Today she is a high flyer. It is a billion dollar company. Indonesias biggest contributor of consumer goods. It is also in industrials and Renewable Energy. She is a mother of four who champions gender equality, a woman who uses her own wealth to help other women. She has become a beacon for indonesian business, inspired by what she calls the hegemony of National Service. Thank you so much for being on highflyers. A pleasure to have you with us today. The Company Started three generations ago. Your grandfather started in 1919. Your dad took over, expanded it into industrial manufacturing and property. Andthen you came along changed everything. What a gutsy move. Why did you do this . I was exposed with the business since i was young so i had an understanding of how the business is. Day, ive seenhe the company so identified with him as an individual. I find as an organization, we have to transfer ourselves from a Family Business to more special management professional management and have a longer perspective in terms of how we want to manage the company. In 1999. This is interesting. All in the span of 14 years. 1959, when my father started, and i started in 1999. Anned outyears sp without even knowing it. I said to my father, if you want me to be c. E. O. , this is how i see my dream for the business. I said i would fully understand he has his own mind on how he wants it run, but i feel like this is where we should go. What did you change, what did you do . Infirst of all, i brought the institutionalize of the whole organization. Thing isimportant that we have one vision, a core and how we want to operate. That is why we set up the Holding Company to be able to monitor how we can monitor our investment. What was the response from your father . Said, who are you . I know what is right for this business. Crap. Come up with your he not think it is important. I know one thing. I know he does want me to continue. He realizes he does not want to run this forever on his own, that he needs to have that future. And im part of that future. He kind of sad, lets see how well your way will work. We cant just be doing anything. We have different businesses that we are not experts in. Thats why i put the fourth pillar. It is very important. The consumer Industrial Property and the Renewable Energy sector comes afterwards. Haslinda was this difficult because you are a woman, the daughter, not 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 descent 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 being a, not only about daughter, but you are also chinese which is minority in indonesia, and nonmuslim in a predominantly muslim country. They call me a triple minority because im a woman, chinese, and nonmuslim, right . I think fighting even leadership positions are difficult. We are not talking about just business. We are 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 sustainable excellence. People believe business is about making money and profitability and to bring the social aspect and the environment 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 green. Of course, coal is a much more 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 and how we were able to get there. Haslinda shinta, sintesa has grown phenomenally, 3500 workers, 17 units. 1. 5 billion annual revenue. Have you been surprised about how big you 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. But it is not about the value. It is not about the number. So it is not something that i want to reach a certain number. It is the journey and how we were able to get there is what is important. Haslinda what has been the momentous occasions for you in that journey . Shinta the first was giving the ul to the we are, 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. 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 . Shinta 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 center for health because we , believe for the future that we want to have our own products as well known out there. 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 traditional market, direct selling, multilevel, and now medical. I think the products play a big role. Haslinda these are foreign partners, right . 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. At that time, Johnson Johnson could not start on their own. They needed a local partner. 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. We are not just there as a local 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 green energy has been part of our big picture as a sustainable excellence company. That is our vision. I really believe in Renewable Energy in indonesia. 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. Government can have targets. But unless the private sector implements it, 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 your perspective, how do you help these people . Shinta first of all, there has to be a clear i come from the private sector, ok . I bring the corporation. I always believed that yes, government plays a role, plus but the private sector and the big corporations need to join hands and collaborate. Why . Because a lot of these remote areas have no access. There is nobody who wants to invest in remote areas. There has to be a way to private sector looks at this as well. That is why we start having Solar Projects in some of the remote areas that we would not be able to get access to electricity. This is very important that the private sector also looks at it. This is not just a government job. We need to participate in it. 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. Profitability 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. But 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. It 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 . Is that the right assumption . Shinta yes. This is why i think the government is very 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 , property and energy, 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 listed companies for all our operations. Shinta i started the first fund for women. I call it womantowoman. 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, 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 one day, i would want to run the business. Haslinda at age 13, you went doortodoor 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 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 even really 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. 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. This is not just about women in the big city. We are 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 that gives me motivation to say, come on, woman, lets go and get this network going, right . Haslinda so what do you do . Shinta there are two aspects. First of all, i find entrepreneurship is the key important factor in the development of growth in indonesia. We do not have enough jobs right . , i started an Entrepreneurship Organization to provide an ecosystem, training, doing the right way of supporting entrepreneurs. But of course, financing is a big part, and Financial Institutions do not give financing to people who do not give collateral, right . I thought angel investing is the right way to support these startups. I thought maybe i will tackle the woman part first. I started the first fund for women. I call it womantowoman. These Angel Investment funds, 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 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 who helped. Actually what is the most important is a lot of 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 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 helped 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 Service 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 revision on where to bring 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 for investment. 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. It has been such a pleasure. Shinta thank you very much. Is this a phone . Or a little internet machine . 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