A remarkable woman finds success selling high-quality watches - and good food!

After 16 years of running a high-end watch boutique, Yuki Srikarnchana, co-founder and managing director of Pendulum Co, is convinced that "passion creates success".

Yuki, who's a restaurateur as well, faced daunting challenges in establishing Thailand's first luxury-watch boutique.

"To begin with, there was the import tax," she explains, "which is higher than in Singapore and Hong Kong. Our costs were higher, but we wanted to offer reasonable prices to our clients," she says.

"We gradually learned how to build good relations with our customers. We offer not only genuine and high-quality timepieces, but professional sales service, and often that's not just about buying and selling. Almost 90 per cent of our clients are Thai, so ensuring good service contributes to our strong local foundation.

"I'm very impressed with our customers these days," Yuki adds. "Thanks to the Internet, sometimes they know more about the watches than we do!"

Pendulum offers a balanced assortment of about a dozen internationally known brands with international guarantees. "We've carefully selected brands that have a distinctive character for different lifestyles, and with sophisticated decorations like jewellery."

Yuki, 47, says she's just a regular woman, even if she does have a degree in drama from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England.

She's married to Chula-Payap Srikarnchana, the CEO at Asia Insurance, and they have three teenage girls. But Yuki likes to keep things simple, like shopping at the market and cooking for her family. "My specialities are Chinese and Western."

Again, there's more to the story than that. She owns two popular restaurants in the heart of Bangkok - Nara, which has branches at the Erawan Bangkok and MBK Centre, and Oreo at the Erawan and CentralWorld.

And, she says, she enjoys every minute of her working days. That's quite an accomplishment too.