Tag: unwomen40womenleaders

CEO and founder of Body Shop Indonesia

Suzy Hutomo introduced the concept of ethical business in Indonesia almost three decades ago together with the Body Shop. A staunch environmentalist and supporter of women’s rights, Suzy’s influential leadership paved the way for a generation of impactful and responsible ventures.

“I have never felt like I’m different from men. Very often I think I’m better,” Suzy cheekily joked. Perhaps just a little. Suzy radiated the kind of calm confidence and vigour expected from someone who has built a brand as prestigious as hers from the ground up. Suzy graduated from National University of Singapore in 1981 and then the Fashion Institute of Technology three years after. In 1992, together with her husband, Suzy founded Body Shop Indonesia. It was soon decided that she would be responsible for the operations. 

Suzy was born into a family responsible for the founding of a popular retail chain in Indonesia. Her late father was a respected entrepreneur. But Suzy refused to be under anyone’s shadow. She dropped her last name and created her own path. Adopting Body Shop’s founder Anna Rodrick’s spirit for social and environmental justice, Suzy ensured there was very little power distance within her organisation from day one. Citing her education abroad, Suzy said she developed little appetite for power or status. “One of the things that was hard for me when I came back was how important status was in Indonesia, within or outside an organisation. I am not used to that,” she reflected. 

At her enterprise, women are given opportunities and encouraged to advance their career. There are no late-night meetings. Got a sick child? Stay at home. It goes without saying that lactation rooms are widely available and men who make inappropriate comments have no place in the enterprise.

What Suzy observed in her thirty years of leading a woman-focused firm was that women who rise from the bottom tend to hit the walls when they have to get married and have children. “It takes a very confident woman to tell the husband to share the family duties and to ask him  to support their career and aspirations,” she said.

“Women come with a lot of preconceptions about what’s right and not right for them, what and how they should be and so on, which makes it harder for women to realise their full potential,” she noted.

Suzy is very much in tune with the happenings around her, whether by supporting campaigns of body positivity or raising awareness with National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan).

Suzy is a board member of the Bali-based foundation Kopernik, which runs a program that takes care of women’s health and the environment in Flores, Indonesia. 

Beyond her own business, Suzy enjoys coaching other women entrepreneurs. Through various programs – most notably Femina’s workshop for women-owned SMEs and Endeavour Indonesia’s mentorship – Suzy pushes for women to be more courageous.

To expand the gender lens ecosystem, Suzy believes there should be more spaces and communities for women to gather, talk and share experiences. She also noted the importance of recognising specific challenges and needs within different groups of women. 

For example, women in SMEs often need access to high level mentorship in addition to training on basic skills, such as how to do taxes, marketing and reaching the target market. Meanwhile, women running tech startups often require support related to personal motivations and ambitions.

Suzy would like for women to be stronger, more ambitious and more persistent in pursuing their dreams. As today she feels like there are role models women can look up to. “Indonesian women have a lot of strength. We see women who are making a mark, like our women ministers Susi Pudjiastuti, Sri Mulyani, and Retno Marsudi, who are really capable women. We have more and more role models for women.” She wishes to see women’s potentials to be cultivated, not tucked away and hidden from sight.

Co-founder of The Golden Space Indonesia, Managing Director of The Golden Space Global Capital, and Impact Angel Investor

Stephanie is an unconventional leader, award-winning entrepreneur, author and angel investor who is on a mission to rebalance the world through business, meditation and investing.

“As a leader, my goal is not to become a leader in the future, but just to generate more self-leaders,” Stephanie quips. Always focusing on the vision rather than micromanaging, Stephanie loves working with people who can live outside of the box.

Stephanie started her first venture virtually straight after university. When Stephanie graduated, the plan was to help her father run his consulting enterprise. However, a family problem unexpectedly emerged and forced her to change course, from running her father’s consulting enterprise to nothing. From this need to survive, the furniture firm Arbor & Troy was born. 

