Team

Medical Doctor Kongkiat has a lifelong mission to help healthcare systems and personnel scale their impact, through personal growth mindset coaching and supporting data-driven, holistic technology, to better meet the ever-increasing demand for health and well-being services.

As a fourth-year medical student at Prince of Songkhla University in the early 1990’s, he volunteered and created computer-based, teaching-aid tools for slower learning medical students, combining his passion for computers with medical knowledge. It was the first time he saw how technology could help scale impact for society.

As a social entrepreneur, he developed an open sourced hospital management system that is able to operate smoothly in rural community hospitals, where there is limited technology infrastructure and investments; the solution, Hospital OS, is currently used by more than 80 hospitals and 300 National Health Security Office (NHSO) clinics nationwide across Thailand. Through this achievement, he was elected as an Ashoka Fellow in 2009, and has been awarded numerous awards including an award from HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of the Thai Royal Family.

In parallel to his pursuits as a health and well-being social innovator and entrepreneur, he is also an accomplished publicly listed, private hospital group executive. In 1999, he joined Bangkok Hospital Phuket, part of Bangkok Dusit Medical Services (BDMS), as an Infectious Control Physician, with additional roles in Quality and IT Management. (BDMS is the largest private hospital network in Thailand and one of the five largest worldwide in terms of market capitalization.) As a hospital executive in Phuket during the tsunami disaster in 2004, he challenged his team to take care of more than 10 times their normal patient load, which was the highest, per hospital volume of patients across all public and private hospitals in Phuket, while achieving the lowest mortality rate. After the incident, he was appointed as a Swedish Honorary Consul in Phuket, in recognition of his care for Swedish citizens during the tsunami disaster.

Subsequently, as a Hospital Director, Dr Kongkiat led his team successfully through the 2008 financial crisis without any layoffs. Though his hospital reduced prices, similar revenue levels were maintained, and some profit was generated, as the process reengineering efforts he initiated increased service capacity and efficiency. In contrast, other hospitals during that period suffered significant financial losses.

Subsequently, as Group CEO in two different regions within BDMS, the South (2016 revenues: more than USD 112 million, 6 hospitals) and the Eastern Economic Corridor of Thailand (2019 revenues: more than USD 290 million, 5 hospitals), Dr Kongkiat continued to challenge his team to deliver firsts in the healthcare industry in Thailand. For example, his team created a pioneer model emergency care network along Thailand’s emerging Eastern Economic Corridor, combining the shared emergency response and care resources of private hospitals, public hospitals, and community volunteer organizations.

This was also the first time that hospitals within BDMS accepted government insurance payment for accident and emergency care cases, and were still able to breakeven; the previous status quo was to reject the patients and redirect them to a public hospital. Beyond the financial results, the emergency team brought the mortality rate down from 0.12% in 2016 to 0.05% in 2018, while the severity Case Mix Index (CMI) increased by about 30% over the same period.

Dr Kongkiat is an active member of The Medical Cluster, The National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA) and The Thai Business Incubator and Science Park Association. He also serves as the Secretary General of The Sodsri Saritwong Foundation for Education Reform. Dr Kongkiat received his medical degree from Prince of Songkhla University (Thailand), has an Executive MBA degree from Sasin School of Management, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), and is an adjunct Clinical Instructor at Oregon Health and Science University (USA).

Jeannie Ong was the first female C-Suite Executive of the StarHub Group, Singapore's second largest info-communication company with a USD 1.5 billion annual turnover. She has more than 25 years of experience as a corporate executive, working with Boards of Directors of listed companies and senior executive teams to provide management expertise; communication, brand and marketing advisory; and growth and transformation strategies.

Jeannie led the StarHub Group on all communication aspects across operations, sales, strategy, and regulatory compliance matters. Her portfolio of responsibilities included overall provision of communications, brand and marketing advisory, risk evaluation and management within the Group. She was also entrusted with investor relations and corporate governance of the Group.

