Meet the Team
Prof. Muhammad Yunus
Prof. Muhammad Yunus
Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, and of more than 50 companies in Bangladesh, each aiming at addressing a specific social problem. He is considered as the father of microcredit and the concept of social business, which are now being implemented all around the world. Professor Muhammad Yunus is the recipient of more than 50 honorary degrees from universities across 20 countries. He has received 112 awards from 26 countries including state honours from 10 countries. Professor Yunus was the 2006 recipient of the Nobel Peace prize together with Grameen Bank. Other notable awards include the Ramon Magsaysay Award (1984), World Food Prize (1994), International Simon Bolivar Prize (1996), Sydney Peace Prize (1998) and Seoul Peace Prize (2006). He is one of seven individuals to have received theNobel Peace Prize, the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. For his constant innovation and enterprise, the Fortune Magazine named Professor Yunus in March 2012 as ‘one of 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time’.
Professor Yunus, known as “the banker to the poor”, pioneered the concept of micro credit and established Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In 2006, Grameen Bank and Professor Yunus were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.” Professor Yunus has received many other national and international honors. He is the author of Banker to the Poor, Creating a World Without Poverty and Building Social Business.
He also proposed the model of social business, a business designed to meet a social goal. A social business is a business that pays no dividends. It sells products at prices that make it self-sustaining. The owners of the company can get back the amount they have invested in the company over a period of time, but no profit is paid to investors in the form of dividends. Instead, any profit made stays in the business – to finance expansion, to create new products or services, and to do more good for the world.
Dr. Eden Y Woon
Dr. Eden Y Woon
Dr. Eden Woon assumed the position of President of Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) on September 1, 2018. He also serves as Special Advisor to the Shaw Foundation in Hong Kong. The Shaw Foundation has funded education projects in Greater China and elsewhere for over 30 years, and is the sponsor of the world-renowned prestigious Shaw Prize in Mathematical Sciences, Life Science and Medicine, and Astronomy. He was most recently the Vice Chairman of Alba Group Asia. Alba Group, based in Berlin, is one of the world’s leading environmental engineering and services companies.
Starting from 2010 until November 2017, Dr. Woon was the Vice-President for Institutional Advancement of the globally highly-ranked—within the top 50 in both the QS and Times Higher Education World University Rankings—Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), being responsible for international relations, China affairs, development, alumni, and public relations.
From 2006 to 2010, Dr. Woon was based in Shanghai and was the Managing Director of Li & Fung Group’s China Corporate Office and Managing Director of Toys ”R” Us China. Dr. Woon has also been a Vice-President of Starbucks Coffee Company in China. In 1997-2006, Dr. Woon was the CEO of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, the oldest and largest business organization in Hong Kong.
In the United States, he was the Executive Director of the Seattle-based Washington State China Relations Council from 1994 to 1997. Dr. Woon served in the US Air Force until 1993 when he retired as a Colonel. He once acted as China policy advisor to the US Secretary of Defense. Before that, Dr. Woon taught Mathematics at the US Air Force Academy for six years, becoming an Associate Professor. His initial assignment in the US Air Force was as a computer analyst in the Air Force Systems Command.
Dr. Woon received his BA degree from the University of Iowa and his MA, MS, and Ph.D. degrees, all in Mathematics, from the University of Washington in Seattle. He is also a graduate of the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk, VA, and the National War College in Washington, DC. He is a Justice of Peace of Hong Kong and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Dr. Naveed Anwar
Dr. Naveed Anwar
Over 35 years of experience in the teaching, research, innovation, consulting in various aspects of structural engineering and related areas. Special focus on structural modeling, analysis and design of tall buildings, bridges and other structures. Development of software for structural engineering applications, including earthquake resistant design, structural detailing etc.
