Mukaya (Tai) Panich has been appointed chief executive of SCB 10X, the corporate venturing arm of SCBX, part of Thailand-based financial services firm Siam Commercial Bank.
Panich will succeed former CEO Arak Sutivong, who previously held the position for nearly three years. She will also maintain her current position of chief venture and investment officer.
Through this new appointment, SCB 10X will further invest in disruptive technologies across Southeast Asia with a particular focus on metaverse, web 3.0 and deeptech.
In 2021 and 2022, Panich was named a GCV Emerging Leader to celebrate her standing in the financial investment sector, which continues to be a heavily male-dominated industry.
SCB 10X has 35 portfolio companies including e-commerce delivery service MyCloudFulFillment and data management software provider Spruce. The unit has also helped incubate seven startups such as Ape Board, a decentralised finance (defi) management platform.
SCBX is a subsidiary of the $44bn bank SCB Group created to tackle the rapidly evolving global context. After listing SCBX as a holding company, the Thai Enquirer reported SCB shares bounced 70% in April 2022.
“I feel very honoured to lead SCB 10X. We will continue to focus on investing and building in blockchain, defi and web 3.0 areas,” Panich said in a LinkedIn post.
Panich was also quoted by Bloomberg as saying: ”We would like to bring blockchain and crypto to connect with real-world use cases and want to continue to find ways to integrate defi with tradfi (traditional finance).”
In a related development, SCB 10X has promoted partner and head of strategic planning Pailin (Pie) Vichakul to chief operating officer, and she will report directly to Panich.