The “CTO Mafia”: Reflections on Building Thailand’s Most Effective Tech Engine

Looking back at our Central Tech Alumni gatherings, it strikes me that this wasn’t just a “team”—it was an era.

Our journey began in Feb 2017, when I was given the mandate to build the Central Technology Organization from scratch. Fast forward to today, and that original team has evolved into what we now jokingly call the “CTO Mafia.”

My former team members are now C-level leaders and “bosses” in their own right at major organizations like LINE, SCG, Agoda, True Corp, Amazon, Siam Piwat, Krungsri, Kasikornbank, and many more.

The Question We All Get Asked We are constantly asked: “How did you transform Central Group so fast?” It remains one of the few examples in ASEAN (or even Europe) of a legacy retailer changing from the ground up at lightning speed, delivering massive commercial success ($2B+ in new revenue and enabling a historic IPO).

The Difference: Ownership vs. Theater Most firms approach transformation by hiring the same old consultants or recruiting smart people but never empowering them. They create “Innovation Theater” while the CEO remains the micro-manager-in-chief.

We did it differently:

• We owned the P&L: We weren’t a cost center; we were the engine for transformation.
• We redesigned the Org: In 2017, we didn’t just write code. We redefined Strategy, Architecture, Culture, and even tailored HR and Finance processes to support agile delivery.
• Teaming & Business Operating Model: From Co-Designing the organization, inputting the strategy, joint operating model, to day by day build new features prioritized by ROI together. Not always easy, but successful.
• Zero Consultants: We relied on “best skills,” not advisory decks. We hired builders from Lazada, Google, Amazon, and ThoughtWorks, and we empowered them to make decisions.

The “No BS” Culture It wasn’t perfect, and transformation never truly ends. But we had the guts to make tough calls—even at 1 AM on a Saturday—to keep the engine running. We built a product-centric culture with simple, powerful architecture and open-source tech.

We didn’t have 100 “Steve Jobs” (they’d kill each other trying to get into the building). We had a pragmatic, high-performance team where everyone, down to the admins, understood the KPIs.

The Legacy That period was addictive. We worked 24×7 because we were building a Corporate Startup that generated Unicorn-level value. As per the Central Retail Annual Report, Omni-Channel grew to represent a massive chunk of the business.

Close linkage to the different Business Units, Core IT, Executives, locally and internationally – we served 5 countries. Never enough time to do all, but in striving together for success every day, we all managed to deliver the best, based on a clear group strategy fitting 1 power point page, everyone understood.

Today, I’m applying these same principles of “Pragmatic Innovation” at Siam Piwat and Xponential. But I will always be proud of the “CTO Mafia” we built. It proves that with the right culture and autonomy, you can move mountains.

(If you are looking to build this kind of momentum and transformation ecosystem, let’s connect.)