Thai Lee (born 1958) is a Thai-born Korean American

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busin ...

businesswoman, the co-owner, CEO and president of SHI International, reported by ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also rep ...

'' to be the largest woman-owned business in the US. In 2019, she was the 5th wealthiest Self-Made Woman in America, with the net worth of US$3 billion.

Early years

Thai Lee was born in 1958 in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estimated populatio ...

, Thailand, and attended

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

Amherst, Massachusetts Amherst () is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,263, making it the highest populated municipality in Hampshire County (although the county seat ...

, earning a double major BA in biology and economics, and in 1985, an MBA from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA p ...

. She was the first Korean woman to graduate from the business school.

Awards and honors

* Life Trustee,

* Former President, Amherst College Alumni Society *

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, Dean's Advisory Board * Distinguished Alumni Award,

* Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2012

Family

In 1989, Thai Lee married

Leo Koguan Leo Koguan is an Indonesian-born Chinese American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is the chairman and co-founder of SHI International Corp and was the third-largest individual shareholder in Tesla, Inc. Biography Leo was born i ...

, a Columbia University graduate, New York Law School-educated lawyer and the co-founder and chairman of SHI. They divorced in 2002. She has two teenage children. She lives in Austin, Texas.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Thai 1958 births Living people American women chief executives American billionaires Amherst College alumni Female billionaires Harvard Business School alumni American people of Korean descent Korean business executives 21st-century American women