During her 17.5 years' career with StarHub, Jeannie was part of the team responsible for the successful IPO in 2004, the establishment of StarHub’s USD 1.5 billion Medium Term Note program, share buyback program, and capital reduction program. She played a pivotal role in the merger of StarHub and Singapore Cable Vision to form the first quad-play Information Communication Technology (ICT) operator in Singapore in 2002. She was instrumental in setting up the Communications and IR framework as well as the Corporate Identity of the Group. Jeannie is adept at navigating the media industry, with responsibility for negotiating key content agreements for StarHub’s suite of more than 200 PayTV channels delivered over IPTV, OTT, and Cable platforms.

As its Chief Strategic Partnership Officer, Jeannie established strong strategic relationships with government agencies, content partners, key strategic partners, and other complementary companies. As a veteran telecoms, media, and technology executive, she was responsible for many partnership collaborations particularly in Singapore, Europe, USA, and China. She also spearheaded and raised StarHub’s sustainability reputation to a new level when StarHub was ranked eighth on the Corporate Knights’ Global 100, a list of the world’s most sustainable corporations in 2016 and the highest rank achieved by a Singaporean company.

As the Chief Marketing Officer of the Group, Jeannie oversaw the strategic planning and execution of all branding efforts and marketing programs across both the consumer and enterprise business groups. She had a track record of establishing and leading marketing strategy in a dynamic environment and have significant expertise building brand awareness. She also defined the core marketing strategy and drove execution for commercial activities for the Group. Her experience spreads across all areas of marketing including digital product marketing, social media, marketing sciences and analytics, media relations, brand and communications, events and partnerships. Jeannie and her teams have won multiple awards, including Brand of the Year at the prestigious Hall of Fame Awards 2014. Jeannie herself won the Brand Person of the Year award at the same Hall of Fame Awards 2014. In Sustainability, Jeannie helped to clinch The Green Award at the Asia Communications Awards (2015 and 2014), in recognition of StarHub’s significant progress in environmentally sustainable policies.

Jeannie was recognized as the Best IR Officer in Singapore by IR Magazine Awards – South East Asia thrice consecutively in 2014, 2013 and 2012. She was among the IR Magazine’s Global Top 25 IROs in 2016 and the IR Global Top 50 IROs list in 2015 and 2014. StarHub also clinched the Best (Gold) IR Award at the Singapore Corporate Awards thrice (2016, 2013, and 2010).

Prior to joining StarHub, Jeannie was with various industries such as Banking, Aviation, IT and Logistics, specializing in corporate communications, branding, marketing and sustainability.

Life after StarHub saw her being invited as Guest Speaker at various conferences to speak on Branding and Marketing, Communications, IR, and Sustainability, both locally and across the globe. She was a speaker at GSMA Women4Tech Leaders Summit in Kuala Lumpur in September 2019 on gender diversity and was a speaker at The Ayala Group (Philippines’ largest conglomerate) IR Summit in Manila in October 2019 on Stakeholder Communications. She was selected by the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan to coach their top civil servants on Branding and Communications in Kazakhstan in November 2019. Jeannie also does her part in mentoring and nurturing the youths by speaking at various tertiary institutions in Singapore on Career Advancement, Communications, and Personal Branding.

Jeannie is a Board of Director of the National Arthritis Foundation in Singapore as well as the Investor Relations Professional Association Singapore. She holds a BSc (Hons) from the University of London, majoring in Economics and Marketing.

Suebpong is an Executive Director and Part Shareholder at BridgeAsia, a regional management consulting firm focused on strategy execution and capability building for clients with annual turnover of over USD 1 billion. He is an active angel investor and supporter of enterprises with a social mission; he is particularly interested in UN Sustainable Development Goals #4 (Good Education) and #3 (Good Health and Well-being). Two social enterprises in Education and Healthcare that he supports are founded by Ashoka Fellows.

While at BridgeAsia, Suebpong has worked across multiple industries including Telecommunications, eCommerce, Banking, Insurance, Retail, Construction and Building Materials, Energy, and Healthcare. He discovered his passion for Healthcare while helping Siriraj Hospital, Thailand’s leading super tertiary teaching hospital with more than 3 million outpatient visits per year and 2,300 beds transform since 2017. The journey has led him to build a strong team passionate about making Thais healthier, leveraging the shared resources of public and private healthcare systems.

