Boonsithi Chokwatana is the Chairman of Saha Group, Thailand's leading consumer products conglomerate. This is part 15 of a 30-part series .

Up until now, I have described Saha Group's early days and the beginning of its ascent. As readers may have noticed, when we enter a new field or start a joint venture with a new partner, we launch new companies one after another, almost as if they are cells dividing. This is one of the reasons why the group has grown to around 300 companies.

Why have we adopted this strategy? To explain, I would like to discuss my uncle, Damri Darakananda, who later separated on good terms with Saha Group to form Saha Union Group. The company has become one of Thailand's leading exporters, manufacturing textiles, clothing and resin parts.

Damri is my mother's younger brother, and 18 years her junior. Although he is my uncle, he is only five years older than me. After graduating from an old-style junior high school, he became a pioneering industrial capitalist; some have called him the "Konosuke Matsushita of Thailand," referring to the founder of Japan's Panasonic.

Damri joined the company in 1952, when my father reorganized his general store into Saha Pathanapibul. As previously mentioned, he was our first employee stationed in Japan and upon his return to Thailand, he was promoted to the company's No. 2 spot at just 22 years of age.

It was not simply because he was a relative. My father believed that in the consumer goods business, it was essential to employ young people who could sense current trends and think flexibly. He had tremendous trust in Damri. I was told to "learn everything from him," and I worked directly under Damri before I was transferred to Osaka.

With his English skills and a keen fashion sense, he would constantly generate new ideas for businesses. He was always working based on a vision of what the world would look like several years hence. Seeing him up close, he was a towering presence.

Damri was in charge of importing and selling YKK fasteners, which were the company's main product in its early days. Eventually, YKK approached us with the idea of building a factory in Thailand. Damri was eager to start his own business, independent of Saha, and my father supported him in that.

In 1962, Damri set up a joint venture with YKK. My father invested his own money in the company, taking a position on the board of directors. It was around the time when I had returned from Osaka. YKK's business had slumped and Saha's sales had been cut in half. In truth, I thought the whole project was a waste, but my father was unconcerned.

In the beginning, the company relied on Japan for its production technology and its products were sold under the YKK brand. Eventually, however, the same product was sold in parallel under a new brand name, "Venus." Disagreements between Damri and YKK grew, leading to the dissolution of the joint venture in 1982.

In addition to fasteners, the company had a number of joint ventures in spinning textiles and other fields that later became independent businesses. In a joint venture, we could only sell our products in Thailand and were not allowed to export because the products might compete with those of our partners.

For Damri, who was eyeing the global market, it was rational to dissolve the joint venture after acquiring the necessary expertise. His was a different approach from that of my father and me, which focused on coexistence and shared prosperity with partner companies.

The dispute with YKK happened around the time we tied up with Lion to produce toothpaste and powdered detergent. The Japanese companies thought that Damri was still a Saha man and if things did not work out with Lion, Saha's credibility would be further damaged. There was considerable pressure to make sure the project with Lion did not fail.

In 1972, Damri established Saha Union as a holding company. My father was invited to serve as chairman, and he held that position until 1984. However, he never interfered with the company's management. Since I took over the management of Saha, there has been almost no personal relationships or business cooperation between the two groups.

Damri is his own man, as am I. Because we are relatives, we see each other in private several times each year, but we dare not discuss work at all.

This column is part of The Nikkei's "My Personal History" ("Watashi no Rirekisho") series of autobiographies. The series first appeared in The Nikkei in 1956. Since then, a wide variety of world-changing individuals have written or dictated their life stories for publication.