Is todays highflyer. Haslinda Sintesa Group is a billion dollar company, indonesias biggest distributor of consumer goods. It is also into real estate, and and Renewable Energy. At it head is a mother of four who champions gender equality. A woman who uses her role to help other women. Shinta kamdani has become a beacon for indonesian business, inspired by what she calls her journey of national service. Kamdani, thank you for being on high flyers. A pleasure to have you today. The company has its roots three generations ago. Your grandfather started it in 1919 as a rubber plantation, but your dad took over and expanded it into industrial manufacturing and property as well. Then you came along at the tender age of 32 and changed everything. What a gutsy move. Why did you do it . Shinta well, first of all i think when i was exposed with the business since i was young, right, so i have an understanding of how the business is, but at the end of the day, i see the company so identified with him. Right . Ndividual, i find, as an organization, we have to transfer ourselves from a Family Business to more professional management and have a longer perspective in terms of how we want to manage the company, so i came up in 1999 this is interesting, because in the span of 40 years, we do not plan. 19191959, it is 40 years. Extended out without even knowing it. At that time i told my father, i said if you want me to continue in the business, this is how i see my dream is for the business, and i fully understand that he has his own idea of how he wants it to run, but i feel like this is where we should go. Haslinda what did you do . What did you change . I know you changed everything. But what did you do. Shinta first of all i brought in, institutionalize the whole organization. We never have a vision, we never have corporate values. Know, those are the basic most important things. How can an organization dont have as long as everybody follows me and sees how we would do it, right . So i said it was important that we have one in terms of vision and core values our identity, and how we want to do strategic monitoring and holding. That is why we set up a Holding Company to be able to monitor how we can develop our investment. Haslinda what was the response from your father . Was he receptive . How difficult was it to shinta he said, who are you . [laughter] ive built this business. I know what is right for this business. Dont come with your foreign graduate crap. [laughter] shinta i know one thing, i know he doesnt want me to continue, and he realized that he doesnt want to run this forever on his own, that he needs to have that future, and i am part of that future, so he kind of said, lets see whether your weight will work, right . I said we have to focus. We cant just be doing anything. We have different businesses that we are not experts in. Thats why i put the fourth pillar. The consumer Industrial Property and the Renewable Energy sector comes afterwards. Haslinda was this difficult because you are a woman, the the son in a chinese family . Does it make additionally difficult for you . Shinta very. I break the ceiling every day, especially with my parents, my father specifically. As an immigrant of chinese dissent, you always think the boy will run the show. He doesnt have boys. Obviously he is stuck with two girls. I have to prove to him that even if i am a girl that i will be as capable or even more than the boys he never had, so i think this was important for me to prove to him. Dont worry. Dont worry. I can handle this. Haslinda how difficult has the journey been. You talk about breaking ceilings, not only a daughter, but a chinese, which is i minority in indonesia come and nonmuslim in a predominantly muslimdominated country. They call me a triple minority because im a woman, chinese, and the nonmuslim, right . [laughter] shinta fighting even leadership positions are difficult. Were talking about acceptance even in organizations because they think, who are you . You are a minority, but that is what keeps me going. Haslinda what has been the biggest challenge in growing your business . Shinta at the moment the biggest challenge is obviously trying to get that balance of sustainability. Excellence. People believe business is about making money and profitability and to bring the social aspect and environmental aspect has been very difficult. At the end of the day if you dont make a certain volume of your business, then you are not successful. Success is defined a lot of times with numbers, so trying to bring this to other companies is very difficult. Decisionmaking, we will not do this because this is not free. Of course cold is a much more much morese coal is a lucrative business. Why would you not go into a power plant . That is sometimes a decision you have to convince to the people with me, that we are sticking by what we believe is right, and then still proving that you can grow based on it. Shinta it is not about the value. It is not about the numbers. It is the journey about how we were able to get there. Haslinda shinta, sintesa has grown phenomenally, 3500 workers, 17 units. Have you been surprised about how big you have grown . Shinta i guess i have never looked at it in terms of size, right . When we grow, i always look at it how we grow and how we get there. It is not about the value. It is not about the number. So it is not something that i want to reach. Its like a number. It is the journey on how