Career forged in financial crisis

Life is often hard to predict, and this has been especially true for Kree Dejchai. As a young man, he dreamed of becoming a policeman, but instead he studied civil engineering and then joined the Royal Thai Air Force.

Kree spent 10 years with the Air Force, never dreaming that one day he would become a leading company executive, running the property investment arm of the Shinawatra family.

The momentous day came when Kree picked up a newspaper featuring an interview with Visanu Suchatlumpong, a former senior colleague at Chiang Mai University. Kree had known Visanu during the latter's five years of university studies, and he was inspired by Visanu's success story.

"I [told myself it was time I] should change my course," he said. Earlier, Kree had come to accept he would not progress far in the Royal Thai Air Force, because he had not graduated from a military academy.

Kree telephoned Visanu, who was then a senior executive at Quality House (QH). Then he wrote job applications to both Land and Houses and QH and got a part-time position with the latter. Kree had kept his engineering knowledge sharp while working at the Air Force, where he spent much time teaching civil engineering courses to students at the military school. In addition, he had a small construction business and also had a sideline job for an engineering consulting firm.

Initially, Kree was hired by QH to redesign the blueprints for its houses. The job took him a year, but when he finished the company offered him a permanent position because his work helped it to reduce the cost of structural components in a house from 35 per cent to 25 per cent of total cost. So he quit the Air Force and began 11 years of work for QH in 1995.

Crisis brings opportunity

Only a few years later, Thailand suffered the worst economic crisis in its modern history and QH, like most other real-estate companies, was badly battered. After injecting his personal money into the company, the major shareholder Anant Asavabhokin brought in a Land and Houses executive to take over QH and revamped its top management.

"The sky was changing," Kree recalled. His former university colleague and boss Visanu resigned from the company, and casting about for security, Kree visited a friend of his uncle who was a senior Royal Thai Air Force official. He almost decided to return to the Air Force.

"Luckily I did not," he said.

The financial crisis brought about a totally different move in Kree's career. Previously, he had been responsible for design, costing, and procurement and had worked mostly from his desk at the company's headquarters. The company's new management team assigned him the task of going to project sites to settle problems with contractors who had abandoned their work and customers who were refusing to pay.

Taking only one year, Kree cleared up all problems with contractors and brought back more than Bt800 million to QH. The job saw him in court on 19 occasions and he had to hire four bodyguards to accompany him into the field. He was also given other jobs, and continued to succeed.

"From 1997-99, I received a salary increase and a bonus every year, while most other people did not," he said.

Soon afterwards, QH was reorganised into a system of business units, and Kree was entrusted to run one of the business units, with responsibilities ranging from concept to construction, sales, and finally handing over houses to customers. Despite having no marketing background, Kree set up a new team and repeatedly made record sales for QH. At this time, a newspaper dubbed him "QH's little commander".

Bold decision

In an exclusive interview with The Nation, Kree said he was a great admirer of Land & Houses president Anant Asavabhokin. He respected Anant's thinking, his acute knowledge of the property sector, and his people management skills so deeply that he never thought of quitting the company, after the early days of uncertainty following the financial crisis.

Kree said he was first approached to join SC Asset about three years ago by the firm's former CEO, Sahas Tantikhun, who arranged a meeting with the company's chairwoman Yingluck Shinawatra. After the September 19, 2006 military coup, which ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - Yingluck's older brother - Sahas quit the company. So Yingluck contacted Kree once more, asking him to reconsider her offer.

Kree said he did not know Yingluck personally. Although his sister had attended the same high school and shared the same class with Yingluck at Chiang Mai University, they were not close friends.

"There was only one reason [for SC's interest]. I could do everything," he said.

Yingluck gave Kree a free hand in taking charge as chief operating officer at SC Asset in every aspect except finance and back-office operations, which were run by the chief financial officer.

About one-third of Kree's 60 staff at his former business unit at QH followed him to work at SC Asset. Kree also brought in some contractors he knew at QH, to join SC Asset and to help improve its building quality.

"The most important thing is telling our staff that our bosses and our board have a policy of not taking advantage of our customers, that we build good products. And their bonuses can increase from one-and-a-half months to three, four or five months. If they [the staff] can achieve it, the owners can give it."

During the past two years of his stewardship, SC Asset has doubled its sales revenue, to Bt4 billion last year. By net profit, the company is ranked in the top five, he said.

Kree, 46, said his next challenge was to find successors, so he could move up to chart new businesses for SC Asset or the group.

"Our owners have many [business] connections. I have seen a lot of potential [for the company to expand further]," he said.

pichaya@nationgroup.com