Anne Jakrajutatip on modernising Miss Universe and empowering women

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…