Axel Winter

I build platforms and businesses at the intersection of AI, luxury retail, and consumer technology across Asia — and since 2026, I govern them at board level too.

I operate across three connected roles: operator, builder, and board director.

As CEO of Xponential — a joint venture between Siam Piwat Group and Pivot Digital, where I am Founding Partner — I’m building the ONESIAM SuperApp into a platform for luxury retail ecosystems: super-app, CDP, AI personalization, generative AI in production. This is a rare model: I operate as co-principal and equity partner, not just executive.

As Chief Digital Officer of Siam Piwat Group — home to Siam Paragon and ICONSIAM — I lead enterprise-wide AI transformation, reporting directly to the Group CEO. I represent the group globally, most recently as the sole executive from a Thai retail group selected for the inaugural Shoptalk Luxe in Abu Dhabi, alongside leadership from LVMH, Kering, and BCG.

In 2026, Bank Negara Malaysia approved my appointment as Independent Non-Executive Director of GX Bank Berhad — Malaysia’s first digital bank, backed by Grab, Singtel and the Kuok Group — where I chair the Board Risk & Compliance Committee and serve on the Board Audit Committee, with a focus on technology, AI and innovation. Banks need builders in the boardroom right now — I wrote about why: The Builder in the Boardroom →

I teach bank leaders how to build the AI bank as faculty of the Banking Academy with TAB Global, in Singapore, London, Kuala Lumpur and Cape Town. Participants leave having configured an AI agent themselves, and with the questions to take back to their own boards. I also serve as course advisor for Thammasat University and the Stanford–Kasikorn Bank executive programme.

Through Pivot Digital, I take on select strategic advisory engagements — multi-year programs for some of Thailand’s and the region’s largest conglomerates and financial institutions. Clients include CP Axtra (CP Group), where I led the regional omni-channel rebuild and built an in-house product, technology and data team; True Corporation; Siam Cement Group; and Xspring Digital, where as acting CTO I launched the region’s first RWA tokenisation platform. At Alpha Founders Capital, I invest in and mentor seed-stage founders in FinTech, RetailTech, and AI.

Previously, I built Central Group’s technology organization from the ground up — digital, AI, data, product, and engineering — driving the transformation behind one of Asia’s largest retail IPOs. The team I built, now known informally as Thailand’s “CTO Mafia,” today leads technology at LINE, Agoda, Kasikorn Bank, True, and Siam Cement Group. I was named an IDG/Foundry CIO 100 winner in 2021 and 2022.

Before that: Global Chief Architect at both Standard Chartered ($1B+ digital strategy across around 60 markets) and GE Capital, where I was also CTO Asia; then Cisco (CTO Asia), Deloitte, and Accenture. My career began by pioneering internet infrastructure across Southeast Asia in the 1990s.
My focus: building platforms that endure, applying AI to create measurable business transformation — hands-on with the stack, operating at board and group level. Bangkok-based, working at regional scale across Thailand, Malaysia and ASEAN.

I take on select board mandates and strategic engagements across the region.

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