Thai transgender businesswoman Anne Jakrajutatip on modernising Miss Universe and empowering women
The new owner of the Miss Universe organisation wants to bring about much needed change to an establishment seen by many as outdated, and use her platform to empower women
For the first time in more than seven decades, the Miss Universe organisation, known for its annual beauty pageant Miss Universe, is owned by a woman. And its new owner wants to bring about much-needed change.
Thai media mogul and transgender woman Jakkaphong “Anne” Jakrajutatip is the founder and CEO of JKN Global Group, which purchased the Miss Universe organisation in October 2022 for US$20 million.
“Pregnant women, married women, divorced women—they are allowed to be in the competition,” says Jakrajutatip of the competition rules she has amended so far. “And of course, we allow trans women to come into the competition,” she adds; the competition was opened up to transgender women in 2012.
However, an age of limit of 28 for contestants remains, something that the recently crowned winner of Miss Universe 2022 wants to see change. “I would like to see an age increase because I am 28 years old and that is the oldest age to compete,” said R’Bonney Gabriel, who became the oldest Miss Universe winner to date. “As a woman, I believe age does not define us .”
Ultimately, Jakrajutatip wants to imbue the Miss Universe events, which also include Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, with meaning and to move away from the objectification of women to a celebration of leadership, particularly “transformational leadership”, she says. She hopes that the winners of the competitions under her reign will be women to look up to, as Jakrajutatip herself also hopes to be.
“I [will] go up on stage and talk, and all the women will look up to me as the mother of the universe. They help me as a role model and of course, I hope to behave as a role model for them. I live my life to become the iconic woman,” she says.
Transformation and leadership are characteristics that Jakrajutatip is intimately familiar with. Born Andrew, she says that as early as five she knew she had been born in the wrong body. Bullied at school by her peers, sexually abused by a teacher, and never accepted by society, she says that her life has been full of obstacles that she has had to overcome. “Forty years ago, it was extremely difficult. Gender equality—we did not understand that,” says the 44-year-old. “I had to learn a lot of life lessons. It took me a lot of years to turn those life lessons into power. You have to turn pain into power, and that’s called transformation.”
To be respected, Jakrajutatip realised that she needed to be successful. This started at school when she took to the stage in a public speaking competition. She excelled and went on to do more competitions, later leading her school team to a debating championship broadcast on Thai television. “People just shut up, right after they tried to bully me verbally and physically,” she says of the success that allowed her to show her leadership abilities and stop the attacks.
Jakrajutatip had a goal—to become a television host. She had read an article about American talk show host Oprah Winfrey and learned that Winfrey had been raped at the age of nine before going on to find success on television. She would be Jakrajutatip’s biggest inspiration and even today, when Jakrajutatip boasts seven million followers on Instagram, the only person she follows is Winfrey.
In order to succeed on television, Jakrajutatip wanted to improve her English and so she moved to Sydney, a place where for the first time she found some freedom. She was able to dress the way she wanted to, “as a queer”, though it wouldn’t be until later that she decided to make more permanent changes.
When her time in Australia came to an end, Jakrajutatip returned to Thailand to join her family business—her parents’ video rental store. It was here that she started to think outside the box and forged an opportunity with the BBC—to distribute its documentaries in Thailand. It would prove the beginning of a content empire. From BBC documentaries, Jakrajutatip started distributing content from National Geographic, the History Channel and the Discovery Channel before moving into Japanese and Korean dramas. Later, she would also achieve her dream of having her own talk show, The Andrew Show. By 2017, her company, JKN Global listed on the Thai stock exchange and was valued at 8 billion baht, making Jakrajutatip a Thai billionaire.
“I transformed myself. I transformed my family. I transformed my company. And right now, I am the live example for the whole country of Thailand that you can become better, you can become beautifully confident, you can become successful, even though you are different as a trans woman. There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” says Jakrajutatip, who is also an advocate for gender equality for men and women regardless of birth gender.
Only once she had proved herself successful did Jakrajutatip feel ready to reward herself. She began another transformation—this time with gender reassignment surgery in 2018. “I fulfilled my duty. I did what I had to do. I became successful before I rewarded myself. And I would not change anything. I had to be successful first before becoming myself so that I could become a live example to everyone that anything is possible when you believe in yourself, and that it’s never too late to become who you are,” she says.
Her journey would not end there. From Thailand, Jakrajutatip wanted to go global. And when the chance to acquire Miss Universe arose, she says, “I saw this as an opportunity to enhance my personal life mission: to live, to teach and to inspire people. Having the Miss Universe organisation is having a new paradigm of a global women’s empowerment platform.
“We need iconic women who people can look up to. The Miss Universe organisation would love to encourage the winner to become the iconic woman. Beauty and brains must be combined together,” adds Jakrajutatip, who does not see the competition as entertainment.
“I don’t want to objectify women,” she says. “This competition is about being the iconic woman. It’s about leadership. And that would be the award I give out this year.”
At a ceremony in December in Thailand, Jakrajutatip unveiled the new crown for the Miss Universe competition, which has been named “Force for Good”. “You have to be good. You have to strive to be the best version of yourself,” she said on stage at the event.
At the crowning of Miss Universe 2022 in New Orleans in January 2023, the top three contestants were asked how they would demonstrate that Miss Universe is an empowering and progressive organisation. Gabriel, the 2022 winner who had been crowned Miss USA in October, said, “I would use it to be a transformational leader. As a passionate designer, I’ve been sewing for 13 years. I use fashion as a force for good. In my industry, I’m cutting down on pollution through recycled materials when I make my clothing. I teach sewing classes to women that have survived human trafficking and domestic violence. And I say that because it is important to invest in others, invest in our community, and use your unique talent to make a difference. We all have something special and when we plant those seeds to other people in our life, we transform them and we use that as a vehicle for change.”
Professional achievements are just a part of what success means for Jakrajutatip, who has been named the third richest trans woman in the world. Before her gender reassignment, she deposited her sperm in a sperm bank in Los Angeles, and in 2019, she became a mother to two children, both born by surrogate mothers—a son, Andrew and a daughter, Angelica.
She’s also dating someone, but feels no pressure to settle down. “I should enjoy my life. I should enjoy the audition period. I should enjoy the company of a good gentleman. I can decide later on, because I don’t need anything else. I have my own children and I have my business empire.”
What does she hope others can take from her journey? “Never give up. Ask yourself why you were born in this world. Use your personality to meet the true calling of your soul and offer your service to the world so you can live a meaningful life. You can be successful no matter who you are and who you want to become. You just need to sit down and ask yourself who you want to be. And once you have that goal or objective in life, you never give up.”
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