bio

Thaniya is a decision designer, strategist, and a leader with 20+ years of experience working at the executive level to help small yet mighty companies achieve big visions.

Her passion lies at the intersection of human-computer interactions, behavioral economics, and decision science. Operating as General Manager, Fractional Leader, Advisor, and Vice President, Thaniya held founding roles at well-known brands such as Major League Baseball, TED, Patreon, National Geographic, and Harvest. Her leadership spans the areas of new business development, product management, design, brand & marketing, customer experiences, and data science, with portfolio range up to $60M in revenue.

Big vision requires great teams. Thaniya spends an equal amount of energy cultivating teams as she does growing businesses. She believes in setting clear success states, building iteration-focused processes, leading with empathy, and honoring candor.

On the side, Thaniya held additional roles as a juror for One Club for Creativity Award, a global advisor at Women’s March, and an advisor at StoryCorp. She spoke at TEDxPortland on designing habits for inclusion, and held a Co-Chair role for VX2020 — an impact investment earmarked to support the 2020 US Presidential Election.

Her work has won numerous awards, including a Peabody, Adobe MAX, DigiDay, Webby, and the prestigious Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Award.

Born in Bangkok, Thailand, Thaniya is of Thai and Chinese heritage. She holds dual citizenship in the United States and Thailand. She has lived in 6 countries and travels extensively. She is fluent in English, Thai, and non-verbal charades, but horrible in Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese. She currently splits her residency between Lisbon, Portugal and New York City. Her love for the ocean and surfing brings her deepest joy.

about

I met Khalid in the Rub’al Khali (also known in English as The Empty Quarter). We traveled overland into the desert together, him as my guide. The night sky was as clear as how I imagine dinosaurs saw it, disturbed only slightly by the murmur of Saudi Arabia’s military border patrol lights. Khalid, wise and worn as his camels, asked me bluntly “Why are you here? No one comes here. What are you looking for?”. Caught off guard, I resorted quickly to the unarticulated “oh, I am just wandering” canned response.
“One must wander with purpose,” he said.
“Do you know what your purpose in life is?”

I know all too well that this is a question often asked by those who already contemplated an answer. “I’m not sure. What about you? Do you know?” I boomeranged back the question. Sure enough he had written a ten-page manifesto on it. “To be purposeful to others,” he said.

The conversation reminded me of the time I was on a tiny propeller plane traveling across Patagonia where I met a young man who had been on the road for many months. “Do you miss home?” I small-talked. He pulled out his phone and showed me an app. It was Major League Baseball Gameday Audio. He said he listens to his home broadcast (the RedSox) often and it helps him connect to home. I made that app. How random.

Indeed only a few years later, while kayaking an estuary in a remote part of Brazil, I met another stranger who happened to share the paddling duty with me. Small talk led to a revelation that he had recently quit his corporate law practice to open a non-profit to fundraise for public green space in São Paulo. He pulled the TEDTalk app and showed me the talk that inspired his life pivot. Oh, hey, I made that app too.

If J.R.R. Tolkien and Paulo Coelho taught us anything, it is that the act of wandering itself is the treasure we seek. I do this both in my life and in my career, dabbling in various things, learning along the way, making a thing or ten, and growing a few companies. I like the idea that my work has a small but meaningful impact on people’s lives. I suppose the impact must be large enough to stumble upon them all over the world. To me, it makes the world feel smaller and warmer.

LinkedIn has a fairly robust chronology of my resume. Medium houses a few long form rambles. I use Twitter for stream of consciousness so pay no mind to it. And, of course, feel free to contact me if you’re interested in a collaboration.