(FORTUNE Magazine) – AROUND the Asian side of the Pacific Rim, business is conducted largely through personal contacts. The most influential Japanese are often not chief executives of big corporations, but people behind the scenes. A Korean or Overseas Chinese who says he wants to ''get the smell'' of a potential business partner is not being rude, but simply acknowledging that personal harmony cements deals. Here are people you ought to know -- or at least know about -- depending on where in the Pacific you intend to do business. Some are famous, others hardly known outside their home countries.

Taiwan

A long way from selling duck eggs

STAN SHIH, 44 He looks more like an accountant than a visionary, but Stan Shih, founder and chairman of Acer, has made an impressive leap from Taiwan into world markets. Shih has created the first Asian company beyond Japan to score big with innovative computer products under its own brand. With sales growing 30% a year, he's on target to hit $1 billion in 1990. ''There's no way of doing that by just having a dream,'' says Shih. A local product himself, he enjoys remarking that ''I'm made in Taiwan.'' His father died when Shih was 4, and he learned math by helping his mother sell duck eggs and watermelon seeds at a roadside stand. He went on to get a master's degree in electrical engineering. Not long afterward he invented what he claims was the world's first calculator mounted on a ballpoint pen, but others quickly copied it. With several friends and $25,000 in capital, he started Acer 13 years ago. Shih's global view lifted Acer above scores of middle-tech upstarts in Taiwan. Most tend to stint on product development and marketing, which Shih emphasized from the start. Taiwanese prefer to work for themselves, a social bottleneck that Shih broke through by selling shares to employees and setting an example by working 16 hours a day. He has banned time clocks for employees. Following what he calls ''the principle of being No. 2,'' Shih capitalizes on markets that IBM creates by devising compatible machines with more features and lower prices. To keep costs down, he is opening an Acer plant in Malaysia next year. Rather than solely producing clones, Shih invests in research to turn out original products, such as Chinese-language terminals. To broaden his product line, he acquires small U.S. companies. Reversing the normal Taiwan practice of assembling machines for U.S. companies, Shih gets Texas Instruments to build his computers in Austin for the American market. He also sells Acer semiconductor designs to the U.S. company, which is joining Acer in building a $250 million memory chip plant in Taiwan. Shih is cracking the difficult Japanese market through a joint venture with Sumitomo and a subsidiary of Daiwa Securities. Before going public last year, he raised capital with a private placement of stock, mostly with U.S. financial institutions including Citicorp, Chase Manhattan, and Prudential. Often compared to Apple Computer founder Steven Jobs, who was dumped from his company, Shih says he is different: ''If I couldn't manage the company, I'd get someone else in before people fired me.'' Shih, in fact, recently turned over daily operations of Acer to Leonard Liu, a Chinese-born veteran of IBM. Says Shih, who will concentrate on long-term planning: ''I'm a practical dreamer.''

Hong Kong

Ready to put money where his mouth is

VICTOR FUNG, 44 Investing in hot little Asian companies that most Americans have never heard of is the specialty of Victor K. Fung. A Hong Kong Chinese with a Harvard Ph.D. and a network of business contacts in the Pacific, Fung says he combines advising clients on deals with ''putting money where our mouth is.'' He sold that concept to Prudential Insurance Co. of America three years ago and became chairman of Prudential Asia. He invests in promising private companies before they go public, including Acer in Taiwan.

