Mongkhol Nitakhot, Head of Digital Technology at SUPALAI, shares his playbook for IT leadership. He discusses why the people are the biggest challenge in any tech transformation, the need for leaders to speak in business language, and the critical question of whether your organisation is data-ready for the future.
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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- The Biggest Challenge in Tech Transformation is People, Not Technology. Overcoming human resistance and securing leadership alignment is far more difficult than implementing the technology itself.
- An IT Leader’s Most Critical Skill is Business Communication. To be effective, you must translate complex technology into clear business impact, speaking the same language as the C-suite.
- A Leader’s Key Question: “Is Your Organisation Data-Ready?” A data-driven mindset and the right platform are the essential foundations for competing in the age of AI.
Could you please introduce yourself and share a bit about your journey in the IT field?
My name is Mongkhol, and I am the Head of Digital Technology at SUPALAI, a large real estate company in Thailand.
My career has spanned over 20 years and six or seven different industries, including automotive, e-commerce, banking, and manufacturing. Throughout this journey, I have experienced a lot of large-scale implementations of software like SAP and CRM, as well as data platforms and now AI. My focus is on empowering the company with technology and leading the shift into the digital and AI era.
From your perspective, what are the most significant challenges you are currently facing?
The most significant challenge is not the technology itself; it’s the people. To transform an organisation, you have to get the humans to move together. The most important thing is to have the leadership team—the CFO, CHRO, CMO—aligned.
Technology can be bought or built with partners, but the biggest challenge is the workforce. With the rise of AI, people in the organisation are afraid of being laid off, which leads to resistance. We need to select technology that is suitable for our people and our culture, and then focus on moving the whole organisation forward together.
How do you envision the IT sector evolving over the next three to five years?
A few years ago, it was very difficult to find data scientists and AI engineers. Now, generative AI has changed that. The rise of agentic AI is also creating a “virtual workforce” that can work 24/7.
I believe that in the next one to three years, AI will become even more intelligent. The workforce will change significantly, and people or organisations that do not embrace this change will be left behind.
What is the biggest IT-related mistake you see other companies make?
As a leader who has come from a technical background, I think the biggest mistake is when management tries to micromanage and dominate technical design and decisions too much.
When you step into a leadership role, your key contribution is different. You have to trust and empower your tech team, creating an environment where talented people can work creatively and contribute to the business outcome.
How are IT leaders navigating the ever-changing regulatory environment?
Many leaders are using generative AI without fully understanding the risks of data leaks. While we try to implement guardrails and providers give us assurances, no one knows for certain if their data is truly protected.
There is a tension: we must be strict about data privacy regulations like PDPA and GDPR, but if we are too restrictive, innovation cannot happen. This is a struggle for leaders all over the world.
How do you balance the need for innovation with the demand for stability and security?
It’s not easy to balance. At the bank, trust is the first priority. We allow for innovation, but we take a slow and steady approach to adoption, ensuring every release does not affect our stability or create any security leaks.
For our internal projects, we launch them in an R&D or “playground” environment where our team can test them and learn from errors. We are also implementing frameworks like ISO 27001 and teaching our teams to prevent security risks from the design phase all the way to delivery.
What do you consider to be the most critical skill that IT leaders should have today?
I think it’s communication. In the past, IT was a back-office, support function. But nowadays, a company cannot survive if it is not led by technology.
IT leaders need to be able to communicate with their peers, like the CEO and CFO, in the same business language. If we talk in a difficult, technical language, they won’t understand the impact, and the business and technology units will not be able to move forward together.
If you could ask one question to all IT leaders today, what would it be?
“Do you already have the data to move into the near future?” Nowadays, data is the new oil; it is the key to everything, including AI. You need to ask yourself if your organisation has a data-driven mindset and is ready to go.
How do you approach mentoring and developing the next generation of leaders within your IT team?
When I joined, the IT team was seen purely as a support function. My first step was to change the mindset and let them know that we are leaders who can move the organisation forward. I encourage my team to think about the best possible solutions, not just the cheapest ones.
To foster innovation, we allow the team to fail. If you don’t have a budget for R&D and a safe space for trial and error, real innovation is not easy to achieve. We have to clarify the direction, create a strategy, and give the team the budget and freedom to make it happen.
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