Francis Zimmerman recently joined the Landmark Bangkok as General Manager having previously overseen operations and business development for Next Story Group as Managing Director, South East Asia.

During his 30-year career, Francis worked with leading luxury hotel brands Anantara, AVANI, Le Meridien, Shangri-La and Westin throughout Asia and North America. In South East Asia, he was Resident Manager for Le Royal Meridien and Le Meridien President Hotels in Bangkok and General Manager at Le Meridien Jakarta.

​In 2008, Francis moved back to Bangkok to join the Marriott Resort & Spa as General Manager where he led the successful transition of this city resort to the luxury hotel brand Anantara in 2011.

Francis was promoted to Director of Operations and Area General Manager Thailand of the Minor Hotel Group leading eight of the group’s prestigious hotels and resorts until 2016.

A passionate culinarian and mixologist, Francis lives by the mantra, “Do what you Like. but Love What you Do”. He is an avid sports junkie having completed his first Half IronMan and also a keen family man to his four children and wife Dyan.

With a wealth of knowledge, experience and results in Thailand and South East Asia, Francis is looking forward to leading Bangkok’s most successful independent and enduring five-star hotel.

Furniture is not only a home decor, creating a comfortable living but also a reflection of its owner’s taste, individuality and personality.

Have you ever felt and absorbed the ambience of places like hotels, restaurants or cafes in various styles? For instance, a British luxury hotel in Soho House Group, the London-based private members’ club and hotel chain, is designed and decorated to perfections with unique and stunning elements. It features a pleasant civilisation with a remarkable identity and an idea of mix and match of furniture items and decorations which are incomparable. Chic restaurant like El Buda Felis is another one that reflects a cutting-edge taste. Home decoration today does not rely on trend but a taste of each individual which plays an essential role. People’s lifestyle always changes. They prefer more travel experiences as feeling new experiences can be a memory of happiness in each moment to interpret and create home to be a valuable art piece which is a perfect harmony of fashion, lifestyle, magnificence and taste.
 
“Alexander & James,” a leading British furniture brand, pride on creating beautifully stylish pieces with unique designs perfectly combined with modern trends to reflect a taste of the ultimate living and build a right identity in your own style. Officially launched in 2013, it was founded by “Mark Alexander Smith,” Britain’s most influential sofa designer who designs for the way we live and adds new flavours on furniture design and home decoration. Always ahead of the design trail, he takes inspiration from his travels around the globe. Northern English roots ensure his down to earth approach to life is reflected in his laid back luxe designs. All items are like an art piece with every model hand sketched by Mark Alexander Smith to get the balance of form just right and then gets to work with his creative team on the final vision. Currently, the products are on sale in more than 50 leading furniture stores worldwide.

AMERICAN businessman Larry Sloven has just finished a meeting with the Board of Investment (BOI) – and he looks extremely happy with what he’s learned.

The director of Capstone International, a China-based company that manufactures products ranging from LED lights to power tools in Shenzen province, is looking forward to moving some of his operations out of China – and Thailand is very much on the agenda.

“We’re planning on establishing a subsidiary office in Thailand to manage the manufacture of a new line of digital electronics products to be launched in January 2019 at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas,” explains Mr Sloven.

Gallothai 
Jean-Louis Graindorge,
Managing Director
BELGIAN chocolatier Jean-Louis has been raising standards in the chocolate industry in Thailand for over 20 years. Paul Graindorge founded Gallothai in 1993 and in 1999 his son Jean-Louis took over the management of the company. In 20 years, Gallothai grew to become a significant player in the Thai chocolate scene, be it by supplying major hotels and restaurants with its treats or by opening Duc de Praslin chocolateries in Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Pattaya. He established Belco Confectionery Co., Ltd in 2001 to produce chocolate raw materials in Thailand as opposed to importing it from abroad, and to supply the local industrial sector. Jean-Louis is also the Managing Director of Puratos, which manufactures raw materials for the bakery, patisserie and chocolate sectors.
www.gallothai.com​

Elizabeth Romhild
Artist
ELIZABETH Romhild, a Bangkok-based Danish-Armenian painter, sculptor and designer, has lived and worked in Bangkok since 1988. Born in Denmark to an Armenian-Iranian father and Danish mother, she spent her childhood in Iran and as an adult, hopped through Saudi Arabia, America and Indonesia before settling in Thailand nearly three decades ago. From a successful career in painting and sculpturing, she has now embarked on showing her style on fine porcelain through Elizabeth Romhild Design. Along with her gallery in Denmark, Elizabeth’s work can be found in Bangkok at her ‘home’ gallery, La Lanta Fine Art.
www.elizabethromhild.com 

Karma Sound Studios             
Chris Craker, Founder
 AWARD-WINNING musician and producer Cris Craker has operated at the very forefront of the music industry for over 30 years. Chris has worked with many of the world’s finest artists on the music and film industry. Most recently, he produced the soundtrack for the Oscar-nominated ‘Interstellar’. After climbing  to the top of the British music industry, he picked the sleepy fishing village of Bang Saray to build his world-class music studio. 
www.karmasoundstudios.com   ​

Wildlife Friends Foundation          
Edwin Wiek, Founder
WFFT was founded in 2001 by Edwin Wiek with the help of the local people from Petchaburi province, including the Abbot of Wat Khao Look Chang who loaned a large piece of land to the foundation to house rescued animals. The NGO is a nationwide effort involved in rescuing domesticated/captive wild animals. 
 With the help of full-time staff, mostly from the local village, and a team of international volunteers, Edwin heads the project made possible by joining passionate people on a mission to rescue and rehabilitate animals as far as is feasible, allowing them to live the rest of their lives in a safe environment and as close to nature as possible. 
www.wfft.org

