Cultivating Strong Teams with Real Relationships w/ Tim Kelsey

In this episode of Made it in Thailand, I met with Tim Kelsey, the Managing Director of Pronto Marketing. Tim shares how Pronto fosters a distinct company culture through activities that blend work with fun and develop authentic employee relationships. We discuss the critical role of communication and assertiveness in their hiring practices and the significance of balancing professional and personal life. If you’re an entrepreneur or simply curious about what makes a company thrive in Thailand, this episode provides essential insights and actionable advice from someone who made it happen. Dive in to learn more about Tim’s journey and the secrets behind Pronto’s success.

Building strong teams in Thailand requires merging Western efficiency with Thai cultural values, fostering empathy, and investing in fun bonding activities to enhance retention and productivity in a diverse, relationship-oriented environment. Here are five key insights from our conversation with Tim Kelsey, Managing Director of Pronto Marketing, each addressing common challenges for expat-led businesses scaling in Southeast Asia’s competitive landscape.

• Merge Western and Thai Cultures for a Balanced Environment: Tim highlights how Pronto blended American business flexibility with Thai relational norms, creating an open yet respectful culture that encourages input without hierarchy. Many expats impose rigid structures, leading to disengagement. In my consulting work since 2012, I’ve seen hybrid models boost collaboration by 20-30%; adapt by incorporating “mai pen rai” attitudes with clear goals to thrive in Thailand’s super-aged society by 2029.
• Invest in Fun Activities to Strengthen Bonds: Pronto’s monthly Sabai parties and events like Pronto Olympics built genuine relationships, turning colleagues into friends and reducing isolation. Businesses often overlook social aspects, causing high turnover. From advising firms here, themed outings foster loyalty; schedule regular non-work events to create a “work hard, play hard” vibe that aligns with Thai emphasis on sanuk (fun) in dynamic markets.
• Develop Robust Hiring Processes for Quality Talent: Starting with fresh grads, Pronto evolved to include video intros, skills tests, and culture-fit interviews, plus employee referrals for scalable growth. Early-stage companies rush hires, leading to mismatches. In my experience, incentivized referrals (e.g., 5,000 THB bonuses) cut recruitment time; implement multi-stage evaluations to attract English-proficient talent in Thailand’s talent-rich but competitive job market.
• Prioritize Empathy and Flexibility to Retain Employees: Offering flex days and understanding life outside work, Pronto celebrates milestones like 10-year anniversaries, making staff feel valued without burnout. Leaders often demand perfection, increasing churn. From my years here, empathetic policies like no-yell environments retain top performers; provide additional benefits for longevity to counter economic pressures like high household debt.
• Adapt to Remote Work While Preserving Culture: Post-COVID, Pronto maintained connections through virtual events, ensuring culture self-sustains via assimilated hires. Hybrid shifts challenge team cohesion in diverse settings. I’ve worked with teams where asynchronous tools and off-site outings preserve bonds; evolve processes to blend global client focus with local flexibility for resilient operations in Thailand’s evolving digital economy.

Tim’s approach to merging Western efficiency with Thai cultural values is exactly what expat-led businesses in Thailand need to figure out if they want to scale successfully. You can’t just transplant American or European management styles and expect them to work. Rigid hierarchies, confrontational feedback, and results-at-all-costs mentality will alienate Thai teams fast. But you also can’t go full “mai pen rai” and lose all structure and accountability. Tim found the balance by creating an environment that’s open and encourages input while maintaining respect and clear expectations. That 20-30% collaboration boost from hybrid models isn’t theoretical. It’s what happens when people feel psychologically safe to contribute ideas without fear of losing face or being shut down by authority figures.

The investment in fun activities like monthly Sabai parties and the Pronto Olympics is something Western business leaders often dismiss as frivolous, but in Thailand, it’s strategic. Thai culture values “sanuk”—fun—and relationships in the workplace matter as much as the work itself. When colleagues become genuine friends through shared experiences outside of deadlines and deliverables, you get loyalty, lower turnover, and people who go the extra mile because they care about the team. High turnover is expensive and kills momentum. Spending time and money on social bonding isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s retention infrastructure. If your team feels isolated or like they’re just cogs in a machine, they’ll leave the moment a competitor offers 2,000 baht more per month.

Tim’s evolution of Pronto’s hiring process shows maturity and learning from mistakes. Early-stage companies always rush hires because they’re desperate for help, but that leads to costly mismatches. Video intros, skills tests, culture-fit interviews, and employee referral programs create a filtering system that surfaces people who can actually do the job and fit the vibe. The 5,000 baht referral bonus is smart because your existing team knows what kind of person will succeed, and they have skin in the game to bring quality candidates. In Thailand’s competitive job market where English proficiency and digital skills are in demand, a robust hiring process is a competitive advantage, not bureaucracy.

The emphasis on empathy and flexibility is what separates companies that retain top talent from those stuck in constant churn. Flex days, understanding life outside work, celebrating milestones, and a no-yell environment signal that you see employees as humans, not resources. Thai workers, like workers everywhere, can tell when leadership genuinely cares versus when they’re performatively checking HR boxes. In a country where household debt is crushing and economic pressure is high, offering stability, respect, and additional benefits for longevity makes people stay even when they could theoretically make more elsewhere. Empathy isn’t soft. It’s a retention and productivity lever.

Finally, Tim’s adaptation to remote work while preserving culture is the challenge every company faced post-COVID, but it’s especially tricky in relationship-oriented cultures like Thailand’s. Virtual events, asynchronous tools, and off-site outings can maintain bonds, but only if you’re intentional about it. Culture doesn’t automatically sustain itself remotely. You have to design rituals, communication norms, and touchpoints that reinforce values and connection. The fact that Pronto’s culture self-sustains through assimilated hires suggests they’ve baked it into onboarding and daily operations, not just the occasional team-building event. For businesses operating in Thailand’s evolving digital economy with global clients and hybrid teams, figuring out how to preserve culture while embracing flexibility is non-negotiable for long-term resilience.