34 | FORBES ASIA JUNE 2018
center that is one of hailand’s most-visited tourist sites.
But will success in hailand translate overseas? he irst store
abroad opened in Singapore in 1999. he company expanded
beyond Asia with a German distribution oice in 2007 and one
in Paris in 2013. Next, Eric, the assistant managing director, spent
several years building an American operation based in Atlanta.
But now he wants to accelerate that international expansion.
“We’re one of the most famous brands in hailand,” he says. “But
abroad, no one really knows us.”
In 2016 the Booths launched a ive-year strategy to change
that and installed a new chief executive, Gerald Mazzalovo. “Jim
hompson can be the irst global luxury brand from hailand,”
he says conidently. He’s a lifelong luxury specialist who ran Salva-
tore Ferragamo, Loewe, Bally, Robert Clergerie and other luxury
outits. He’s the irst outside CEO for a hai company that has
operated for decades as a family irm.
Outside hailand most people know hai Silk for its swash-
buckling founder. Hailing from Greenville, Delaware, hompson
attended Princeton University and became an architect. hen, dur-
ing World War II, he served in the Oice of Strategic Services, a pre-
cursor of the Central Intelligence Agency. He excelled at shadowy
operations in Europe and Africa, then was sent to Asia to prepare
for the battle to liberate hailand from Japanese occupation.
Aterward, he fell out with Cold War hawks. He sided with
Asian independence movements, but Washington supported anti-
communist regimes, such as in Vietnam. A disillusioned homp-
son decided to become a textile merchant—his father had been
a textile manufacturer—and started his company in 1947. But
he remained an outspoken critic of Cold War policies, and many
speculate that the CIA or its Asian allies silenced him in Malaysia
at the height of the Vietnam War.
hompson disappeared on March 26, 1967, and had no chil-
dren. His stake in the company went to a nephew; he and other in-
vestors put Bill, who was a top stafer, in charge ater hompson’s
deputy died in 1971. Just like hompson, Bill had been dispatched
to hailand by the U.S. military. He arrived with the army in 1959,then returned to Bangkok ater his discharge
two years later.
hompson is widely venerated for reviving
the crat of silk weaving in the region, which
has mostly been replaced by mass production.
“Handweaving has become an endangered spe-
cies here, and sadly that’s the case everywhere,”
says Carol Cassidy, who runs Lao Textiles in
Vientiane and is among the region’s top experts
on silk and weaving. “Jim hompson always
had a great sense of quality. He deinitely raised
the bar for silk and crats.”
But it’s Bill, the chairman and managing
director, who’s built the business over the last
45 years, opening shops in high-proile loca-
tions such as airports, hotel arcades and malls.
He expanded production and broadened the
catalog of inished items and accessories. He
shited much of the operation up-country to
Isan, closer to the weavers and silk farms, where land and other
costs are far lower than in Bangkok. hai Silk has 1,600 acres in
Isan and operates a model farm that’s open part of the year to the
public. Popular with school groups, it showcases not only hai silk
history but the art and culture of Isan, the country’s largest prov-
ince. “Jim hompson wouldn’t recognize all of this,” he jokes.
In recent years Bill has passed more of the decision-making to
Eric, 48, his only son, who joined the company in 1998 and has
focused on expanding the international business. “He’s the future;
I’m the past,” quips Bill when we meet in his oice, decorated
with hai artifacts and fabric. He turns 80 in September and still
works every day, dressed in dapper suits. Charmingly humble, he
displays a folksy good humor that relects his simple roots in the
Paciic Northwest farmland of Yakima, Washington. More than
once he suggests that his rise to the top was due to luck rather than
skill or smarts: “I’ve always said, you have to be lucky or smart. I’ve
always been lucky.”
he way he tells it, his return to Bangkok as a 24-year-old silk
trader was a disaster. He exhausted his funds within a year and
was headed home in failure. He sought out hompson to try toFORBES ASIA
TANGLED TALE
RON GLUCKMAN FOR FORBES (BOTTOM)Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy: Jim Thompson back in the day, before his 1967 disappearance.
Dyed yarn at Thai Silk factory in Pak Tong Chai is threaded onto
spools to be used in producing fabric.