How did we start?
In a small café in London in January 2000, a PhD student asked her friend,
Dr. Warren Sherliker, to teach her how to make a website. After spending 2 days at home, she came up with the name of her first website "ThaiSmile". In August 2000, she launched www.thaismile.co.uk, the first web site based in the United Kingdom that provides information related to travel to Thailand, Thai food and Thai cultural events.
The website has slowly built a following in the United Kingdom of people who are interested in Thailand. In response to this increase in interest, the Tourism Authority of Thailand organised a press conference in February 2001 to announce that www.thaismile.co.uk had been named as its official website for the United Kingdom and Ireland.
Following year, in April 2001, she had an idea of publishing the first Thai magazine to provide updated information to Thai people who live in the United Kingdom. From the magazine, ThaiSmile now has expanded its business to ThaiSmile Supermarket (since 2005), ThaiSmile TV and ThaiSmile Finance (since 2014).
Founder
Dr. Narisa Chauvidul-Aw is the founder of ThaiSmile Group. She studied at Triam Udom Suksa School before continuing to undergraduate studies in Accounting and Auditing at Chulalongkorn University and to a Masters degree at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in the United States. She finished her doctoral degree in Accounting and Information Systems at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in March 2003.
Narisa used to work as a senior auditor at Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in Thailand for 2 years, a senior internal auditor at the Landmark Hotels Group in London for 9 years and working as a Finance Director for Siam Winery, UK (part of Red Bull UK) for 5 years . She also held prior posts as a full time lecturer to graduate and undergraduate students at Chulalongkorn University, in the areas of Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting and Auditing, and part time lecturer at LSE and King´s College in Principle of Accounting and Finance.
