Max Simpson

CEO

Steps Social Enterprise

Max is a neuroinclusion leader, entrepreneur, and CEO working across Southeast Asia to redesign how businesses approach disability inclusion, skills development, and the future of work. Over the last decade, he’s built organisations, research hubs, and partnerships that turn inclusion from a statement into a measurable, practical actions.

As founder of Steps, the Neurodiversity at Work Research Centre (NWRC), and the Thailand Business and Disability Network in partnership with the International Labour Organisation, he works with governments, multinational companies, and international bodies to localise global best practice, develop accredited training, and shape policies that create real opportunities for neurodivergent people and people with disabilities. His focus is simple: make inclusion operational, culturally grounded, and sustainable.

Max supports CEOs and senior leaders to rethink talent, culture, and accountability. From baseline assessments to leadership training, from employer readiness tools to national frameworks, he helps organisations build the structures and behaviours required for disclosure, safety, and representation to genuinely work.

Across Thailand and ASEAN, Max collaborates with ministries, embassies, universities, and business networks to drive systemic change. And at the centre of all of this is a personal commitment: ensuring neurodivergent young people, including his own teenager, can grow up in a world where belonging and opportunity are non-negotiable.

Max is a member of SENIA International’s Board of Advisors, the Parents Inclusive Alliance Board of Directors, sits on the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand Inclusion Committee, and the British Chamber of Commerce’s DEI Working Group. He has been recognised with a Meaningful Business 100 leadership award (2024), the Human Rights Award from the Thai Ministry of Justice (2023), and as one of 50 young leaders shaping Asia by Asia Tatler (2020).

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