Seven years later, the firm turned out to do extremely well. Stephanie was at the height of her career and making lists such as Fortune’s 40 Under 40. Despite all the success, Stephanie found herself falling into a deep depression.

Stephanie was 24 years old when she started a furniture enterprise. “The foundation (of) making the (first) enterprise was anger, sadness, so that carried on the depression.”

The event prompted Stephanie to take a step back. She joined a retreat program, took up meditation and sold the high-performing Arbor & Troy to a private equity firm. She then launched a new business – the meditation space called The Golden Space.

As Stephanie further developed her interests, she realized that she wanted to create more impact through investing. Just as meditation rebalances one’s energy, Stephanie wants to rebalance the way people spend their money.

“I kept thinking of the concept of profit and purpose. At the time, I didn’t know I was describing social enterprise, and that the way I wanted to change how money was being used was called impact investment,” Stephanie says.

Her first investment was in Kitabisa.com – a fundraising website channeling donations to social causes – made through ANGIN. Since then, Stephanie has invested in several social enterprises driving impact in various sectors.

Last year, her private impact investment holding enterprise The Golden Space Global Capital held an impact-oriented startup challenge that is mostly participated in by women, GAIA Impact Challenge (GIC). The program aimed to support and accelerate early-stage enterprises with a focus on marine life, women and children, and plants and animals.

Stephanie is also well-known as a committee member of  Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Indonesia, a global business network of 10,000+ leading entrepreneurs in more than 143 chapters and 46 countries. EO Indonesia has one of the highest numbers of women entrepreneurs across all chapters globally.

While Stephanie does not believe in limiting her investment strategy based on gender, she considers investment opportunities that solve gender inequality problems in certain areas, as she sees fit.

Stephanie says she prefers to invest in entrepreneurs, regardless of gender, who have real motivation that is often derived from their “deepest struggles”.

Stephanie would like to see more entrepreneurs demonstrating their understanding of  gender equality problems, and not just painting women as victims for self-interest or profits.

“Don’t invest just because it’s owned by women or run by a team of women. Look at what is the impact in certain areas because yes there are women who are suffering and oppressed, if that’s in line with what you believe in. It has to align with your values.”

Director of Platform Usaha Sosial (PLUS)

While social enterprises have no legal status in Indonesia (they are usually registered as traditional enterprises or foundations), impact-driven entrepreneurs have mushroomed all across Indonesia. Nurturing and supporting this fast-growing ecosystem throughout the Indonesian archipelago is the challenge Stephanie has taken up with PLUS, the country’s first digital platform dedicated to fostering a (gender) diverse social entrepreneurship landscape. 

“What am I doing with my life?” asked Stephanie herself when she faced her quarter-life crisis. Stephanie had a golden and sheltered childhood, growing up in Jakarta and in Singapore, before studying Interior Design in California. She had worked for five-star hotels or affluent home-owners in Jakarta, and even launched her own firm. But at 27, she felt that designing luxurious interiors would not give her the purpose she looked for in life. One year later, she landed a job at a Christian nonprofit in Indonesia building affordable homes for low-income populations, switching her skills from luxurious housing to building and repairing shelters and homes. This shift to the “impact world” was a critical turn in her life, bringing her to the other side of the social spectrum. Entering this Indonesian social sector that was still small but growing, she was soon inspired by other women like Veronica Colondam, who encouraged her to fully embrace this new journey of hers and to take over the direction of PLUS or Platform Usaha Social (“Social Enterprises’ Platform”). 

PLUS does not directly invest in social entrepreneurs, but it connects them with other like-minded entrepreneurs, investors and mentors, whilst providing on-demand capacity building classes and training to help social businesses to scale their project in a viable manner. PLUS does not apply any specific membership criteria to the network, but women entrepreneurs represent half of the 300 active registered founders on the platform. Contrasting with other early-stage enterprises’ ecosystems, like fast-growth tech startups, Stephanie noticed a “natural preference” amongst investors for women-led social businesses. “Women owners are often perceived as being more reliable, more inclined to social values. And the social sector is very ‘caring’” in general”, Stephanie describes. A women-friendly environment does not in itself stop gender-based cultural stereotypes from emerging. 