Conducting professional training for over 3500 professionals in more than 15 countries in several areas related to structural analysis, design, dynamic analysis, nonlinear analysis etc. Teaching academic courses to graduate students in Tall Buildings Bridge Design and Concrete Design
Specialties: Structural
- Design of Tall Buildings and Bridges
- Finite Element Analysis
- Structural Modeling and Computations
- Design Review, Failure Investigations
- Professional Training
- Software development
Dr. Faiz Shah
Dr. Faiz Shah
Faiz Shah currently heads Development Management at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, and is Director of the Yunus Centre at AIT. He teaches on the CSR masters program, coordinates the AITE Healthcare Resources Group, co-directs the Energy Distribution Services Management & Technology program, and is visiting professor at the College of Innovation at Thammasat University, Bangkok.
In a 30-year change management and capacity-building career in a number of countries, Dr. Shah has advised government and UN agencies, worked with major corporations, groomed over 3,000 grassroots officials, overseen over 300 community-level development projects in diverse communities from the Himalayan villages to the Thar desert. Between 1995 and 2001 he led Saga, at the time the world’s largest soccer-ball company, in pioneering a widely recognized socially responsible business model.
Dristi Silwal
Dristi Silwal
Dristi Silwal manages administrative support for YCA’s expanding program portfolio. Her current remit spans donor-funded projects and professional education programs implemented by YCA. Dristi serves as program secretary for the inter-School Steering Committee for the Yunus Professional Masters in Social Business and Entrepreneurship (YMP) and acts as liaison for the Executive Masters in Development Policies and Practices hosted at AIT for the Graduate Institute, Geneva. As the YCA multimedia and marketing team coordinator, Dristi organises virtual events and coordinates social media for the unit. Before joining YCA Dristi worked with the Professional Masters in Banking and Finance unit at AIT Extension. Dristi has an MBA from the AIT School of Management (2019), and a BBA from Kathmandu University (2016), with a specialization in Marketing.
Camella Anne Acharon Arellano
Camella Anne Acharon Arellano
Camella is currently a consultant for the Yunus Masters Program who takes care of all the in-campus activities related to the program. A food safety, quality and occupational safety auditor by profession, Cam has worked with several private food manufacturing industries and Food and Agriculture Organizations of the United Nations in establishing programs mandate to defeat hunger (SDG 2) and ensuring safe food for all (SDG 3 and SDG 12). She is a graduate of MS Food Engineering and Bioprocess Technology from Asian Institute of Technology and a BS in Food Technology from University of the Philippines in Mindanao.
Kanyarat Kornpariyawit
Kanyarat Kornpariyawit
Khun Kanyarat studied law and politics at Thammasat University and joined her family business, having interests in the logistics and hospitality industries. For two decades, she remained Managing Director of Jitpochana Group’s contract services business, an award-winning leader within the Thai food & beverage sector. Khun Kanyarat is a keen sportswoman, having played the national golf circuit with distinction. Since 2012, retiring from her full-time business position, Khun Kanyarat has worked to promote Social Business as a pathway to King Rama IX’s Sufficiency Economy ideal. Her social business outlets, ChillChill Lifestyle Lounge, Zen Zone and Kanyarat’s Kitchen provide living labs for micro-entrepreneurship at the Asian Institute of Technology, with proposed replication in Japan. Khun Kanyarat is also on the board of VAR-EdTech, an augmented learning start-up.
Mr. Sohel Ahmed
Mr. Sohel Ahmed
Sohel Ahmed is currently working as the Managing Director of Grameen Shakti, which is one of the most successful organizations dedicated to creating “Access to Energy”, installing more than 1.8 Million Solar Home Systems, 1 million Improved Cook Stoves and 35,000 Bio-gas plants, operating as per the norm of Social Business, emphasizing on environmental protection, financial inclusion and women empowerment. He has been working in the field of renewable energy for over a decade, with expertise in modeling and managing solar portfolios which includes solar home systems, solar irrigation systems, solar drinking water solutions, solar rooftops and solar mini-grids. In recent years Sohel has been intricately involved with SDG implementation, winning the “Powering The Future We Want” award from UN DESA in 2017.