His Rolls-Royce is in the car pool

WILLIAM PURVES, 57 Chairman William Purves of Hongkong & Shanghai Banking Corp. personifies the growing economic cohesion of the Pacific region. A hardworking, straight- talking Scotsman, Purves backs entrepreneurs along the Rim from Australia to the oil-rich sultanate of Brunei. The Bank, as it's known in Hong Kong, finances much of the trade among the energetic Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia and North America. Major requests for credit get a response within 24 hours. ''While many banks are sleeping,'' Purves remarks, ''we're working.'' Purves has an extraordinary feel for the region, learned from the ground up. At 19, fresh out of high school, he came to Hong Kong as a British soldier on his way to the Korean war. He was decorated for valor (Distinguished Service Order) but never discusses his combat record. After the war Purves decided to return to Hong Kong and make banking his career. Working his way up in Hongkong Bank, he gained a reputation as a workaholic and a demanding boss. As head of one of the largest banks in Asia ($113 billion in assets), Purves has a hand in many of the region's biggest deals. He also plays a special role in Hong Kong, where he is a member of the British governor's executive council. His bank issues most of the local currency, making it the closest thing Hong Kong has to a central bank. After Beijing's massacre of pro- democracy demonstrators last summer sent the Hong Kong stock market into a jittery dive, Purves invested over $25 million of the bank's capital in the shares of local companies. ''It was a business transaction,'' he insists. ''This steadies the market, and we usually make money out of it.'' Though the turmoil in Beijing has slowed the British colony's economy a bit (see ''What's Next for China''), Purves says, ''Hong Kong is too important to be snuffed out or destroyed.'' Upon taking over as chairman three years ago, he began shedding the imperial trappings that traditionally went with the job. He kept the somewhat spartan office he had occupied as No. 2. The chairman's Rolls-Royce went into the car pool. Purves drives himself to work in his Jaguar. His big challenge is finding a safe haven for the bank before China takes control of Hong Kong in just seven years. Already Hongkong Bank is a misnomer for an institution that owns Marine Midland in the U.S., operates 60 branches in Canada, has acquired the British Bank of the Middle East, and in late 1987 bought a 14.9% stake in Midland Bank, which Purves says would make a superb merger partner. With so much on his plate, Purves remains a workaholic. ''Well, I find work is quite relaxing, you know,'' he says. Last year, though, he surprised colleagues by taking a little time off to go fishing in Alaska (see photo), and this year by getting married to the former Rebecca Lewellen, an American he met nearly 30 years ago.

The billionaire who will never wear a Rolex

LI KA-SHING, 61 Working with business partners in real estate and trading has helped make Li Ka-shing a multibillionaire. Now diversifying into Singapore and North America, Li says he strives to make alliances endure by being ''a little bit more than fair.'' Li, who started out making plastic flowers, has built a network of public companies that represent 12% of the capitalization in the Hong Kong stock market. He is the principal shareholder and chairman of Cheung Kong, his flagship, which controls Hutchison Whampoa, a big trading conglomerate. Hutchison owns port terminals handling about half of Hong Kong's cargo container traffic, a supermarket chain, and a controlling interest in Hong Kong Electric. Li likes working with Western partners, including Motorola for a mobile telephone operation and Total of France for a coal trading firm that supplies the region.

For a man with an estimated net worth of $2.5 billion, Li is remarkably unassuming. He has lived in the same two-story house for over two decades, and he wears an inexpensive Seiko watch. He enjoys golf and roaming Hong Kong harbor in his boat, but says his biggest pleasure is ''business and the friends I work with.'' Li, who was born in southern China, retains some hope for the People's Republic. As he puts it, ''The Chinese are not fools. Sooner or later a country like China must find the right direction.'' Even so, he is seriously considering shifting the legal headquarters of his companies out of Hong Kong. He is also pumping money into a big commercial complex in Singapore and actively shopping for more acquisitions in the West.

A 500% markup on used bicycles

DAVID K.P. LI, 50 Banker David Li has become such an effective link with Western businessmen that he is widely considered a potential governor of Hong Kong after China takes over in 1997. Chief executive of the Bank of East Asia, Li describes himself as ''a linchpin between China and international partners.'' An urbane member of one of Hong Kong's most influential families, Li is a rare blend of East and West. His grandfather, a successful rice trader, founded the bank 71 years ago. Born and educated in Britain, Li studied law and economics at Cambridge University, where he also showed a knack for spotting business opportunities. He developed a brisk trade in secondhand bicycles among his fellow students, making what he remembers as ''a nice profit of about 500% per bicycle.'' Since then Li has created a fabulous collection of global relationships that bolster Hong Kong's oldest Chinese-owned financial institution. He does investment banking with S.G. Warburg of Britain, insurance with Aetna of the U.S., and equipment leasing with Societe Generale of France. He also manages trust funds for private clients in Asia through a grand alliance with the Royal Bank of Scotland, Northern Trust in Chicago, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, and the Rothschild Bank in Switzerland. Li has guanxi -- influence -- in China, where, he says, ''personal relationships usually make the difference between success and failure.'' He has assembled many cooperative ventures with partners from both the West and the People's Republic. China International Finance, for instance, links Bank of China, Nomura International of Japan, Security Pacific of the U.S., and his own bank.