Stephanie focuses now her efforts on bringing more men on board and moving beyond the ‘women-for-women investing’ discourses. “My assumption is that women are generally more aware of the troubles other women are facing, while men are still trying to understand”, she reckons. When she first heard about gender lens investing, the conversation just resonated within her female circles. She understands now that gender lens investing has a deeper meaning. It is not just about having a women-sensitive fibre, it is about giving equal chances to everyone by making fair, merit-based decisions. As Stephanie puts it, “gender lens investing is not investing in women alone. It is planting the seeds for a fair and more equal future, for everyone around the world. It is investing in the future for everybody”. 

Social enterprises represent a powerful vehicle to disseminate more inclusive and gender-diverse business models. However, bridging the gap between Jakarta’s vibrant and gender-diverse community of social entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurs in the more remote and rural areas is challenging. Stephanie hopes to decentralize PLUS’ network through local social entrepreneur representatives and to bring the gender equality conversation where it has not yet found a voice.

Assistant Deputy for Professional Institution and Business Participation at Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry (KPPPA)

Yanti uses her role in government to foster stronger partnership with the private sector; boosting the uptake of gender lenses within public institutions, and building the capacity of women living in Indonesia’s rural areas.

Yanti has seen it all. Having dedicated 20 years of her life – two-thirds of her career as a public official – to the Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry (KPPPA), Yanti has grown as a person and as a leader.

“It’s been an interesting experience and a lot of learning for me as I discovered that gender issues are vast, dynamic and always developing,” Yanti says.

The University Padjadjaran law graduate began serving in the government in 1988 when she joined the former Ministry of Information. In 2000, she moved to start a long and fulfilling career empowering women and protecting children.

At first, Yanti was not aware of the extent of discrimination and violence these particular groups faced. As Yanti dug deeper, doubled down on her reading and met with countless senior figures around the world, she discovered the vastness of gender issues and the how they played out in the media, society, politics and economy. While the global women’s rights movement has gained tremendous support in the last two decades, there are still many problems to solve, new and old.  

“Right now, our challenge is to make more people understand that gender is not just about women, but about equality and justice for all,” Yanti says.

KPPPA has been determinedly pushing for applying a gender lens within other ministries through what it calls gender-responsive planning and budgeting (PPRG) as part of its gender mainstreaming strategy.  

“I believe this is what other people might call gender lens investing,” Yanti says.

Essentially, PPRG asks organizations to consider the needs of both men and women of all capabilities in all of their projects, starting at the planning and budgeting stage.

For example, at the ministries offices, more bathrooms catering to women and children should be installed. Daycare services might be added. When designing a lift, the needs of people with disabilities should be met.

First and foremost, PPRG is part of KPPPA’s vision of empowering women to achieve gender equality. “The real output of PPRG should be apparent in what we see (or do not see) in our daily lives. We hope it can be applied in all sectors within all ranks in the government,” Yanti says.

To empower women so they could contribute directly to the economy, KPPPA gives training to those living in rural areas. Modules include financial literacy, how to set up a business, and how to sell products, among other things. 

Previously, the women would attend the workshops at their local village meeting halls. The training has now been moved online due to the COVID19 pandemic. But access to the internet is often a challenge for most women. KPPPA then utilizes its networks of local associations, neighbourhood and community units, and women empowerment organizations to reach the audience.

KPPPA could help GLI investors, context-makers and entrepreneurs scale and amplify their impact. KPPPA plays an important role in educating and pushing other government institutions to apply a gender lens in all their activities.

CEO of AMAAN and Former CEO of BTPN Syariah

A seasoned banker with over two decades of experience investing in financial inclusion of underprivileged women across Indonesia, Ratih breaks misconceptions and has shown exemplary leadership in her industry.