we were able to get there is what is important. Haslinda what has been the momentous occasion for you in that journey . Shinta the first was giving the right identity to who we are. I think what we provide the vision for the company is very important that that vision is shared with all the people, part of the family, the sintesa family. So that was the basic Important Foundation for us, that everybody have the same goal and everybody feels this is who we are come so that is the most important part. Then to actually put the right structure, the right system in how we work, and how everybody can be challenged in terms of achieving that. Haslinda for your business, Consumer Products remain key. You are still the biggest distributor of Consumer Products in all of indonesia. Where do you go from here . Ourta well, i think veryibution business is clear worldwide. We are strong nationwide, logistics, warehousing, but from the consumer side, we are looking at our own product development. That is why we Just Launched because we believe for the future that we want to have our own products as well. We used to have it before, but some were sold, but this is the direction we are moving so we have the right Distribution Channel all the way from the modern market, traditional market, direct selling, multilevel, and now medical. I think the products play a big role. Haslinda these are foreign partners, right . In terms of Consumer Products, you tied up with the big boys in the industry like unilever, johnson johnson, loreal. Why is it important to tap the outside talent and what have you learned from them . Shinta we are one of the first local companies to bring those players into indonesia. Some could not start on their own. They need a partnership. Who are we at that time, right . We need that partnership. We know the locality. We know how to do business in indonesia, but we need that product and technology. We believe the partnership is very synergetic. Local not just there as a partner without any contribution. I think each party is a winwin, so each party bring something to make the cooperation successful. Haslinda what is interesting is you see great future in green energy, Renewable Energy, and that has been quite a focus for the company. Shinta yes, i think green energy has been part of our big picture as a Sustainable Excellence Company look at the resources we have. We have the biggest terminal in indonesia. There are so many opportunities for renewables, and yet we have not even achieved a small part of it. So the target of the government to reach 23 in 2025 is a very ambitious target, but it is something that we definitely have to start moving forward on. The private sector has to support that. Private sector implements it come there is no way they can achieve anything, right . Haslinda even providing energy to indonesians is already a challenge, an archipelago, 17,000 islands, some so remote you cannot get to them. What is the solution here . From yours perspective, how do you help these people . Shinta first of all, there has to be a clear i come from the private sector, ok . So i have been in the corporations. I always believed that yes, government plays a role, plus the private sector and the big corporations need to join hands and collaborate. Why . Because a lot of these remote areas have no access. That is why we start having projects in some of the remote areas that we would not be able there has to be a way that they look at this on the social. Thats how we get there. This is very important. The private sector businesses look at it. This is not just a government job. We need to participate in this. Haslinda earlier you talked about how numbers are not so important so you dont track how big you are, but there must be a vision, 510 years down the road, where do you see sintesa and what would you like to achieve . Shinta im pretty serious when i say i dont look at the number. Iously, wee important. T is porations want to shinta it is important. We do want to double our size in five years. Haslinda do you see yourself as a regional player, global player, at some stage . Shinta at the moment we are a local indonesian company, ok . It does not stop us from oneday going out of indonesia to other countries come about we believe the potential of indonesia is still so great that we are still needed at home. We want to be very careful when we expand ourselves outside. We want to know which area, which sector, and something that we can really feel we have expert to do it in some other countries. And we are looking at vietnam, for example. Even myanmar is open. So perhaps moving in that direction, but at the moment there is still plenty of work. Haslinda four pillars to your businesses. Two have been listed. The other two will be listed as well . Shinta yes. This is why i think governance is so important. Listing is not just about fundraising, but direct governance. Our plan is to have all the four pillars eventually listed, so we now have two, and the other two hopefully can go public as well. We want to remain an Investment Holding as a private company, but we are going in the direction of being a listed company for all our operations. Shinta i started the first fund for women. I call it womantowoman. So this Angel Investment fund, i brought up my Close Friends who are successful entrepreneurs. We invest in woman startups. Haslinda you were born into a family of entrepreneurs. What was it like growing up . Shinta business has always been part of our growing up, during meals come always business talk. My father would take me to the office, so i have always been exposed from a very early age. It is like part of our life. Haslinda you knew from very early on that you wanted to run the business . Shinta i look at him and look up to him and say, oh my gosh, i want to be like him, right, so it gives me motivation. He never said i would eventually run the business, but it does give me a drive to say oneday i maybe would want to run the business. Haslinda at age 13 you went door to door selling books. You did not need to. It was not about additional pocket money. Why did you do it then . Shinta i thought a sales job is the best way of learning how to actually do work the dirty way because you are on the ground and have to make cold calls. You have to convince people to buy something you dont really even know, you know . But that i thought would be a very challenging experience, and i do feel that i can learn a lot from it. Haslinda a lot of people are asking, how do you manage . A mother of four running a thriving company, at the same you are appointed as advisor to the Vice President of indonesia, while promoting initiatives empowering women in the country. How do you manage this and what is the motivation behind everything you do . Shinta woman empowerment is a very big thing in indonesia. One thing i find that although we are promoting gender equality, there are more women being in the workplace. I still find that there are some treatment that sometimes are not really fair. So i find that this is not just about women in the big city. When were talking about women in the smaller places, the culture the woman has to be behind the men, so even though the woman does most of the work, they cannot claim this is their business, so i think they can is me motivation to say, come on, woman, lets go and get this network going, right . [laughter] haslinda so what do you do . Shinta there are two aspects. First of all, i find entrepreneurship is the key factor in the development of growth in indonesia. We just dont have enough jobs, right . I started an Entrepreneurship Organization to provide an ecosystem, training, doing the right way of supporting entrepreneurs, but of course excess financing is a big part, and Financial Institutions does like it financing to people who do not give collateral, right . So, i thought angel investing is the right way to support these startups. I thought maybe i will tackle the woman part first. So i started the first fund for women. I call it womantowoman. So this Angel Investment fund, i brought my Close Friends, successful entrepreneurs, and said lets put in money and we invest in woman startups. But, the second part i did is i find woman in the workplace, many corporations, of course multinationals, are already doing this, gender Equality Program on recruitment, supporting facilities like day care, but a lot of the local companies doesnt understand what this is all about, and many women lost the opportunities to be part of that potential career path because they need a lifework balance. They can accelerate in their careers, but have the balance of being a mother and a wife, so that is how i started the woman empowerment business council, to bring in more companies to look at this program. More in the women in the workplace and start developing what does it mean to be that. Haslinda you talk about microfinancing. Isnt it true the idea came about during the riots where hundreds of companies were destroyed and people were killed and you wanted to give more than just money . Shinta yes. When the 1988 riot happened, there were so many helps and ngo came in. Actually what is the most important is those businesses that were destroyed need to restart their businesses so this is where the idea came for the Microfinance Program for those businesses that were destroyed. That is how i started it. I thought i just dont want to just give money. This is not about charity. I want to do something if they rebuild their business that it will help them on the longer term. Haslinda if you were to stand on a rooftop of a building in jakarta and see all those skyscrapers which you help to build because they use the cement produced by your company, what does that make you feel having contributed to the development of a country and to see where it is today . Shinta i have to say indonesia has many potentials. I give now part of my work for National Services because i believe in my country. And i believe in a lot of the work that needs to be done for my country. We have a long way to go. We have a good leader who has a great vision for indonesia, but unfortunately this is not oneman work. Even with a little thing that i can do, i want to help bring indonesia to the world. We are now on the map. I want to be able to bring and promote indonesia for Foreign Investment to come as well. I want to be part of indonesia that is my home and will always be my home, so despite whatever happens politically, i believe we cant give up and we have to continue working together as a nation to really believe that indonesia will eventually be one of the biggest economies in the world. Haslinda Shinta Kamdani thank you so much for being on high flyers. Shinta thank you very much. Scarlett coming up on bloomberg best, the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. 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