Indonesia

Successful by the grace of the good Lord

WILLIAM SOERYADJAYA, 66 Xerox, Deere, Toyota, and other big corporations find that their best connection for selling to Indonesia is William Soeryadjaya, founder and chairman of Astra Group. An Overseas Chinese, Soeryadjaya started out selling scrap newspaper. These days he relies on professional managers to oversee nearly 28,000 employees, but attributes his success to ''the grace of the good Lord.'' The Soeryadjaya family still owns most of Astra (with $1.6 billion in sales last year), and that's not all. Soeryadjaya also controls Summa International, a financial conglomerate run by his son Edward, 41, who manages more than $1 billion in assets. Soeryadjaya even has a joint venture bank in Vietnam. He says he has no interest at all in getting richer.

A two-hat man whose hopes have wings

B. J. HABIBIE, 53 Indonesia is one of the poorest nations in East Asia, but B. J. Habibie, Minister of Research and Technology, has taken a flier on building aircraft. A German-trained aeronautical engineer, Habibie wears a second hat as president of state-owned Indonesian Aircraft Industry, which started out in business assembling a small, Spanish-designed commuter plane. If such companies as Boeing and General Dynamics want to sell planes to Indonesia, they have to give contracts for components to Habibie's heavily subsidized plant. He hopes to export within five years the first plane that has been wholly designed by Indonesians. To his many skeptics, he says, ''Just remember that in 1950 nobody would buy a Japanese car.''

Japan

A retailer who says made-in-the-U.S. sells

TOSHIMINE KOBAYASHI, 58 Japanese consumers are demanding more choice and better prices, and in response Toshimine Kobayashi, president of Nichii Co., is expanding his empire of ''superstores.'' A superstore is a Japanese hybrid that combines supermarket and discount store. Kobayashi built his first one in Kyoto in 1954 and has since established more than 300 of them across the land. An innovative retailer, he is also moving into boutiques as well as large shopping malls. Eager to introduce more imports to his customers, Kobayashi says: ''I don't believe the Japanese people prefer made-in-Japan. They love made-in-the-U.S., the U.K., and Paris.'' Lifestyle differences are no barrier, he maintains. ''Our rooms are small, but we enjoy the big couch and sofa.'' His goal is to offer imported products at the same prices that consumers pay in the countries the imports come from. He's trying to figure out how. He'd like Western exporters to help him figure out what to sell.

The man to see at the most elite club

KAZUO NUKAZAWA, 52 In Japan, the phrase ''business leaders'' almost always refers to members of Keidanren, the influential Federation of Economic Organizations. The man to see at this exclusive corporate club is Kazuo Nukazawa, managing director. Having lived in London, Washington, and New York, he speaks fluent English. An economist who has spent his career with Keidanren, Nukazawa acts as its link with the world. One recurrent task he confronts is trying to soothe complaints from foreign companies attempting to break into the Japanese market. Nukazawa is outspokenly critical of both the Japanese government and foreign Japan-bashers. He concedes that there is much Japan can do to ''deregulate everything,'' but don't expect much sympathy from him if your gripe is that Japan does not play fair. Adroit in the statistics game, he points out that in the past three years Japan's imports of manufactured goods have more than doubled (though only about 25% of those imports come from the U.S.).

A woman who got off the slow track

NAOE WAKITA, 52 Naoe Wakita is president of the ad agency Dentsu Eye, but for many years she was on a slow track. She worked as an advertising copywriter, first for Morinaga Milk Industry Co. and then for Dentsu Inc., Japan's largest ad agency, and promotion came slowly. Says Wakita matter-of-factly: ''In Japanese society, it takes an awful lot of effort for a woman to attain a man's post in a company.'' Then, five years ago, Dentsu formed Dentsu Eye, a subsidiary specializing in ads aimed at women. In purchases of most consumer goods, Wakita says, it's the woman of the house who makes the decision. ''If you can get to the heart of what she wants, you can sell in Japan.'' Wakita has 17 full-time copywriters handling about 30 accounts, including consumer products from the U.S. and Europe.

Early rendezvous with destiny

YOSHIHISA TABUCHI, 57 Nobody knows the Japanese stock market like Yoshihisa Tabuchi, president of Nomura Securities, the country's biggest and most profitable brokerage. Though he speaks little English and has never worked abroad, Tabuchi has an international outlook. Describing Nomura's edge in global competition, he says, ''We are at the center of the country that leads the fastest-growing region in the world.''