“My father always taught me: love your country – give whatever you can,” Ratih recalls how her sense of nationalism grew.

Her late father, who had been a student soldier during Indonesia’s independence era, influenced Ratih a lot. She was given the freedom to study and to pursue whatever profession she liked, as long as she took full responsibility for her choices. 
So, when Ratih first started her career, climbing the corporate ladder was never her motivation. It was her thirst for learning, and for serving her country.

Bank Danamon was where Ratih got her first taste of microbanking. Like others, Ratih went through the training process. Later, an opportunity came to go abroad and learn more about the business. Ratih was also involved in Danamon Simpan Pinjam – a program providing credit to small shops at traditional markets.

The business swelled in size – a surprise for the industry. “It was a time when there was no incentive whatsoever to do microbanking, but it contributed so much to the bank,” Ratih said.


After Ratih joined BTPN in 2009, she had the chance to further expand her knowledge into mini micro banking (ticket size starts from IDR 1 million). Her rigorous learning and studying led her to one proven and sizable business model: investing in women.

Ratih broke common perception that poor women were unbankable and proposed to change the bank institution itself. She created systems, products, and infrastructure specifically tailored to serve underprivileged women in rural areas. Overall, Ratih brought unconventional and unorthodox measures to BTPN and changed the way bankers think about the segment.

Ratih hired nearly all women employees to serve their 100% women customers. These employees are mostly high-school graduates who can speak the local language of BTPN’s customers. By hiring these very young, local women, Ratih again empowered them by giving them opportunities to work at a big bank.

“It was a combination between how to effectively reach our customers, who are all women, and also an operation that had to make sense. The result was a unique entity composed of 100% women customers and 100 women, high school-graduated field officers,” she says. 

Ratih expanded BTPN’s microbanking business and rebranded it into BTPN Syariah. The unit was later spun off in 2014 and went public in 2018. What started as a three-people project ended up as a financial respected bank employing 12,000 staff by the time she left. BTPN Syariah provided financing to over 5 million underprivileged families in 2019. At the end of that year, BTPN Syariah’s market capitalization was recorded at over USD 2 billion, with a total asset of IDR 15.4 trillion, net profit after tax of IDR 1.4 trillion, ample liquid assets of IDR 5.6 trillion and strong capital adequacy ratio of 44%. 

“They were unbankable because they do not have collaterals, financial records nor legal documentation, we bankers had set up products and infrastructure that did not match with them. Must we wait for them to change, for another 50-70 years, and wait for them to have all these documents, or must we change?”



Ratih believes that to expand the space further, each venture has to commercially make sense for every stakeholder. Only through business can professional talents, good governance, right investors, clear profitability path can be attracted. This will empower programs at the bottom of the pyramid and make them sustainable. She also recommends using simple metrics to ensure the venture is moving in the right direction in terms of creating social impact.

Ratih’s next venture will involve bringing more underprivileged families out of poverty, once again demonstrating how to invest in women. She wants to focus on issues such as improving women capacity beyond lending, and hopes to contribute to that space somehow.

Partner at Connecting Founders

With an impressive 15-year track record in investing in emerging markets, Patricia now dedicates herself full-time to representing female business founders and giving the female economy its fair share in Southeast Asia. 

If you type “successful entrepreneur” on your web browser, the odds are high that more images of men in suits than women. Over the 15 years Patricia had been working in finance, this is also how she had pictured the typical high-potential founder she would bet on. For years, it never occurred to her that there was something abnormal about it. Until, finally, it did. 

When Patricia was preparing to enter college in 1998, Indonesia was suffering its worst financial crisis. This prompted her to study economics, specializing in emerging markets. When she began her career as an Associate at Lehman Brothers, women were well represented at analyst-associate levels, the entry level in financial firms. But as she worked her way up to more senior positions, the ranks of women peers dwindled around her. “The attrition in the investment world is quite high for women” Patricia comments. And yet, she never made the link between being the quasi absence of women at investment committees, and the overwhelming representation of men founders on the cap table. “I had always evolved in a male-dominated environment, so I guess I just developed the same biases”, she admits. 

