The lobby is white, dominated by a ping-pong table placed near the middle of the room. As in a novel, the setting forces visitors to ask whether the seemingly outsize importance of the table is a crucial symbol -- its importance to be revealed later in the conversation -- or whether it is just an accident of space. Whether, for example, the room to the side is undergoing renovations.
The table is flanked by an elongated counter fit for a luau. It looks perfect for a morning mimosa, but visitors soon realise that Pornladda Dathratwibul, the boss at this place, doesn't look like much of a drinker.
Her hair is short, and the frames of her glasses are unapologetically thick. Academic. Like she just ran out of a tenure-track engineering position to test the waters in the private sector.
Unmarried and no kids -- a career bride. "I do half marathons and cycle. I ran around my village yesterday at 9.30pm," Ms Pornladda said.
She is wearing a blazer, but her visibly toned shoulders look unaccustomed to the formality: the pads are strained. "Should I take the suit off for the picture?" she asks.
Behind the jacket she wears a worn-in solid-blue polo shirt, nearly identical to the one in her WhatsApp profile picture. The shirt comfortably adapts to her fit figure, and it goes much better with the artificial grass in the lobby, where the pictures were taken. Definitely not a drinker.
Her resemblance to an engineering professor comes honestly: Ms Pornladda has been working in the automotive sector almost from the moment she obtained her MBA at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1999.
She was head of business development at City Automobiles Co Ltd and worked in management positions at RMA Group, a provider of heavy-duty vehicles, for more than nine years.
Ms Pornladda was deputy managing director of Sea Oil Plc from 2014 to 2015, before grabbing the top spot in Thai operations at ICar Asia. Even in her online presence, Ms Pornladda is meticulous. Her LinkedIn profile lists 13 responsibilities and three key achievements for her position as country manager at ICar Asia -- more than most executives list for an entire career.
Ms Pornladda took the reins of the online car retail business in 2016, when the group was operating at a loss of A$15 million (397.4 million baht) and waging a war for market share in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, its three key battlegrounds.
ICar Asia hasn't turned a profit since its listing on the Australian Securities Exchange in 2012. The company has fuelled its aggressive M&A and marketing operations through stock issuances totalling US$34.2 million (1.13 billion baht) -- one in 2014 and one in 2016, both of which were absorbed by undisclosed investors.
The firm also received a $13-million-plus investment from Carsales.com Ltd, another provider of online automotive classified ads, whose 15% stake puts it close to being the largest shareholder in the company. That honour goes to OCQ Holdings, which owns 16.2% of ICar's equity.
Despite persistent losses, ICar Asia may be nearing a turnaround. It posted 41% year-on-year revenue growth for the first six months of 2017, comparing favourably with the 6% growth seen in 2016. Revenue from Thai operations climbed 56% year-on-year in the same period, Ms Pornladda says.
She flips through a PDF file of the annual report as she cites numbers and projections. She occasionally looks sideways for confirmation from her public relations agent, or her marketing top man. Her tone is as impassive when describing the 41% growth in the top line as when confronted with a "plummeting" stock figure.
There are no circumlocutions, you get what you ask for. Not a word less and not a word more. There is no hesitation and no wait time between question mark and answer. She seems in her element.
Her personal life is much harder to flesh out, largely because her responses carry the same Gricean maxims as her business talk. She makes her contribution as informative as is required for the purposes of the exchange, never more so.
What's her favourite book? "I don't read books these days, but I read online about investments," she says. A deep silence follows, but it doesn't feel awkward. As with everything around her persona, it seems as though Ms Pornladda placed the silence there on purpose. That's all there is to it. Silence is the most meaningful particle in this case; even if she were to elaborate, the answer would remain on the same level of completeness.
It's a matter of trial and error, of asking the questions that could give insight into her personal life even in their well-calculated curtness.
What does her portfolio look like? Ms Pornladda's usually monochromatic voice climbs an octave. Bingo.
"Like other investors, I jumped into the stock market without knowing much. I picked my stocks by word of mouth. I haven't been able to sell those stocks yet," she laughs. Jackpot.
"There are two types of investors," she continues, reckoning that the topic is esoteric enough to most people to logically warrant background information. "Value investors and technical investors. Value investors are those who check annual reports when they come up. Technical investors look at graphs, they don't even care about the business model of the company they invest in.
"I am a value investor, but I want to overcome the emotional."
Her answers keep shifting the conversation back to business. They retain an exquisite, almost scientific-principle-like quality. No room for interpretation. "There is no management philosophy that is best only for this industry, or this company. There is a management philosophy that is best for all companies and all industries, and that is (1) trusting your team and (2) listen more than you talk."
Her public relations assistant breaks his silence and asks how Ms Pornladda integrated Buddhist philosophy into running the company -- a de rigueur requirement for any Thai executive in the media spotlight.
"Some people cannot control their tempers," she replies. "I had a very bad temper when I was young. Mediating allows me to remain calm and do well with my clients."
"Do you make employees meditate on a weekly basis?" her agent adds hopefully.
"I am not on that level," she says.
Ms Pornladda's answers are refreshingly honest and utilitarian, including those on press-release-heavy topics, like her success in the "traditionally male-dominated automotive industry in spite of being a woman".
"I feel very comfortable in the auto industry," she says. "I have worked at the highest levels in national and international corporations and have never felt challenged because of my gender.
"Maybe as a woman," she adds after five seconds, "I think more about people, or ... or maybe I am more willing to compromise."
Time runs out, but Ms Pornladda still has much to say about the business. It's apparent that she takes an almost childlike joy in theorising about all the nooks and intricacies of the industry.
"The car industry is challenging, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. Different brands have different spins, and different value propositions. The Japanese working style is very different from the American and European working styles, but they are all good. The management style, in turn, translates into the design of the cars. It is very complex on the product side. Anyone going into this industry has to like intellectual challenges."
With the interview reaching its conclusion, Ms Pornladda makes it clear that she could wax on about the industry indefinitely.
"That's it? That's all you want to know about the car business?" she asks. "Call me if you ever want to learn more. But before you go, tell me about the car market in the United States. What is your experience buying a car, how digital are they in your opinion?"
It turns out the ping-pong table was exactly where it was meant to be. Prominent enough to seduce focused-to-a-fault employees into blowing off steam on a daily basis, and disconcerting enough to make visitors believe that as an internet-ish company, even this calculated and sterile environment can be quirky and fun sometimes.
