Tag: unwomen40womenleaders

Executive director of Plan International Indonesia Foundation (YPII)

Dini Widiastuti has dedicated her life work towards social justice and the development of marginalized communities for over 20 years. Currently serving as the executive director of Plan International Indonesia Foundation (YPII), Dini’s extensive experience in economic development projects in Asia has made her stand out.

As a young girl, Dini wanted to go out and see the world. She knew she would do well in the kind of work related to people, and that money would always be the last in her list of  motivations. 

Her father was a modest civil servant and a lecturer. He invested himself in his work and his students, which showed Dini how to care about others. At night, they would have dining table discussions about social issues and corruption in Indonesia. Naturally, Dini got involved in activism and student organisations early on. 

After graduating high school, Dini applied for a seat at an international affairs program. She got rejected. 

“I want people to know that as we go along, it’s not always success,” Dini said. 

Eventually, she was accepted to study economics at University of Indonesia. To satisfy her curiosity in economics and politics further, she took a masters degree in Southeast Asian studies at University of London. 

Dini went on to work with numerous non-profit organizations, such as Indonesia Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (IBCWE), Oxfam, CAFOD, and Article 19, among others. In her long career, she has taken on different roles and worked with civil society organisations in post-conflict zones in Afghanistan, Nepal, and East Timor.

It wasn’t until 2012 when Dini joined Oxfam as Economic Justice Lead that she started to adopt a gender lens in her work. 
She began to see the deeper realities of women and girls around the world. 

“Before that, I was gender-blind. I took things for granted. For example, I didn’t think too much about girls who are underage and working in bars or restaurants. I saw the injustice caused by gender in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, but didn’t really use gender terms [to explain that] their experience as women and girls is different to men and boys,” Dini said. 

At Oxfam, she worked with women micro-entrepreneurs, including women in Papua and Sulawesi who sold sweet potatoes and made snacks from seaweed – investing in their education and self/group development.

This eye-opening role helped her look at discrimination and disrespect that she has had to face in her own daily life, albeit relatively ‘small’ by comparison and frequently normalized by society. Dini said she was lucky to have an equal, sharing partnership, and to get help from household assistants or family members whenever needed. 

“Having a partner who is supportive of your career and ambitions is very important,” Dini said. “For my husband, it’s about being equal as a human being and being fair as a human. Without gender equality, there wouldn’t be human rights.”


Dini’s current role at Plan Indonesia allows her to invest even earlier in women entrepreneurs’ development. The organisation helps young girls develop their self-confidence and soft skills, such as management and understanding of personal finance. 

“We work to support the developments of young women entrepreneurs in the very beginning up to the initial steps in the commercial ladder,” Dini explained.

For her, gender lens investing is first about “seeing women”. Then, it’s about understanding women and their unique situations, aspirations and ambitions. From this understanding will opportunities come.

Dini believes it is highly important to recognize women in the value chain. Often, women are invisible in male-dominated sectors, such as fishing and agriculture. These women are only identified as “helping out” their husbands while their work goes uncounted and unvalued.

The cacao industry is another example. Women play an important role in sorting out the good seeds. Tapping this strength and ability would allow producers to ensure the quality of the plants and the cacao beans later on. This is the value that often goes missing in the interpretation of women’s importance in the value chain, she said.

To expand the GLI ecosystem, Dini says investors and NGOs need to build mutual understanding: for example, by bridging languages between the two worlds. “How to then give value to the persons (beneficiaries) we want to engage, I think that’s the trick,” Dini says.

Director and Senior Anchor/Journalist at CNN Indonesia

A pioneering journalist and renowned Indonesian TV broadcaster, Desi believes gender equality must start with education. Only then can society level the playing field and open up equal economic opportunities for all.

Desi was born in Bandung to a family of Minang descent, an Indonesian ethnic group famous for having matrilineal culture. According to Minang traditions, only women in the family could inherit and hold lands. Desi grew up with strong women around her – a mother and two older sisters.

“I was born with the idea that women are the ones who do the stuff. If there’s something that needs fixing, or painted, my mom was the one who did everything around the house,” Desi says.

The University of Sussex graduate started her television career as a reporter, anchor and producer with Indonesia’s first commercial television channel and pioneered the country’s leading prime time news programme ‘Seputar Indonesia’.” In the 1990s, Desi produced various daily news shows and created the country’s first English language news programme.

From the period of 1991-1997, Desi was part of the Presidential press corps, travelling with Indonesia’s President Soeharto on his state visits to cover international summits.  She interviewed prominent heads of state such as Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, Baroness Thatcher and Henry Kissinger.

