Who We Are
About Phutthon Group
Phutthon Group came together in Chiang Mai in 2017, when a small group of practitioners with backgrounds in economics, adult education, and Thai financial regulation asked a question they could not answer well elsewhere: why is there almost no formal financial education designed for adults already in the middle of their working lives?
The programmes that existed were aimed at young adults โ people deciding what to do with their first savings. But the households that often needed the most considered guidance were those in their forties and fifties: people who had accumulated some assets and obligations, who had family members to consider, and who were approaching the decade where their decisions would compound most significantly.
The group spent two years developing materials rooted in the Thai market context before offering the first programme. The core principle from the beginning was that the facilitator's role is to inform, not to direct. No programme at Phutthon Group recommends a product. No facilitator holds a commission arrangement with any insurer or fund manager. The only output we seek is that participants leave with a clearer picture of their own household situation than they had when they arrived.
We work from a single location in Nimmanhaemin, a neighbourhood of Chiang Mai that has long been home to professionals, academics, and residents who have chosen to build their lives in northern Thailand. Our participants come from across the region, and some travel from Bangkok or abroad specifically to attend a weekend programme.
Our mission is straightforward: to offer adult financial education of genuine quality, adapted to the Thai context, at a pace that respects the experience and intelligence participants bring into the room.
The People
Who Leads the Programmes
Somjai Phanichkul
Lead Facilitator โ Investing Foundations
Fifteen years in Thai asset management before moving into adult financial education. Somjai leads the Foundations programme and authored the reference workbook.
Nanthipha Wongsakul
Insurance Education Specialist
A former insurance examiner with the Office of Insurance Commission, Nanthipha designs and delivers the insurance literacy workshop. She has no current commercial relationships with insurers.
Arthit Tanawong
Financial Planning Facilitator
Arthit holds a background in household economics and has facilitated financial mapping sessions with adults across northern Thailand since 2019. He developed the Thai-context planning template.
How We Work
Our Standards of Practice
Strict Conflict-of-Interest Policy
No facilitator at Phutthon Group holds any commercial arrangement with financial product providers. Education is the only service we offer.
Participant Data Protection
Personal financial information discussed or worked through in sessions is not recorded or retained by us. Participants keep all materials they produce.
Facilitator Qualifications
Each facilitator holds relevant professional qualifications in their area โ asset management, insurance regulation, or household economics โ and participates in ongoing professional development.
Material Review Cycle
Programme materials are reviewed annually and updated to reflect changes in Thai financial regulation, tax law, and market conditions relevant to households at 40+.
Limited Group Sizes
Session numbers are capped to ensure each participant receives individual attention. We do not run large-format seminars where individual situations go unaddressed.
Post-Programme Availability
Participants may contact their session facilitator with clarifying questions for up to four weeks after completing a programme, at no additional cost.
Our Values
What We Stand By
We hold that adults approaching and passing forty come to financial questions with considerable lived experience. They have managed households, navigated careers, raised children, and dealt with uncertainty. What they often lack is not intelligence or judgment โ it is access to structured information presented without a sales motive.
Our work is to provide that structure. We teach the concepts, explain the Thai regulatory landscape, walk through real documents and real scenarios, and give participants the vocabulary to ask better questions of the people they work with โ accountants, brokers, bank managers, and advisers.
Financial education in Thailand has historically skewed young and urban. Phutthon Group was built partly in response to the gap we observed in Chiang Mai and the broader northern region: households with meaningful decisions ahead of them, and nowhere to go for calm, objective orientation.
We believe the most important sessions we run are the ones where a participant leaves with one or two questions they had not known to ask before. That moment of re-orientation โ where something previously opaque becomes a question worth pursuing โ is what we work toward in every programme.
Ready when you are
Have a conversation before you commit
We are happy to discuss which programme fits where you are now. No obligation, no sales pitch.
Get in Touch