Her “shift” to gender lens investing came when Patricia took a sabbatical year. Having more time to interact with female entrepreneurs, she went deeper into the matter and some figures acted as bell-ringers. Only 3% of the total venture capital dollars went to women-led enterprises. She started to connect these mind-boggling facts with her own experience. She had indeed, barely met any other women investors with decision-making power. She racked her brains to remember the last time she had seen a woman founder pitching her enterprise. And when she did, she realized that the stereotype of a successful entrepreneur as an obstinate masculine startupper had clouded her investment decisions too. 

Patricia is now a Partner at Connecting Founders, a capital advisory firm aiming to represent women founders across Southeast Asia, to support them in raising capital and getting access to networks of peer entrepreneurs and like-minded investors. Connecting Founders tries to level the playing field by spotlighting those ingrained and unconscious biases, to help investors to look at the true value of the business and bridging the language gap.

For Patricia, interpersonal networks are essential supportive systems in an entrepreneur’s fundraising journey. Networking goes beyond attending a few formal business meetings, that often give you no more than a pile of irrelevant business cards. For early-stage entrepreneurs, peer-to-peer communities can be real game-changers, acting as breeding-grounds for new ideas and access to valuable contacts or information. But these networks have been largely built around a “boys club culture” from which women feel mostly excluded. This is precisely how Connecting Founders primarily started, as a business platform able to mentor and network boot-strapped female founders. To people asking why Connecting Founders exclusively focuses on women, Patricia answers: “we are basically trying to fill an underserved market. But as the gender gap closes, we hope to support more growth-stage female founders and move beyond just securing their initial capital”. 

Patricia has travelled the road from gender-blind finance to gender-smart investing and mentoring. She is optimistic about the growing awareness among other investors. The “women in tech” movement has been a breakthrough, helping a lot of people to associate high-growth sectors with female leaders. Male investors are increasingly curious about the topic, sometimes more than their female peers. According to Patricia, a reason why women of her generation are often more reluctant to endorse the “women empowerment” movement, is because they had thought for a long time that to prove their worth in a male-dominated world, they had to become one of the guys. “At first, I did not want to believe myself that there was a gender issue. Because it would mean that I would be in it too” explains Patricia. For women with career aspirations, acknowledging to be part of a minority is tantamount to being branded as an outsider or a privileged, while they just want to be treated on an equal footing.

Community Development Manager at DANA Indonesia and Former CEO of Satu Tampa

Patrice is building the startup ecosystem in Eastern Indonesia, whilst leveling the field for women workers and entrepreneurs outside Jakarta. The native Manadonese is a devoted advocate of collaboration as a way to solve problems.

“I’ve been there, done that. It makes me have empathy,” Patrice said.

Patrice comes from a humble family. Her parents were mid-level government officials who lived in a small town. To get extra income in college, she worked as a restaurant waitress, door-to-door sales, and as a Sales Promotion Girl (SPG).

These experiences taught her the values of hard work and humility. But beyond that, it also shaped her views on gender inequality and women’s position in the world.

“I realized a lot of women are really good at sales but if their beauty is gone by old age or whatnot, they won’t be sustainable. So we can’t just rely on our physical looks – we also need to be smart and have that critical thinking,” Patrice said.

After graduating from Universitas Sam Ratulangi, Patrice worked as an event organizer for several years. Putting together events on various topics led Patrice to gain a deeper understanding about her country’s potential. She also picked up some entrepreneurial skills along the way.

After a couple of years of learning, Patrice was motivated to create her first startup. It flopped. But the failure helped her discover her strength and weakness.

“I realized my passion was not competing but more about connecting people – finding what the problem is and the people to solve it within an ecosystem where the right people can cross paths,” Patrice said.

