Nusara Assakul Banyatpiyaphod skippers her family insurance firm, Ocean Life, through its digital transformation.
Nusara Assakul Banyatpiyaphod skippers OceanLife Insurance through its digital transformation.
Taking over a business from parents is not as easy as some may think. Heirs and heiresses ultimately have to prove their diligence and ability, regardless of their last name. In many cases, they expand the family business; in others, they drive it into the ground.
Nusara Assakul Banyatpiyaphod has shown her managerial competence, lifting 71-year-old Ocean Life Insurance to new heights and transforming the family firm for the digital age.
Although Mrs Nusara, 58, was born into a family that runs many businesses, spanning property, international schools, glassware and insurance, as a young girl she didn’t think she was next in line to inherit the life insurance business.
“When I was young, I dreamed of being an architect,” she says. “My father didn’t agree with me, but he never forced me.”
When she grew up, Mrs Nusara attended the University of California, Los Angeles for her bachelor’s degree in math and systems science and then pursued an MBA at the same university.
Shortly after earning her master’s, she returned to Thailand as requested by her father, though she originally planned to work at the US.
PROPER FOUNDATION
Mrs Nusara started her career as manager of the computer centre at Ocean Life Insurance for one year before heading Ocean Property, another business under her family’s empire.
Ocean Property under her reign emerged as the country’s first real estate company developing office buildings for sale.
After the success of Ocean Towers 1 and 2 on Ratchadaphisek Road, Mrs Nusara expanded the portfolio to Ocean Marina Yacht Club, San Marino Condominium, Ocean Portofino Condominium, Asara Villa and Suite, and O2 Hip Condominium.
While still at the helm of Ocean Property, where she worked for 11 years, Mrs Nusara took another job during the 1997 financial crisis, overseeing an investment unit at Ocean Life Insurance after being approached by her father.
“During the Tom Yum Kung crisis, Ocean Finance and Securities [a company owned by the Assakul family] was shut down and my father had asked me to take charge of investment in Ocean Life Insurance,” she says. “My job description at the time was limited to solving bond default problems and investing, and I had yet to take part in life insurance business management.”
After taking charge of the investment unit, she reallocated asset classes in the company’s portfolio that struck her as old-fashioned, raising the portion of bonds and property and lowering the share of money-market instruments.
Performance evaluation and pay rises were additional areas she overhauled.
“At that time, those who worked at the investment unit were accustomed to a double-digit pay rise every year, but I asked them how come they’d got such a salary increase,” Mrs Nusara says.
Apart from managing director of Ocean Property and head of the investment unit at Ocean Life, Mrs Nusara in 1997 donned another hat as chairman and executive board member at St Stephen’s International School, another business of the Assakul family.
Given such varied positions, she focused on troubled tasks, provided suggestions and gave subordinates a free hand to run regular operations to avoid work processes getting stuck in the slow lane.
“We give them our trust and let them make decisions, they then will be aware of what they will do,” Mrs Nusara says.
PRESIDENTIAL AUTHORITY
2010 saw another big career change when her father asked her to succeed Dayana Bunnag, who was resigning as Ocean Life’s president.
Although she had doubts about accepting the top job at the insurance company, she eventually said yes.
“Ocean is the business brand that my father pushed to grow, as it is doing now,” Mrs Nusara says. “The Assakul family and Ocean have been bound together for a long time. I didn’t want to see the company face any problems, so I decided to take the job offer. I believed that I could learn on the job, like my father had taught me since I was young, that I should stay curious. Luckily my father has known a lot of people and I’ve got good recommendations from them.”
Still, it was a big change: “I had to learn new things about insurance, like a child in a pre-primary school, when I was 48.”
After she took over the role of president, she set about revamping the business to focus on profit-making products. Developing the workforce and rejuvenating the brand were her priorities.
Ocean Life at the time had 2,500 employees, but premium-per-employee was the lowest in the industry. So the company opened an early retirement scheme, in which over 400 participated.
“If they [those who took early retirement] had still worked here and failed to adapt, they would have been very stressed because we changed very fast,” Mrs Nusara says.
The company’s employee structure has been shaken up, as seen by the fact that most staff are now involved in mid-level management and IT operations instead of service-related ones like before.
“Change is not easy, and it hurts, but if we don’t get hurt, we’re unable to recover,” Mrs Nusara says. “Certainly, some cannot adapt, but some can and do so.”
NO REST AT THE TOP
Presiding over Ocean Life, Mrs Nusara has put her retirement plans on the shelf.
“When I turned 40, I planned to retire at 45 but I could not do so,” she says. “[Early retirement] became far-fetched when I took over Ocean Life Insurance at 48. Now I’m not even sure whether
I can absolutely retire. My workload could only be reduced if I sought a successor.”
Ocean Life under her leadership has continued to thrive, with premium income soaring to 14.5 billion baht in 2019 from 10.5 billion baht in 2009.
But digital disruption and rock-bottom interest rates are challenges for all life insurers nowadays.
Ocean Life is exploring investment in real estate, an area in which Mrs Nusara has expertise, in order to gain higher returns and match the firm’s promises to policyholders amid the low-rate environment.
As the economy slows, individual purchasing power has deteriorated and less attention is being paid to long-term financial planning, she says. There is opportunity in crisis, however, as more people are becoming health-conscious and taking out protection products in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.
To find calm in the storm, Mrs Nusara has taken meditation training courses for three years.
“I started meditating after my mother passed away [in 2014], with the aim of dedicating merit to her, but I feel that I’m benefiting as well,” she says.
Ocean is the business brand that my father pushed to grow, as it is doing now. The Assakul family and Ocean have been bound together for a long time. I didn’t want to see the company face any problems.
NUSARA ASSAKUL BANYATPIYAPHOD
PRESIDENT, OCEAN LIFE INSURANCE PLC