Dr. David Galipeau
Dr. David Galipeau
David is a Canadian that has lived and worked for the last 35 years in Europe and Asia, most recently in Thailand/Singapore. He has worked across all sectors as a floor trader, a corporate executive, a dotcom startup entrepreneur, deep technology researcher, university lecturer and with the United Nations. In 2015, he founded the UNDP SDG Impact Finance Initiative (UNSIF), which brings together venture philanthropists, family trusts, foundations, governments and the private sector, creating a ‘blended financing’ investment platform. David is currently a lecturer at the UN Staff College, Director of the Yunus Near Future Lab and Co-Founder of SDGx Singapore – a deep technology research lab, corporate venture builder and investment fund management firm.
Callum Mackenzie
Callum Mackenzie
Callum has a diverse range of experiences from working in the Social Business and development sector in +10 countries around the world. During 2 years at the Asian Institute of Technology, he managed the Yunus Center AIT and was a Senior Officer in the Program Design Team at AIT Extension. Callum teaches Executive Education training programs in Development and runs training programs on Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation around the world. Callum has lectured with AIT, KMUTT and Rajamangala University of Technology Isan.
He has previously worked for the European Institute of Cooperation and Development in Myanmar and Paris, starting a TVET Social Business, worked for a DfID project with a community-based organisation in Zimbabwe, and for the U.K. Department of Education. Callum holds a Masters Degree from Sciences Po Paris and a Bachelors Degree with Honours from Queens University of Belfast.
Dr. Pipat Yodprudtikan
Dr. Pipat Yodprudtikan
Dr. Pipat Yodprudtikan is the Chairman of the Thaipat Institute, a public-interest organization established in 1999 with the aim to promote corporate sustainability and responsibility in the private sector. He has led the institute since it was founded and has delivered more than 300 engagements in research, training, and consulting with many of the multinational corporations, state enterprises, and major listed companies in Thailand. Dr. Pipat founded the Thai CSR Network in 2005 as a platform for CSR practices for businesses and to serve as a hub for CSR knowledge sharing among Thai companies. Dr Pipat also co-founded the Thailand Social Business Initiative (TSBI) in 2016 to promote the concept of social business in Thailand, pioneered by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus.
Dr. Soontorn Koonchaimang
Dr. Soontorn Koonchaimang
Dr. Soontorn has over three decades experience working in Corporate Social Responsibility and is Founder and Chairman of Image Plus Communications. Under his management, his firm has provided CSR consultancy to Thailand’s leading corporations and has advised the Royal Thai Government Ministries and Departments on an inclusive national development process. Dr. Soontorn is a Visiting Professor at the College of Social Innovation, Rangsit University and is co-founder of the Thailand Social Business Initiative (TSBI). He was formerly the Vice Dean for Corporate Communications and Corporate Affairs at Puey Ungphakorn School of Development Studies, Thammasat University, Director of the Right-Livelihood Foundation and Director of the Social Enterprise Study and Development Center at Rangsit University.
Dr. Alex Kaufman
Dr. Alex Kaufman
Having worked in Asia for over 20 years, Alex brings a unique perspective to development issues. In the early 1990s, he facilitated a network of civil society actors, governmental bodies, industry associations, and labor groups to raise working conditions in Thailand. After the completion of this USAID-funded initiative, he created a social enterprise to offer social compliance services to local factories and multinational brands. As a consultant, he conducted assessments in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Macau, Mongolia, Myanmar, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. As a researcher, he continues to investigate the complexities of advancing sustainability to the supply chains of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. At present, Alex is mentoring civil society, corporations, and governmental bodies on effective ways to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals.