He joined the company because of a fluke that he now calls ''destiny.'' As a Waseda University senior, he really wanted to be a journalist but applied to the securities company just in case. When Nomura offered him a job, school officials insisted he take it to avoid insulting the firm. Tabuchi found his niche. Four years ago he became president at a tender age by Japanese standards. Though he is nearly six feet tall, the president is known within Nomura as ''Little Tabuchi.'' That's to distinguish him from Chairman Setsuya Tabuchi, whom Nomura folk refer to as Oh-Tabuchi -- Big Tabuchi. Little Tabuchi and Big Tabuchi are not related.

An ex-admirer of American industry

HAJIME KARATSU, 70 If you need to know where Japanese technology stands and where it's heading, the man to see is Hajime Karatsu, professor at Tokai University's Research and Development Institute. Karatsu calls himself a student of America, but he sharply criticizes his former teacher. He recalls his first visit to the U.S. in 1956, when he was working for Nippon Telegraph & Telephone: ''Industry was glorious. We followed everything faithfully.'' Since then, he maintains, American industry has seriously declined. ''If America doesn't like to import from Japan, why doesn't it just make the things itself? The answer is that it can't.'' He puts the blame on management. An electrical engineer by training, Karatsu spent most of his career in industry. After 13 years at NTT, he joined Japan's largest consumer electronics company, Matsushita Electric Industrial. When he left for the university three years ago, he took with him a long list of kone -- a very useful word carved out of the English ''connections.'' Many Japanese wear a small company emblem in their lapel, but Karatsu wears a Rotary Club pin.

An insider in two cultures

GEORGE FIELDS, 61 The Japanese like to think of themselves as different from everybody else in the world, says George Fields, chairman of ASI Market Research (Japan). He advises Western companies that come to him for help in penetrating the Japanese market to take that view seriously. Fields, who speaks Japanese fluently, is bicultural to an exceptional degree. Son of a Japanese mother and an Australian father, he spent his childhood in Japan. After returning to Tokyo in 1965 to do research for foreign companies eager for a presence in the market, he arrived at some basic advice for clients: -- Don't assume that schemes successful elsewhere will work in Japan. -- Take the time and trouble to study your customers. -- Don't go against cultural values. His classic case is a General Mills cake mix specially designed for preparation in the rice cookers of Japanese housewives. It failed, says Fields, because ''the Japanese take pride in the purity of their rice,'' which they thought would be contaminated if the cooker were used for some other food. Fields presents his views on the new generation of Japanese consumers in Gucci on the Ginza, an English-language book published this year.

Too influential to rock any boats

YOH KUROSAWA, 62 Tall and broad-shouldered, Yoh Kurosawa is among the few high-ranking Japanese who seem to enjoy conversational give-and-take with Westerners. One American visitor recalls him musing aloud about whether the Japanese can be outstanding in international finance, which requires, he says, the art of dealmaking. As deputy president of the Industrial Bank of Japan, Kurosawa is the spokesman for the oldest and largest Japanese long-term credit bank. It is the biggest underwriter of Japan's national debt and a large international lender. Educated as a lawyer at prestigious Tokyo University, Kurosawa has spent a lot of time in the West. On loan from his own bank, he worked for a year at Deutsche Bank in West Germany. Later he ran IBJ's Frankfurt office. In 1980 he completed the advanced management program at Harvard business school. Aware of his influence, he avoids making controversial public statements. In that don't-rock-it mood, he has been evenhanded in commenting on efforts of major shareholders in Japanese companies -- including T. Boone Pickens -- to gain a bigger voice in management. ''In Japan,'' says Kurosawa, ''the right of shareholders is too small. In the U.S., the right of shareholders is too big.''

Australia

Don't look for him on the beach

JOHN ELLIOTT, 48 The average Australian, says Chairman John Elliott of Elders IXL, ''would rather watch football or lie on the beach than work.'' Australian Elliott, though, is an overachiever. Through acquisitions, he has built a corporation with revenues of $10.3 billion this year from brewing, merchant banking, commodities exporting, and agricultural financing. Elders owns breweries in Britain and Canada as well as in Australia. Elliott and close associates control 56% of the company. Elliott is also a large presence on the Australian political scene; he is currently president of the Liberal Party, the main conservative opposition. Outwardly gruff, he retains an Aussie common touch, serving as president of the Carlton Football Club. He has political ambitions and is not shy about them. Running a big business, he observes, has a lot in common with running a country.