P.Tendercool                
Pieter Compernol and Stephanie Grusenmeyer, Founders and Design Directors
PIETER and Stephanie arrived in Thailand 14 years ago, and what was supposed to be a one-year sabbatical took a very different turn. They established P.Tendercool, a Bangkok based, Belgian run design studio specialized in bespoke handmade furniture for interior designers, hospitality and private clients.
Established in 2010, the company uses antique or reclaimed wood to create tables of all shapes and sizes, leather chairs & stools and recently developed their first collection of sofas and daybeds. Their gallery sits in a heritage building in the middle of the Creative District in Bangkok, Warehouse30, next to the Thai Cultural Design Centre, a must visit for all things creative.
www.ptendercool.com

The Beaumont Partnership
Tim Beaumont, Founder and Managing Director
TIM Beaumont has run the award-winning architectural, interior, and landscape firm The Beaumont Partnership for almost a quarter of a century with remarkable success. Born in Norfolk, England, the naturalised Thai is also the founder of the Beaumont Partnership Foundation and the Beaumont Ruam Pattana School, a thoroughly modern, architect-inspired project whose primary aim is to provide free quality education to underprivileged children in the Northeast of Thailand.
www.thebeaumontpartnership.com 

Paul Spurrier                  
Screenwriter and Film Director
BRITON Paul Spurrier was the first foreign filmmaker to direct a full-length Thai-language feature movie, the 2005 supernatural P. He appeared in more than thirty different roles, with credits including Anna Karenina and The Lost Boys for the BBC, and settled in Thailand over 10 years ago.  Release in 2016, The Forest was praised internationally and won awards overseas. Paul’s most recent work, Eullenia, is a dark psychological tale about the power that can result from wealth and was the successful opener of this year’s Bangkok Asean Film Festival.

Chris Wegoda 
The Comedy Club Bangkok
To produce professional English language comedy shows including open mic and professional stand-up, improv comedy, improvised sketch comedy, films, gameshows and panel shows. To bring a more international comedy (stand-up) circuit to and from Bangkok working closely with other comedy clubs and organizations in S.E Asia and beyond. To arrange corporate event planning for Thailand’s corporate clients providing entertainment such as improv and stand-up comedy for corporate events such as business dinners, product launches, themed parties, conferences, seminars and much more.

Companies and individuals nominated for the 3rd Expat Entrepreneur Awards 2018 appear on the following 12 pages. More nominations will be published in the October issue of this magazine.

Candidates have been chosen according to a variety of criteria relevant to their individual line of business. A panel of judges will select the eventual winners.

The joint Expat Entrepreneur Awards and Thailand International Business Awards (TIBA) will take place on Tuesday 16 October 2018 at the Amari Watergate Bangkok.

TIBA is an event organized by the British Chamber of Commerce Thailand (BCCT) with The BigChilli. Special guest of honour at the awards will be His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester.

CWL Lighting                     
Ian Potter, Founder
IN the 27 years since he founded CWL Lighting, Ian Potter has seen the enterprise go from a design and equipment supply company in Phuket to a Bangkok studio providing lighting design services to the hospitality sector across the Asia Pacific. With clients including the Hilton Group, Intercontinental, Indigo and Holiday Inn brands from IHG, together with properties from the Dusit and Accor portfolios, we can certainly say the future is looking bright for Ian.
www.cwl-lighting.com

​More nominations will be published in the October issue of this magazine. Candidates have been chosen according to a variety of criteria relevant to their individual line of business. A panel of judges will select the eventual winners.
 
The joint Expat Entrepreneur Awards and Thailand International Business Awards (TIBA) will take place on Tuesday 16 October 2018 at the Amari Watergate Bangkok.
 
TIBA is an event organized by the British Chamber of Commerce Thailand (BCCT) with The BigChilli. Special guest of honour at the awards will be His Royal Highness The Duke of Gloucester.
 
Nominations for the Expat Entrepreneur Awards are still open and can be submitted before 5 pm on Friday 14 September 2018. All nationalities of company and individual are welcome to enter whether they are nominated or self-nominated.
 

​The aspect of i-Store that will guarantee that this service is not only the typical storage warehouse is the standardized services, new and clean spaces, having the option for users to choose their preferred size of rental, a plus for flexibility. The sizes begin from Luggage (0.5 square meters), Locker (1 square meters), XS (2.25 square meters), S (3 square meters), M (4.5 square meters), L (6 square meters), XL (9 square meters), and Premium (18 square meters). Furthermore, users can choose to store their goods for both short and long periods. For further convenience, there are elevators and transport facilities, such as trolleys, to assist users when moving items around. i-Store takes safety issues of every users’ valuable items into high consideration and that's why we have incorporated a security system that will run 24 hours, with CCTV cameras installed every floor, controlling the accessibility within the floors with the use of key cards, and smoke detectors. Nonetheless, we are able to respond to the lifestyles of customers nowadays who want to travel conveniently; as i-Store is located in the central of the town (CBD), Silom and Sukhumvit 24 branches located close to the BTS Skytrain station will certainly be a worthy service.
​
Besides from storing goods away, at i-Store, there is also wine cellar service provided. The design takes into account the optimum temperature, as well as standard light and humidity control systems to retain the maximum value and taste of the wine. With the 24-hour opening period, clients are always welcome to access their personal wine cellar at all times. To further provide convenience for clients, we also have a Wine Tasting Room, box service, and other accessories available.