Pajaree Koonchaimang
Pajaree Koonchaimang
Pajaree Koonchaimang (Bam) is General Manager, Corporate Communications at CP Group, was previously Managing Director at Expert Aspect International, and is a Shared Value Affiliate for Prof. Michael Porter in Thailand. Pajaree has significant experience working with Thailand’s leading corporations to create sustainability strategies delivering shared value and social impact. Pajaree believes in empowering young people through entrepreneurship. She co-founded the Thailand Social Business Initiative in partnership with Yunus Center AIT and Thaipat Institute, which works to build a wider understanding among Thai youth about Professor Muhammad Yunus’ vision of Social Business as a vehicle for economic empowerment and sustainable development.
Dr. Asae Sayaka
Dr. Asae Sayaka
Dr. Asae Sayaka is a development specialist with over 20 years experience and is currently the Southern Border Provinces Coordinator of Yunus Thailand. From 2001 to 2011, Dr. Sayaka was the Thailand Country Director of Wetlands International, and from 2012 until 2019 was Director of Public Policy and Strategy at the Institut Darul Ridzuan, a Perak State Think Tank in Malaysia. His experience spans across all phases of community development from identification and design through to management and implementation. He has led numerous short and long-term projects covering a range of sectors including integrated environmental conservation and management, rural development, poverty reduction and institutional development. His expertise is widely regarded in the fields of project management, planning and design, project monitoring and evaluation, and technical and policy advice.
Jutiwat Sangiamsakdikorn
Jutiwat Sangiamsakdikorn
Jutiwat is Vice President for Government Relations at Miracle Star Capital, an infrastructure development project-based investment firm focused on fiber optic network installation and strategic road construction in Thailand and neighboring countries. He has experience in planning, executing and consulting for projects in real estate development, affordable housing, industrial estate, renewable energy, telecommunication, agriculture, social business & impact-driven entrepreneurship in Thailand and CLMV. In 2013 Jutiwat completed his Master Degree in Business & Entrepreneurship at Newcastle Business School, Northumbria University, UK. His masters dissertation research was titled “Understanding SMEs and Social Entrepreneurship: A case study of the ICT industry in Thailand”.
Pathit Ongvasith
Pathit Ongvasith
Pathit Ongvasith leads programs with Yunus Thailand, is a Disaster Risk Management consultant at the World Bank, previously worked as a Program Officer at the Yunus Center AIT, and is a Yunus & Youth Global Ambassador. He completed his Master’s Degree in International Development at Sciences Po Paris. He holds Bachelor’s Degrees in Economics from Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University. Pathit has previously worked at the Thailand Development Research Institute specialized in innovation policy, FDI, and supply chains, and with the Paris-based Human Development Research Initiative, focused on combatting global inequalities.
Pimolporn Jintarith
Pimolporn Jintarith
Pim is a Thai professional with both community-based experience and international organization exposure and works at the Yunus Thailand Foundation with a focus on community-based financing. Previously Pim worked with the Stockholm Environment Institute within the Strategic Collaborative Fund Team and the Bioeconomy Team, responsible for the development of funding opportunities. Pim has also worked with the Land Development Department of the Royal Thai Government as a Special Project Research Assistant, whilst also working as a Business Development Officer pursuing public good projects at the Artificial Intelligence Center at the Asian Institute of Technology. Pim has a Masters in Development and Sustainability from the Asian Institute of Technology, and a Bachelors in Economics and Marketing from Thammasat University. Pim is fully bilingual in Thai and English.
Mathew Kuruvilla
Mathew Kuruvilla
Mathew Kuruvilla is a Project Management Professional with over ten years of experience in International Development, Social Entrepreneurship, and Training and Development. His industry experiences range from Investment Banking, Hyperloop Transportation, Executive Education, Social Entrepreneurship, Market Research, and Trade. Some of the clients that Mathew has worked with are World Bank (DC), USAID, PACT, Entura Hydro Tasmania, Splash US, CARD-F, ADB, the Graduate Institute Geneva, Gross National Happiness Commission (Bhutan) along with Academic Institutes and Government Organizations from the Asia Pacific Region. In addition to being the program associate at the Yunus Center AIT, Mathew is currently the CEO of EcoSolve Inc., a startup with a mission to create ecosystems to solve Social Problems by working with the Public and Private Sector. Mathew has a Postgraduate degree in Sustainability (ALM) from Harvard and an MBA from AIT.
