Chaleo Yoovidhya was a Thai businessman and investor, best known as a co-founder of the ‘Red Bull’ brand of energy drinks. Born into a lower-middle-class family, Chaleo grew up in a small village. His parents worked as small-time traders of fruits. Chaleo initially worked with his parents and then moved to the big city of Bangkok to start something of his own. Following this, he worked as a pharmaceutical salesman with his elder brother. In the early 1960s, he started his own small pharmaceutical company, ‘TC Pharmaceuticals.’ He developed and introduced an energy drink in 1976. It was liked by an Austrian salesman named Dietrich Mateschitz, who worked as a salesman for a German company. He approached Chaleo for a partnership in the mid-1980s. The drink, which was named ‘Red Bull,’ was exported for the first time in 1987. They began mass production of the beverage, with Chaleo providing the recipe and Dietrich handling the marketing decisions. Soon, the sales boosted nationally and internationally. ‘TC Pharmaceuticals’ now controls the production of many other energy drinks in Thailand. When Chaleo died in March 2012, he was the third-richest person in Thailand.