Besides the on-going transformation at Siriraj Hospital, Suebpong is supporting teams in creating a role model emergency care network along Thailand's emerging Eastern Economic Corridor; working with leading educational institutions to produce future-ready healthcare workforce with strong soft and hard skills (including health/ nurse informatics); building and deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions to extend healthcare reach, address the shortage of medical practitioners, and help manage the workload of caregivers; and working with global partners to create HIPAA/ GDPR/ local privacy regulations compliant Healthcare Data Ecosystems.

He strongly believes that through a well-architected, open data framework, network, and infrastructure, combined with real-people expert oversight supported by Artificial Intelligence (AI), scarce healthcare resources and budgets can be optimized near real time to provide optimal care to achieve Universal Health Coverage, and deliver better Quality of Care.

Prior to BridgeAsia, Suebpong worked at Bell Labs (USA), McKinsey & Co (Asia-Pacific), Michael Porter's Monitor Company (Hong Kong), Philips Semiconductors, and HSBC. He graduated with top honors from Wharton Business School, and University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. He is a member of NEXUS, a UN-recognized community of next-generation philanthropists, CEOs, impact investors, changemakers, and storytellers from more than 70 countries in 6 continents.

Dr. Nipit Piravej has a unique experience of working across the healthcare value chain in the last 40 years, from academic clinical medicine to senior executive positions in health insurance with Ayudhya Allianz Life Thailand and later AIA Thailand, pharmaceutical with PReMA, and hospital administration with Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) listed Bangkok Chain Hospital.

Across his career, he is known as the champion of value-based healthcare, advocate of proactive hospital quality management, strategist in medical-wellness tourism, as well as early adopter of chronic disease management and population health management models where health IT is used to improve patient safety, health outcomes, and affordability. His pioneering works in active healthcare management are still widely adopted by players in the market until now.

With his broad experience, he has been appointed to committees, taskforces, and advisories by public and private organizations including the Ministry of Public Health, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, National Health Security Office, Social Security Office, Office of Insurance Commissioners, Tourism Authority of Thailand, Hospital Accreditation Thailand, Thai Life Assurance Association, HIMSS APAC and Thai Medical Informatics Association. He is also a full member of the Thai Medical Council and a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons Thailand.

In his spare time, he enjoys supporting and advising promising healthcare startups and helping them establish their new wave of business models.

Klairat has more than 20 years of experience facilitating exponential business growth, as a business builder and a people-centric leader. He has strong business acumen in identifying and capturing revenue opportunities through building unique selling propositions, shaping product-market fit, and realizing go-to-market strategies. On the people side, he is a role model leader and coach for organizational culture and mindset transformations.

Working at GE-founded, General Electronic Commerce, he has helped the top financial institutions in Thailand, facilitate supply chain financing transactions valued at over USD 2 billion (outstanding credit volume) for over 40 major supply chains, with more than 5,000 trading partners in total. This represented a 50-fold increase in outstanding credit volume prior to digital transformation; and was only possible through an end-to-end, data-focused redesign of the supply chain management of the sponsors and their trading partners.

Klairat is highly experienced in building data platforms and solutions to make information more accessible to facilitate better visibility and collaboration, and to deliver enhanced value by breaking down silos. He has helped streamline and digitally transformed orders valued at more than USD 15 billion for 10 major retail chain clients.

Klairat is excited to bring his experience and expertise to help drive data-driven improvements in the healthcare ecosystem. He believes that with better data quality and data pipelines, patients, providers, and payors can work together to improve the overall healthcare delivery and experience. Furthermore, incremental and transformational improvement ideas can be tested and tangibly measured; and once proven, these ideas can be scaled vertically and horizontally. At the center of the health transformation are the patient, the family, and the caregivers - doctors, nurses, pharmacists.

Klairat has an MBA in Marketing & IT from Fordham University, New York, USA, and a Bachelor of Architecture from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.