, more than 2,000 extraordinary names of new firms had been refused or delayed by the department. She said creating a good name could benefit the business, but if it was too weird, it could be troublesome.

Contributed by Petchanet Pratruangkrai