South Korea

A preference for the American style

LEE KUN HEE, 47 ''Listen attentively,'' says a calligraphy painting in the office of Chairman Lee Kun Hee of Samsung Group. That advice comes from his late father, who started Samsung 51 years ago and built it into South Korea's largest conglomerate. The demanding founder tested and rejected two older sons before choosing a successor. Lee guides 38 companies involved in such diverse businesses as insurance and electronics. Samsung even owns a couple of country clubs. ''I don't get concerned about details,'' Lee says. He keeps his own appointment book relatively uncluttered so he can have time to think about long-term goals. To unwind, he goes horseback riding a few times a week. But that doesn't mean he is a hands-off manager. He carefully picks -- and monitors -- his top subordinates. Having majored in business at universities in both Japan and the U.S., Lee prefers the American style. In the Japanese system, he says, ''power is too decentralized, so no one man can lead.'' Koreans tend to treat chairmen of conglomerates like emperors, but Lee says he can tell whether employees are speaking frankly: ''I can feel it through my skin.''

The view from the mountain

HAN SEUNG SOO, 52 Most mornings Han Seung Soo, South Korea's Minister of Trade and Industry, relaxes by climbing Kwanak mountain near his office in Seoul. Han, an economist, says he is injecting ''very libertarian'' attitudes into Korea's economic and trade policies. While helping to open his country for imports, which are at a record high this year, Han is trying to wean Korean corporations from their longstanding dependence on government loans and bailouts. One of only two cabinet officers who are elected members of the National ^ Assembly, Han says, ''You have to be in politics to carry out your ideas.'' That's a lesson he learned while getting a Ph.D. at the University of York in England, where some of his professors went on to become advisers to the Conservative government. He won a prize from the European Community for a book on its budget and later served as a World Bank adviser to Jordan. Dealing with constituents in his hometown brings economics down to earth for him. As he puts it, ''Now behind the figures I see faces of the people.''

If he played golf, everybody would

KIM WOO-CHOONG, 52 The most global businessman in Korea is Kim Woo-Choong, chairman of Daewoo Group. The company he founded exports Pontiac LeMans cars to the U.S., makes refrigerators in China, and owns the Budapest Hilton. A daring risk taker, Kim has won more than $7 billion of construction work in Libya and is building railways in Iran. His only real break from work, he says, is sleep, and he gets about six hours a night. ''If I played golf and drank,'' he says, ''then everyone at Daewoo would follow my example.'' Kim spends much of his time these days managing a giant shipyard hobbled by strikes, ever-increasing wages, and an appreciating currency. Betting his reputation on a turnaround, he is selling his personal shares in Daewoo's successful brokerage and investing the money (about $300 million) to diversify the shipyard into other products, including helicopters and excavators. Most Sundays he preaches productivity to shipyard employees, promising that soon they will ride to work in their own cars. Addressing a larger audience, he has turned out a best-selling book of advice to young Koreans. Title: It's a Big World, and There's a Lot to Be Done.

Letting young engineers do their own thing

LEE YONG-TEH, 56 Hefty conglomerates dominate Korean business, but Lee Yong-Teh concentrates on startups. His biggest success is TriGem Computer, the country's top exporter of PCs, many of them sold to Seiko Epson. A physicist trained in the U.S., Lee promoted information technology as a government technocrat before deciding to promote it as an entrepreneur. He has recruited young engineers for seven ventures aside from TriGem, including a desktop publishing system for Asian characters. Lee says he enjoys creating ''an environment for a group of guys to get together and do their own thing.'' A traditional Korean steeped in Confucian ethics, Lee is also a breaker of business traditions. While most Korean industries have been disrupted lately by bitter strikes, Lee's employees stay on the job -- they share profits.

Singapore

The brainy man they call ''Baby God''

LEE HSIEN LOONG, 37 The best top-level contact in Singapore is Lee Hsien Loong. His title is Minister of Trade and Industry, but he is much more than that. Known as ''B.G.'' for his army rank of brigadier general, Lee is jokingly called ''Baby God'' behind his back. He is the son of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, 66, who built the city-state into Southeast Asia's most important center for multinational corporations. Young Lee is so brainy and such a natural leader that most Singaporeans think he would have risen rapidly without the family connection, though maybe not quite as fast. He has degrees in math and computer science from Cambridge and an M.A. in public administration from Harvard. He studied at the U.S. Army command and staff school. Articulate as his stern father but a bit gentler in manner, Lee listens to businessmen. In 1985 he put their ideas into a plan that cut taxes and fees, pulling Singapore out of a deep recession. An avid visitor to the headquarters of corporations in the U.S., Lee says of American top managers, ''They want to know that we are going to be in good hands for another 20 years.'' Eventually, Singapore is likely to be in his hands. Says Lee: ''It's something to work for.''