Panchica Koonchaimang
Panchica Koonchaimang
Panchica is a Program Coordinator in the CSR Team at Indorama Ventures, and previously was a Program Officer in the Development Management Unit at AIT Extension. Panchica leads on digital communications and marketing at Yunus Thailand, designing and producing online content and managing the organization’s network. She works to maintain Yunus Thailand’s brand strength and consistency, whilst also managing the finances of the organization. Panchica completed her Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Arts with a concentration in Public Relations from Bangkok University, before graduating with a Masters Degree in New Media and Society from the University of Leicester, UK.
Supamith Pongpipat
Supamith Pongpipat
Supamith focuses on marketing, graphic design with Yunus Thailand. He is also a communications consultant for Yunus Center at AIT in marketing communications strategies and implementation. He completed his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Marketing from Kasetsart University Sriracha Campus. Supamith specialized in integrated marketing communication, digital marketing, marketing management, marketing for social and environment responsibility, and graphic design. Supamith believes doing business is more than just making the highest profit and is passionate about spreading the concept of social business in Thai society.
Sassi Attarad
Sassi Attarad
Sassi has worked with vulnerable communities in both the U.K. and Pakistan, with a particular emphasis on vulnerable youth and health-related issues such as substance abuse, HIV and AIDS, as well as Covid-19. Sassi is currently working with the Yunus Thailand Foundation and the Yunus Center at the Asian Institute of Technology on its Covid-19-related programs and has previously worked with the social impact consulting firm Youth, Rights, and Health focused on project development and research regarding migrant women. Previously she was a recovery practitioner for victims of substance abuse at Change Grow Live and worked with the Pakistan Lions Youth Council implementing a sexual and reproductive health program in rural Pakistan. Sassi has a Masters in Public Health from Kings College London, and a Bachelors in Genetics from University College London.
Selina Ott
Selina Ott
Selina is an Associate at Yunus Thailand and is currently studying for her Bachelors in Liberal Arts and Science at the University of Freiburg, Germany with a major in Governance, whilst also a visiting student at Siam University with the faculty of Business Administration. Prior to joining Yunus Thailand, Selina was a Project Coordinator at Bike Bridge, a social business supporting female migrant assimilation through community bike courses and has spent time working in the Autonomous Palestinian Territories. Selina was also actively involved in the COP23 climate change conference participating in the Youth Dialogue process, and is passionate about environmentally-conscious social business. Selina is fluent in both German and English, intermediate level in Spanish, and beginner level in Arabic and French, and is a passionate about world travel, learning about new cultures, and meeting new people.
Megha Bajaj
Megha Bajaj
Miss Megha Bajaj has a Master’s degree in Natural Resources Management from Asian Institute of Technology and Bachelors degree in Environmental Management from Nepal. She is an environmental enthusiast who has worked at multiple NGOs, research institutes, and the academic sector in Nepal, Italy, and Thailand for environmental issues like waste management, climate change, sustainability, and natural resource management. Currently, she is working as a Business Development Associate at Yunus Center Thailand.
Thapakorn Worawat
Thapakorn Worawat
Thapakorn Worawat (Fang) hails from Chachoengsao Thailand, and plans designs and coordinates Facebook marketing campaigns, flyers and event posters, along with the team at Yunus Center AIT.
Fang has completed a degree in automotive engineering from SUT Thailand. She has an industry experience of 5 years in toy design and development, plastic molding, 3D printing design, modeling of Skyscrapers. She has worked extensively with clients from Japan, ASEAN region.