Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra is listed among the "100 World’s Most Powerful Women 2024" by Forbes Magazine.
According to Prime Minister Office’s Minister Jiraporn Sindhuprai, Ms Paetongtarn is in 29th place on the world list and the third in Asia following Sandy Ran Xu, CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com (27th) and Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of India (28th).
Other women leaders in the Southeast Asia region on the list include Ho Ching, Temasek Trust chairwoman (32nd); Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Minister of Finance of Indonesia (49th); Helen Wong, Group CEO of OCBC in Singapore (59th); and Jenny Lee, Senior Managing Partner of Granite Asia in Singapore (96th).
Ms Paetongtarn was listed in the "Time 100 Next" in the leader’s category by Times magazine earlier, said Ms Jiraporn.
Ms Paetongtarn, the country’s 31st prime minister, became the country’s youngest at the age of 37.
“Ms Paetongtarn is the youngest female prime minister in the history of Thailand," said Ms Jiraporn.
"Since taking office, she has demonstrated leadership in dealing with several domestic crises, especially the management of flooding in several provinces and the school bus fire incident, in which she ordered agencies to act quickly and in timely fashion, including pushing forward various policies from the government of former prime minister Srettha Thavisin.”
Those policies include a three-year farmer debt suspension, tourism stimulation with a free visa, the 10,000 baht cash handout scheme, the marriage equality law and the 30-baht universal healthcare project, she said.
According to Forbes, the 2024 Power List was determined by four main factors: money, media, impact and spheres of influence. “For political leaders, we weighed gross domestic products and populations; for corporate chiefs, revenues, valuations and employee counts were critical. Media mentions and social reach were analysed for all,” it says.
The list showed the 100 women who command a collective $33 trillion in economic power and influence — by policy or by example — more than 1 billion people. Their leadership across finance, technology, media and beyond stands as a potent retort to those who question a woman’s ability to wield power, said the magazine.