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Published on September 27, 2007

 Jubilee Enterprise general manager Unyarat Pornprakit says a simple philosophy lies behind the success of her family's business: think positively and treat customers and employees as if they were family.

Unyarat is only 27, but her responsibilities are heavier than those of other young women her age. A fourth-generation member of the Pornprakit family, she runs the family's diamond business under the well-known Jubilee Diamond brand.

She began working for the company when she was only 23, gaining several years of experience before taking up the general manager's post.

Despite being born into a wealthy family, she has never acted like she owned the company or like her path to the executive's office was strewn with roses.

Her first job after graduating with a bachelor's degree in accountancy from Assumption University's Faculty of Administration was as an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. She worked in that position for two years before moving into the family business. Her father wanted her aboard because she was the oldest of three children.

"I wanted to use the knowledge from my studies before working in the family firm. It was a challenge to do the other job, but my fondness for diamonds and my family recalled me to work for the company," Unyarat recalls.

Since then, she has gained a master's degree in marketing from Thammasat University's Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy and studied diamonds at the Gemological Institute of America, the world's largest institute of gemological research.

When she began to work for the family company, she chose to learn all of the duties of the business, including those of key-in information officer, quality checker, supply dealer and even customer-service officer.

She devoted all of her time to the company, in order to understand the operating systems, customer demands and even employee attitudes towards the job. She enjoys learning and is unafraid of challenging tasks, because she considers all jobs to be simply another step on the road to achievement.

Unyarat became a key person in bringing information technology to the firm, adapting the company's management operations to the computer age. She also set up a training programme for staff to improve the quality of their service to customers, thereby increasing customer satisfaction.

In 2004, Unyarat won the "Young Generation of the Year" prize in Creative Management magazine's Boss of the Year contest.

Unyarat's philosophy is to do her best in everything. She tries to see the positive side of each situation in the belief that positive thinking will eventually yield something good in return.

"Whenever I face an obstacle, I never feel afraid or worry about it. Instead, I do my best to cope with it. Although sometimes I cannot achieve 100 per cent, I'm still proud to achieve at least 80 per cent," she says.

She considers all problems to be a lesson in her life and believes they can all have a solution if there are good intentions in handling them.

Amid the struggle for survival in Thailand's current economic slowdown, Unyarat is optimistic her company will achieve its target growth. Jubilee is expecting growth of 15-20 per cent this year and may even reach 40 per cent if Unyarat's new project, "Diamond Carat", goes according to plan.

That project is aimed at promoting diamond quality among customers. As a result, all of the project's diamonds are certified by Belgium's Diamond High Council.

Unyarat pushed for the company to open the Kingdom's first certified diamond centre for customers at Jubilee's Pan Pacific Hotel shop last year. The company is now planning to open more certified diamond centres around the country next year.

For more than 70 years, Jubilee Diamond has been Thailand's leading diamond-shop enterprise. Currently, the company has 95 outlets nationwide.

Unyarat says she is committed to helping Jubilee retain its market leadership. She seeks not only to expand its customer base, but also to venture abroad in the future.

She looks up to her father as the hero of her life.

"Despite his big responsibilities for the business, my dad always had lunch with my grandmother and time to teach me valuable knowledge," Unyarat says.

The new-generation executive also sets time aside for her favourite hobbies: reading, exercising and interacting with friends and customers.

Part of her job, she says, is the happiness it brings her. She never feels exhausted, but rather thinks of herself lucky to have been able to follow a career she loves and help her family take another step along the road to success.

Petchanet Pratruangkrai

 The Nation