In 2016, Patrice started her own co-working space Satu Tampa, in Manado. Again, it failed. Rather than getting discouraged, Patrice chose to learn from the lesson: “Passion is not enough and your business won’t sustain – you also need money. That’s what I learned: how to get money and make money.”

As time passed, she met more people from both private and public sectors – including ANGIN (see page xx with Benedikta Atika) and KUMPUL (see page xx with Faye Alund). At Kumpul’s Startup Weekend, Patrice learned about creating impactful events for startups.

This enabled Satu Tampa to evolve from a mere coworking space to an ecosystem builder. It started to earn profits. The enterprise began to stabilize, and consequently able to hire more staff.

Today, the majority of Satu Tampa’s six-people team are women. It has been a conscious decision aimed at giving more women opportunities. When doing events, Patrice likes to invite more female speakers than male ones.

For Patrice, using a gender lens means creating an ignition for women to participate more in the ecosystem. It begins with giving women the opportunities and the stage.

From her experience in Manado, Patrice thinks that women tend to be more active and involved in communities and organizations. This characteristic opens up a lot more ways to cultivate and develop women’s potentials.

“It’s time to scale up and stop playing small,” Patrice said, believing there are huge opportunities waiting to be discovered by going online.

“Right now women are closer to small industries, but here, we are trying to make it so women are up-to-date with the latest technologies. We are trying to get more women in tech,” she added. 


To strengthen GLI, Patrice emphasizes the importance of networking and sisterhood. “If women can’t defend other women, then who will? I always say, If you have a hundred million, give eighty to the women and the rest to the men. Use our own network.”

But supporting women does not mean giving resources to people who do not deserve it. “No pity grants,” Patrice said. Supporting women means giving them time and energy, giving them challenges and opportunities to grow. It means really building their capacity, whether by following up on training given or competitions.

President Director of Bank OCBC NISP

With 30  years of experience in the private banking industry, Parwati Surjaudaja has been leading Bank OCBC NISP, one of the oldest banks in Indonesia focusing on small and medium enterprises and retail banking , into becoming a model of good corporate governance. She is now making it a gender bond pioneer in Indonesia. 

‘No time to lose’ is a mantra that has followed and driven Parwati from the moment she finished high school and embarked on her career. Her initial dreams of becoming a paediatrician were set aside when she learnt her father had only three years left to live. She decided to take a fast-track to graduation and opted for Accounting and Finance, instead of the long studies a medical career would require. She successfully wrapped up a Bachelor’s degree with honors and her MBA in the United-States, before quickly returning to her family in Indonesia. From her parents, she inherited the value that nothing in life is impossible. She worked her way up to the top leadership position of the now Bank OCBC NISP she first joined in 1990, while becoming a mother of four. “My father not only taught me to never give up easily when you face difficulties, but also to keep you excited once you overcome these challenges, to move to an even higher level. It is like passing a school exam. You get ready to step into the next grade” Parwati illustrates. 

Parwati describes motherhood as her most valuable career and personal development asset. “My children are the ones who pushed me out of my comfort zone to pursue challenging roles. When I was offered to become the President Director of Bank OCBC NISP in 2008, they encouraged me to embrace this opportunity. Their never-ending support motivated me to be both a better mom and a career woman” she says. 

Since Parwati took Bank OCBC NISP’s leadership, it has been awarded as “the most trusted enterprise” in Indonesia for eight times in a row, also becoming a pioneer publicly-listed bank in sustainable finance. It is no wonder that it was elected by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group,  early March 2020, as the most suitable partner to issue the first privately-placed gender bonds in Indonesia. The US$ 200 million of investment it secured from the IFC is part of the bank’s Sustainable Bond Program, which includes now green and gender bonds. As such, Bank OCBC NISP approaches gender through the more comprehensive lens of sustainable development applied to private finance. 

