Founder & Management Team
Pai Somsak Boonkam
CEO & Founder (Community Development)
Pai founded Local Alike in 2012 with a goal to bring economic opportunities to local communities through responsible and sustainable tourism. Unique and meaningful travel experiences are curated with local communities across Thailand while making sure that 70% of what tourists pay goes back to the host communities, giving a larger share of the money made from the tourism industry back to the locals.
Before founding Local Alike, Pai was a petrochemical and polymeric engineer graduate from Silpakorn University and worked as a Head Engineer of Production for Kinyosha-Bottcher (KB) Systems before he decided to leave to get an MBA in Sustainable Business Development at Presidio Graduate School in California and then returned to Thailand to work at Mae Fah Luang Foundation under royal patronage where he began working with the hill tribe villagers at Baan Suan Par in Chiang Rai, Northern Thailand, to assist the villagers in developing their homestay businesses.
In 2012, Pai led his team and won an award from BanPu Champions for Change competition, a competition designed to encourage and support social enterprises to solve social and environmental issues in Thailand. In 2017, Pai also won a grant of 11.4 million Baht (€300,000) from Booking.com Booster 2017 to scale Local Alike business model. Over the past 8 years, Local Alike under Pai’s leadership, has worked with over 200 local communities in Thailand, curated over 574 journeys and generating 2.31 Social ROI to communities (per 1 USD spent).
Pai has been part of Ashoka Fellows since 2016 (Ashoka Foundation – Social Innovation Initiative Thailand), Young Business Leader Initiative, Asian New Zealand Foundation, Young Societal Leaders, Institute for Societal Leadership, Singapore Management University, Innovation Driven Enterprise to Initial Public Offering#4 (56 Hours), Market for Alternative Investment of Thailand (MAI) and National Innovation Agency (Public Organization), Thailand’s Tourism Management Program for Executives (TME), TAT Academy, Top 10 Young Thai Male Entrepreneurs 2019 by RHA Media Sdn. Bhd and the Subcommittee of Agribusiness Driven Unit, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative.
Ammi Ratanataya leads Local Alike’s finance, accounting and marketing teams, driving financial outcomes, actively managing financial performance, optimizing the business’s balance sheet, and communicating strategic and financial priorities to stakeholders, including banks and investors. She also leads all marketing activities in the company including digital marketing activities, marketing campaigns, content strategy and media relations.
Prior joining Local Alike, Ammi was working at EcoSys, a software development focusing on enterprise planning and project controls and technology consulting startup in New York City, in charge of finance, accounting, human resources and administration. EcoSys was acquired by Hexagon (STO: HEXAB), a leading global provider information technology in 2015 (acquired amount was not disclosed to public but estimated to be over USD 150 millions). After EcoSys, she held various roles in finance and accounting positions in various leading hospitality and real estate companies in Thailand including Dusit International, Singha Estate, and The Standard Hotel (Sansiri).
She has an MBA in International Hospitality Management & Service Industries from Glion Institute of Higher Education (Switzerland), Finance and Accounting Certificate from New York University (US), and Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Marketing) from Rutgers University (US).
Ammi loves to travel and has been to over 30 countries. Her favorite activities are scuba diving and snowboarding.
Ammi Ornteera Ratanataya
CFO and CSO (Finance, Marketing and Hospitality)