Philippines

Guiding clients through quicksand

WASHINGTON SYCIP, 68 His office is filled with several hundred owls shaped from wood, ivory, glass, and stone -- all tokens of gratitude from corporations and governments. Washington SyCip is Asia's wise old owl. As founder and chairman of SGV Group, the largest consulting and accounting firm in the region, he guides his numerous clients through the bureaucratic quicksands of the Third World. Son of an Overseas Chinese banker in the Philippines, SyCip interrupted graduate business studies at Columbia University to join the U.S. Army at the outbreak of World War II. He wound up in India breaking Japanese codes and became an American citizen. He started with a one-man accounting office in Manila in 1946 and has come to be the leading legitimate fixer in the Pacific Rim.

Malaysia

''We were too much of a Santa Claus''

JEFFREY G. KITINGAN, 42 ( Backed by huge timber wealth in Borneo, Datuk Jeffrey G. Kitingan, chairman of Innoprise Corp., is signing up international partners for ventures in shipping, hotels, and wood processing. (Datuk is a title roughly equivalent to sir.) The company's assets: about $2 billion. All earnings go into a foundation set up by the Malaysian state of Sabah to provide schoolbooks, medical care, and university scholarships. Datuk Jeffrey, whose brother is the state's chief minister, also runs the Sabah Foundation, which used to hand out cash dividends to citizens at election time. Looking back, he says, 'We were too much of a Santa Claus.'' Now he is putting the foundation's money into a rural entrepreneurship corps, his own idea. He personally trains young people to start businesses in villages. He also entertains them with romantic pop songs he composes.

A prince who is a son of the soil

TUNKU IMRAN, 41 For foreign investors in Malaysia, Tunku Imran ibni Tuanku Ja'afar is a prince of a partner. His father is hereditary ruler of the Malaysian state of Negeri Sembilan. The government usually requires 30% ownership by indigenous Malaysians, called bumiputras (sons of the soil), so Tunku (Prince) Imran and his family created Antah Holdings, a blue-chip portfolio of joint ventures. It is the most successful bumiputra conglomerate. ''With all that diversity,'' says the prince, ''I don't get bored.'' A British-educated lawyer and a former Malaysian national squash champion, Tunku Imran (friends call him Pete) serves as managing director. He handles government relations but leaves daily management to his partners, including Grey Advertising, Orix Leasing of Japan, and Securicor of Britain. He rides to work in a chauffeured BMW with special license plates reserved for royalty.

Thailand

Looking for good guys as partners

PARON ISRASENA, 62 In freewheeling Thailand, Paron Israsena has a distinctive approach to business. ''We practice righteousness,'' says Paron, an MIT-trained engineer and devout Buddhist. He is president of Siam Cement Group, the largest industrial conglomerate in the kingdom, and his strict ethical code makes the company a favorite of international investors. Among Paron's partners are Dow Chemical for petrochemicals, Asahi Glass for TV tubes, Toyota for truck engines, and Michelin for tire molds. He looks for companies that are run by ''good guys -- I mean morally good.'' The controlling stockholder of the company is the Crown Property Bureau of the Thai monarchy, which leaves management of Siam Cement to professionals. Says Paron proudly: ''I am not related to any of the employees here. We are not influenced by any family or organization. We are free.'' In a gentle Thai manner, Paron pushes up productivity by setting targets in consultation with managers and by providing training for all employees. He relaxes by meditating every night and enjoys cooking ''easy dishes'' like noodles, but not making trips to Japan. ''They drink sake,'' he explains, ''they drink whiskey, they drink brandy -- but I don't drink at all.''

Inside his bank or out, he's ''the boss''

CHATRI SOPHONPANICH, 55 Big, bluff, and outspoken, Chatri Sophonpanich, president of Bangkok Bank, likes making deals in the sizzling Thai economy. Increasingly, the bank -- 35% owned by the Sophonpanich family -- takes stakes in projects it lends to. His family also takes equity positions in large real estate and petrochemical ventures. Says Chatri: ''Since I am one of the so-called top society in business, a lot of people ask me to participate -- you know, 5% here, 10% there.'' The bank, started by his late father, is a major financier for Overseas Chinese businessmen around the region. Chatri, an appointed member of the Thai Senate, is known inside and outside the bank as ''the boss.''