Yingluck Shinawatra

Her paternal family is of Hakka Chinese origin, descending from Seng Saekhu (her great-grandfather) who immigrated from Meizhou, Guangdong, to Siam in the 1860s, becoming a tax farmer in Chiang Mai.

Yingluck Shinawatra (ยิ่งลักษณ์ ชินวัตร,, ; born 21 June 1967), nicknamed Pou (ปู, , , meaning "crab"), is a Thai businesswoman, politician and a member of the Pheu Thai Party who became the Prime Minister of Thailand following the 2011 election.

Yingluck was Thailand's first female prime minister and its youngest in over 60 years.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration at Chiang Mai University in 1988 and received a Master of Public Administration degree (specialisation in Management Information Systems) from Kentucky State University in the United States in 1991.

Yingluck began her career as a sales and marketing intern in 1993 at Shinawatra Directories Co., Ltd., a telephone directory business founded by AT&T International.

She later became the director of procurement and the director of operations.

In 1994, she became the general manager of Rainbow Media, a subsidiary of International Broadcasting Corporation (which later became TrueVisions).

Yingluck received 0.68 percent of Shin Corp shares out of the 46.87 percent that Thaksin Shinawatra and his then-wife held in 1999.

The military junta-appointed Assets Examination Committee charged that Yingluck made up false transactions and that "there were no real payments for each Ample Rich Co., Ltd shares sold" and "the transactions were made at a cost basis of par value in order to avoid income taxes, and all the dividends paid out by Shin to those people were transferred to [her sister-in-law] Potjaman's bank accounts".

However, the AEC did not pursue a case against her.

Yingluck, in response, claimed that "her family has been a victim of political persecution".

Thaksin served as Prime Minister from 2001 until 2006 when he was overthrown by a military coup.

He fled abroad shortly before he was convicted in absentia of using his position to increase his own wealth.

Thereafter, he lived in self-imposed exile to avoid serving his prison sentence until he returned to Thailand in August 2023.

She left as Deputy CEO of IBC in 2002, and became the CEO of Advanced Info Service (AIS), Thailand's largest mobile phone operator.

After the sale of Shin Corporation (the parent company of AIS) to Temasek Holdings, Yingluck resigned from AIS, but remained managing director of SC Asset Co Ltd, the Shinawatra family property development company.

She was investigated by Thailand's Securities and Exchange Commission regarding possible insider trading after she sold shares of her AIS stock for a profit prior to the sale of the Shin Corporation to Temasek Holdings.

However, no charges were filed.

Yingluck Shinawatra is also a committee member and secretary of the Thaicom Foundation.

After the governing People's Power party was dissolved and its executive board was banned from political activity for five years by the Constitutional Court on 2 December 2008, the former People's Power Party MPs formed the Pheu Thai Party.

Yingluck was asked to become the party's leader, but she declined, saying that she had no desire to be prime minister and wanted to concentrate on business.

In May 2011, the Pheu Thai Party, which maintains close ties to Thaksin, nominated Yingluck as their candidate for Prime Minister in the 2011 election.

She campaigned on a platform of national reconciliation, poverty eradication, and corporate income tax reduction and won a landslide victory.

The court found her guilty of charges of abuse of power over the removal of national security chief Thawil Pliensri in 2011.

After mass protests against her government in late 2013, she asked for a dissolution of parliament on 9 December 2013, triggering a snap election, but continued to act as caretaker prime minister.

She was removed from office on 7 May 2014 by a Constitutional Court decision.

Born in Chiang Mai Province into a wealthy family of Hakka Chinese descent, Yingluck Shinawatra earned a bachelor's degree from Chiang Mai University and a master's degree from Kentucky State University, both in public administration.

She then became an executive in the businesses founded by her elder brother, Thaksin Shinawatra and later became the president of property developer SC Asset and managing director of Advanced Info Service.

On 7 May 2014, the Constitutional Court of Thailand removed Yingluck Shinawatra from the office of caretaker prime minister and defence minister following months of political crisis.

In the wake of the May 2014 military coup, Yingluck was arrested along with former cabinet ministers and political leaders of all parties and held at an army camp for a few days while the coup was consolidated.

She was tried in 2016 but did not appear in court in August 2017 for the verdict.

An arrest warrant was issued.

She reportedly fled the country.

In September 2017, she was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to five years in prison.

She is rumoured to now be in London.

Yingluck has become the chairwoman and legal representative of Shantou International Container Terminals Ltd since 12 December 2018, a Chinese port operator, operating in the Shantou Port area in eastern Guangdong.

Yingluck Shinawatra is the youngest of nine children of Loet Shinawatra and Yindi Ramingwong.

Her father was a businessman and member of parliament for Chiang Mai.

On her maternal side, she is a descendant of the former royal family of Chiang Mai through her grandmother, Princess Chanthip na Chiangmai (great-great-granddaughter of Prince Thammalangka who ruled Chiang Mai in the early-19th century).

Yingluck grew up in Chiang Mai and attended Regina Coeli College, a private girls' catholic school, for the lower secondary level, followed by Yupparaj College, a co-educational school, at the upper secondary level.