Past Events

Kirida Bhaopichitr
11 June 2021

Dr. Kirida joined the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), a leading independent think tank in Thailand, in 2015. She is currently the Director of TDRI Economic Intelligence Service (EIS) which is TDRI’s corporate membership program. Dr. Kirida leads the preparation of content for the monthly seminars for corporate members on issues that are of high relevance and interest for business. Her specialization spans monitoring and analyzing developments of the global and Thai economies which includes the business environment, impacts of COVID-19 pandemic, demographic changes, and technological development issues.

Prior to this, Dr.  Kirida had been a Senior Economist at the Macroeconomics and Fiscal Policy Management Global Practice and the Country Economist for Thailand of the World Bank Group from 1999 to 2015.  Dr. Kirida’s work on Thailand includes monitoring and assessing Thailand’s economic developments, investment climate, competitiveness, impact of the 2011 floods, and the reforms in the public sector.  Dr. Kirida was the main author of the World Bank’s bi-annual Thailand Economic Monitor (2003-2015), the most downloaded and widely cited World Bank publication on Thailand.

Dr. Kirida has significant regional experience, having worked on Lao PDR., Cambodia, and South Asia.  She regularly contributed to the World Bank’s bi-annual report on economic development, the East Asia and the Pacific Update.  In 2010, Dr. Kirida spent a year at the World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC, where she worked on regional issues in East Asia and authored a paper on estimating remittance trends in South Asia.

A recognized fixture in economic and business circles in Thailand, she appears regularly in the media and speaks at public and private high-level forums and executive courses in Thailand and overseas. She also gave a TED talk at a TEDx event in Thailand in 2018.

Dr. Kirida holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University (USA).