From her 30 years in the financial industry, Parwati knows however that trust is something you have to earn, meaning fulfilling your promises to your stakeholders. In the field of gender bonds, Bank OCBC NISP aims to develop a comprehensive reference guide to screen, identify and manage social impacts for any eligible projects. This may involve third party gender specialists, such as the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) who backs the initiative. To her, it is crucial to develop a targeted approach for women SMEs and to ensure a rigorous reviewing process, to align not only with the IFC’s global gender bond standards, but also with the Indonesian government’s development goals to reduce the gender gap. “We didn’t wait for a financing opportunity to actualize gender equality in our industry. We have engaged in the gender bond program, not because the IFC opened new special funds for that, but because we believe in it and it is aligned with our enterprise’s values”, recalls Parwati. 

Women Small and Medium Enterprises (WSMEs) play a central role in the nation’s economy, with women owning 50% of small businesses and 34% of medium enterprises. Yet, according to the IFC, about 40% of WSMEs in the country are financially constrained. “As a financial institution, we need to offer alternatives to help women meet their collateral requirement, since immovable collaterals are frequently registered under the husband or father’s name” says Parwati. For Parwati however, one of the major setbacks in the current society is the fact that women are still trapped within the multiple social roles they have to endorse. “More capacity-building initiatives are needed in the areas of self-esteem, time management, or other soft and hard skills, to help women entrepreneurs better equip themselves to face the business world” she suggests. 

Parwati triggered ‘day one’ for private-sector gender bonds in Indonesia, gearing up the GLI conversation to provide bold and large-scale funding capacities. She is bringing forth a new tool that could connect international financial institutions with small and medium Indonesian women-led businesses. 

To maintain the long-term momentum and effectiveness of this ground-breaking project top-down initiatives must work in concert with capacity-building to embolden women entrepreneurs at every level of society. For well-minded Startup Assistance Organisations and influencers, this is the moment to step in and ensure the vertical integration of the GLI funding chain.

CEO of PT Blue Bird Tbk and Angel Investor

Noni has learnt to stand out in a room full of suits. In addition to being CEO in a male-dominated industry, she is also a gender-aware angel investor and business mentor, determined to support more women who sit on the rear passenger seats to start taking the wheel.

Noni is not just driving the car, she is running an empire of them. President-Director of Blue Bird Group, Indonesia’s largest taxi operator, Noni oversees a fleet of 30,000 cabs across the country and the entire group’s land-transport portfolio, ranging from limousine and car rental to charter bus services. Blue Bird was founded almost 50 years ago by her grandmother, in the family’s garage in Jakarta, after Noni’s grandfather passed away. Noni was 3 years old at the time. Her grandmother sought ways to supplement her income and seized the opportunity of new taxi licensing openings. Noni grew up in the middle of car workshops, helping around as a child and working part-time for the family business during high school holidays. 

Noni later studied industrial engineering in Newcastle to grasp the operational aspects of the family’s industry. Being one of only four girls in a class of 180, made her realise that she belonged to a minority in this field. When she later completed her studies with a MBA in finance and marketing, she realised her life strategy from there on: Marketing 101, or how to use differentiation as a powerful competitive tool. BlueBird’s marketing approach truly stands out from the stereotyped automotive industry standards, avoiding the placement of women as glamorous accessories. Instead, the BlueBird website features men in batik shirts. But you will find women at the board of directors. 

In another male-dominated organisation of chief executives, she and her female peers, decided to give their fellow women a hand up. “We felt privileged and we thought it was our duty to trickle economic opportunities down to other women”. A few months later, they founded the first Indonesian “she-to-she” investment fund through ANGIN, providing early-stage financing to 15 women-led or owned businesses. 

Noni understood early on that fixing the gender imbalance would require more than investing in women entrepreneurs. Over the last 20 years, she has filtered her entire enterprise through the gender lens, coming up with new solutions where the gaps have stood out to her. In 2002 she created a philanthropic arm, Bluebird Peduli, and discovered that only a few girls benefited from the scholarship program provided to their employees’ children. She urged the team to boost outreach efforts in the families and soon managed to establish gender parity. “We didn’t apply any quotas. We simply asked parents to give equal opportunities to their children”, she explains. Sometimes, you just need to unbox people’s thinking. 

