Running a 46-Year Family Business, One Smile at a Time

Jing spends half her working life running one of Thailand's oldest exhibition companies and the other half fundraising for free cleft lip and cleft palate surgeries. On this episode of Students Incorporated, the Union Pan Exhibitions board director and longtime Operation Smile Thailand ambassador told co-hosts Esther and Pun why she doesn't treat those as two competing jobs.

It's a fitting pairing for the way the episode opened. Host Mr. Jason introduced the conversation with a line from Winston Churchill: "we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give," and said it matched their guest's story before she'd said a word.

Forty-six years, three generations

Union Pan Exhibitions has been part of Thailand's exhibition industry for more than four decades, and this year the company turns 46, "nearly half a century," as Jing put it. She's the third generation to help lead it, a role she describes as "both an honor and a responsibility": respecting the foundations the previous generations built while bringing in new ideas to keep the company growing.

The career moment she's proudest of isn't a single event or client win. It's structural. As Union Pan approached its 46th year, she led a refresh of the brand and the internal organization, modernizing systems and repositioning the company for a digital era while keeping the trust of clients who'd been with the company for decades. "Seeing the company evolve while maintaining the trust of long-term clients has been very meaningful to me," she said. Her own approach to that work traces back to her studies in local economic development at the London School of Economics and Political Science, which she said taught her to think about exhibitions as more than a balance sheet: "They also create opportunity for entrepreneurs, small business, and local industry."

Giving a child a new smile in 45 minutes

For more than ten years, Jing has also served as a Smile Ambassador for Operation Smile Thailand, the foundation that provides free surgery to repair cleft lip and cleft palate along with post-operative care like speech therapy and orthodontics. Her role is mostly fundraising and awareness, helping make sure, in her words, that "more children can receive life-changing treatment."

A PSA segment later in the episode filled in the scale of the problem: a child is born somewhere in the world with a cleft lip or cleft palate every three minutes, and in Thailand alone, around 2,000 babies are born with the condition each year. Left untreated, it can turn breathing, eating, and speaking into a daily struggle. Treated, a single surgery (sometimes as short as 45 minutes) can change the rest of a child's life.

Exhibitions are becoming experiences, not just product floors

Asked where her industry is headed, Jing predicted exhibitions will keep mattering to Thailand's economy, but the format underneath them is shifting: "They will evolve to become more experience-driven and digitally integrated." Visitors aren't only showing up for the products anymore, she said. They want networking and inspiration, which means organizers now have to blend physical events with digital platforms to hold people's attention.

The same episode's headline segment made that shift concrete with Bangkok's own 2026 calendar: Money Expo Bangkok (banks, insurers, and fintech, running May 7-10 at the Impact Exhibition Convention Center), Thaifex Anuga Asia (billed as Asia's food-and-beverage powerhouse, May 26-30 at Impact Arena), and a joint Thailand Franchise and Business Opportunities / Asian Retail show at BITEC from June 4-7.

"Success should also include giving back"

Running both roles at once works, Jing said, because they're not actually competing for the same thing. Union Pan's exhibitions support business and economic growth; Operation Smile lets her contribute to society directly.

Balancing two reminds me that success should also include giving back to the community.

That balance carries into her family life too. Jing is a mother of two daughters, ages seven and three, and said prioritizing her time and staying present in whatever role she's in, at work or at home, is "always a learning process," made easier by a supportive family that reminds her professional achievement isn't the only measure of a meaningful life. Day to day, she said the same three things guide how she works with colleagues, partners, and the community: integrity, responsibility, and empathy.

Her advice for the next generation

Asked what she'd tell young people hoping to start or grow a business, Jing's answer had four parts: stay curious and never stop learning, because "the business world is constantly changing"; build strong values; surround yourself with good people (mentors, partners, a positive team); and be patient, because "building something meaningful takes time." "With dedication and resilience," she added, "it is definitely possible."