Top 50 Emerging Leaders 2021 continued (in alphabetical order by CVC unit): Thidarat “Tina” Tosukhowong, senior director, GC International Group
Tina Tosukhowong is a US-based senior director who leads corporate venture capital (CVC) and technology scouting operations in North America for GC International Group, a subsidiary of Thailand-listed petrochemical producer PTT Global Chemical (GC).
Headquartered in Houston in the US state of Texas, GC International leads GC’s global expansion efforts. “To date, we have invested more than $1bn in international assets across the world, including green, speciality chemicals and technology startups. And we continue to seek new avenues for growth, including via new acquisitions, joint ventures, greenfield developments and CVC investments,” said Tosukhowong.
“GC is a world scale petrochemical player with more than 11.2 million tonnes per annum of aggregate capacity across various chemicals value chain. Our businesses span manufacturing and distribution of upstream, intermediate and downstream petrochemical products.
“These products can be converted into other chemical products and serve as a basic feedstock for downstream industries such as packaging, apparel, communications and electronic equipment, electrical appliances, vehicles, construction materials, engineering-based plastics, agricultural equipment and much more.”
She told Global Corporate Venturing that the important issues for the unit in 2020 had been CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats), alongside its Cas9 (CRISPR-associated protein 9) variants, for covid-19 detection, therapeutics and vaccine development.
The unit also focused on digital marketplace platform and food delivery, teleconferencing, online education, telehealth, alternative proteins and remote asset monitoring technologies.
In 2021, Tosukhowong considers personalised medicines and nutrition, digital health and clean technology will play a big role in the ecosystem.
She has 15 years of experience in petrochemical and biotechnology industries in roles such as research and development, scale-up and technology transfer, application development and business development.
Tosukhowong holds a PhD in chemical engineering and a certificate in management of technology from Georgia Institute of Technology, having graduated from Harvard Business School’s private equity and venture capital programme.