However, social biases are not always that easy to break down. Noni is committed to have more women joining the ranks of BlueBird’s drivers. Not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it makes great business sense too. A study showed that female passengers – half of their customer-base – felt more secure when taking a ride with a woman behind the wheel. At the same time, the profession should be in theory attractive to women, offering flexible working hours and higher income than clerical jobs they are usually directed at. Male drivers receive incentives if they recommend female candidates. But transforming culturally-established gender roles take time.

Meanwhile, Noni is bringing economic empowerment right to women’s doorsteps. In 2014, she launched Kartini Bluebird, named after Indonesia’s most famous feminist, to provide home-based vocational training to the wives of Bluebird’s employees. The program offers sewing, baking or catering, to help women launch their own business and earn additional income. As of today, Bluebird Kartini has already supported up to 40,000 women.

Actress, Singer, Lawyer

Co-founder of Sisters Advocacy

Mikha is a public figure who does not shy away from using her platform to campaign for gender equality, health and education. As an entrepreneur, Mikha is on her way to build a women-run empire in Indonesia.

Mikha is many things – actress, singer, lawyer, and a businesswoman. Not only does Mikha make sure that everything she does is her own choice, it has to be something that she truly enjoys.

“My late mother instilled in my mind to be independent, and that I can do whatever I set my mind to. That is just how I grew up,” Mikha says. On that influence and legacy, Mikha strives to be the woman she always portrays her mother to be.

Mikha started to work as a model in 2008 when she was only 13 years old before kicking off a career in acting and singing. In the years spent in the entertainment industry, Mikha learned to get out of her comfort zone and get to know herself.

“I learned that passion is fluid and that it can grow. You don’t always have to have only one,” Mikha says.

While most of Mikha’s family are artists and musicians, she has also had deep admiration for high-profile female figures who went to law schools. Hillary Clinton, for one.

So, Mikha studied for a business law degree from the prestigious Universitas Pelita Harapan and is now pursuing an International Management master’s degree at her university’s Executive Program with Harvard Business School.

Last year, Mikha and her female cousins, along with an all-female crew of therapists, started a manicure business called Sister’s Beauty Studio. The services grew. Having had a taste of what entrepreneurship feels like, Mikha decided to start her own legal firm. She then launched Sister’s Advocacy on the International Women’s Day 2020, a legal consultant enterprise specializing in corporate law. As an entrepreneur, Mikha dreams to contribute to her generation’s economy through supporting women-centred enterprises. “Everything shall come from women. In my business, all the investments come from women, and the financial returns will be for women. It’s going to be from women to women,” she adds.

For Mikha, starting a business gives her a whole different experience of learning. She discovers that collaboration, network and humility are the three most important capital other than money.

“It has been a lot of studying and a lot of sharing sessions with much more experienced people,” Mikha says.

In three months, Sisters Advocacy successfully reached its break even point.

Mikha’s commitment to women’s empowerment does not stop at her private ventures. She also campaigns for it. With over six million followers on Instagram, Mikha has quite an influence over the public opinion. Through her huge platform, Mikha wants to show that it’s possible for a woman to play a role outside of the domestic sphere, and that a woman can choose her own life. Mikha often campaigns about cyber bullying, education, and healthy lifestyle.

For Mikha, gender lens investing means investing in women’s legacy. A woman should invest in herself, whether with money, time, efforts, energy or even thoughts.

Mikha also sees herself pooling her capital and money for women-led or women-impacting businesses in the future.  “When I have a healthy cash flow I will definitely invest in things I believe in, which are women empowerment, education and health,” Mikha says. “Like talents, your money is not going to take you anywhere if you don’t share it with other people,” Mikha concludes.