Korn Chatikavanij, born on October 15, 1964, in Bangkok, Thailand, is a prominent figure in both the business and political realms.
A former investment banker who was educated in the UK, Korn is deputy leader of the ruling Democrat Party and was first elected as MP in Bangkok in 2005 after stepping down as country head for JP Morgan. Korn's political career reached its zenith when he served as the Minister of Finance in the Thai government from 2008 to 2011 under Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's administration. As the Minister of Finance, Korn played a key role in steering economic policies addressing economic challenges at the height of the global financial crisis..
Against a backdrop of ongoing domestic political upheaval, Korn has safely steered the Thai economy through the worst by rolling out a range of vigorous fiscal stimulus measures, amounting to more than $61.2bn, as well as boosting long-term government spending on infrastructure projects.
Korn focused on policies that addressed social inequality and poverty. He pushed through a bill in the Thai cabinet in April 2010 on land and building tax (property tax), part of a plan to overhaul the country's tax structure as the first step to achieving a balanced budget.
As then Chair of the ASEAN Finance Ministers' meetings in 2009, Korn helped create the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization (CMIM), a regional foreign reserve pool to remedy currency flow shortages.
In January 2010, Korn was named "Finance Minister of the Year 2010", both globally and for the Asia Pacific region by The Banker magazine of the Financial Times. The magazine complimented the Thai minister on his "financial management skills as he assumed the finance ministerial position in Thailand amid the economic stagnation". He was also given credit for his contributions to promote and enhance financial and economic cooperation in ASEAN. Korn is the only Thai to have this award globally.
Post-politics, Korn has remained actively engaged in public discourse and policy discussions, contributing his insights to various initiatives and discussions on economic and political matters.
Korn studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at University of Oxford. Korn resides in Bangkok, Thailand with his wife, son and daughter and spends time with his 27 dogs, 30 cats, 25 chickens and counting.