Desi took a break from TV journalism to found a dotcom enterprise, Astaga! – Indonesia’s first internet portal and news and information website. She later returned to her career in TV to join the national channel Metro TV. There, she produced and hosted the prime time economic talk show “Economic Challenges”, interviewing Bill Gates and former Prime Minister Tony Blair, among others.

As a young female journalist, Desi had her share of being looked down upon and receiving comments that made her feel uncomfortable. But through her persistent professionalism, Desi proved many people wrong. Today, Desi is a Director and Senior Anchor with CNN Indonesia. Having seen some of the most celebrated lives on earth, Desi observes a shift in how the world perceives a woman’s leadership.

“What we’ve seen before is that if you want to be assertive and you’re a woman, you become more masculine as a leader. But what we are seeing today, some of the women leaders don’t have to conform to that. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinta Arden, for example, is a woman and mother, and she doesn’t have to employ masculine tactics. So, that’s also in our [Minang] culture,” Desi says. 


Having made herself a household name in Indonesian journalism, Desi began to expand her reach through investing.

The beginning of Desi’s investing journey was simple: she likes eating chocolate. That led her to invest in Krakakoa, a woman-led “farmer-to-bar” social enterprise working directly with smallholder cocoa farmers to produce chocolate. 

As an investor, Desi prioritizes impact over profit and returns and believes that an investment in great ideas could have immense impact on women’s livelihoods and opportunities. 


“Gender inequality starts from unequal social and economic opportunities,” Desi says. Women are in the most disadvantaged position most of the time if their families are poor. In most poor families, young girls are the first ones who stop going to school. 


“We have to look at the gender inequality issue from many aspects, not just from its femaleness, but all of the other intersections,” she adds. 


Desi believes investing in women is important because women tend not to think about themselves, but prioritize their families and communities. Ultimately, Desi dreams of a society where gender is no longer an issue. 


For Desi, for GLI to advance, there is a need for an environment where women can and want to take up the challenge to climb the ladder. Women consider things as barriers that men may not – such as getting married or having children. In addition, the climate in most organizations can be unpleasant and competitive, whereas women can be much more collaborative.

“Ambition looks good for men but not for women, it is perceived as negative,” Desi says. 


Desi sees tremendous opportunities for women in the future, specifically in tech-based ventures, healthcare and education. “For those who still have the liquidity to invest, we need to invest more in opportunities that can empower the self,” Desi says.

Head of Indonesia at Golden Gate Ventures

Founder of an e-commerce development startup, Dea jumped to the “other side” with Golden Gate Ventures; a Southeast Asia-focused venture capital enterprise that is part of a global coalition of venture funds to address the gender funding gap. 

Dea spent six years in a high-disciplined all-girls school, where an untidy pair of socks could expose her to sanctions. But it also made her ignore the traditional boy-girl codes most teenagers experience at school. She focused on finding her own road to success and self-achievement, not the one that society expected from her. 

Dea tried her hand at a variety of jobs. After studying journalism in the United States, she started out as a news producer in a TV station in Missouri and then had a bash at public relations and digital marketing, before finding her pursuit in building tech enterprises. “Tech” suddenly became the new “hot commodity” in the early 2010s following the global financial crisis. Dea decided to ride the wave too and co-founded an e-commerce development house. As two young female tech business providers in a competitive male-dominated industry, Dea and her co-founder’s business credibility was often questioned. Dea remembers how she would often try to make herself look older and tougher, when meeting investors or clients. 

Golden Gate Ventures (GGV) was founded by an all-male trio of entrepreneurs turned investors from Silicon Valley, and they recruited Dea to launch them in the alluring Indonesian tech market. She is now leading GGV’s operations in Indonesia, where the nine-year-old VC has invested in nearly 30 internet & mobile startups across many sectors, but so far only one Indonesia-based startup is female-founded.  In 2018, Golden Gate pledged to deploy a total of $380 million of capital towards women-led enterprises by 2020, as part of the Billion Dollar Fund for Women which was launched in Bali by US-based funders. But the gap persists and Dea still cannot explain why. “I guess we are still on the learning curve of our gender lens journey”, she says. 

Women nonetheless play a substantial role – most of GGV’s investees are addressing fast-growing sectors that impact women’s livelihoods. For instance, the specialised e-commerce startup Orami describes itself as the “online shopping destination for women in Southeast Asia”. Women are also the main beneficiaries of Alodokter’s services, a platform offering medical information and online consultations. Applying a gender lens to BukuWarung’s market, a startup providing digital bookkeeping services to micro and small merchants, shows that 64% of micro, small and medium sized enterprises in Indonesia are managed or owned by women. Chili Beli, a community-based e-commerce startup for daily products, empowers housewives by giving them the opportunity to become part-time agents to distribute fresh groceries in their peer groups. 

“The Indonesian middle class is growing fast and some sectors still have to catch up with the demand, especially healthcare and education. Women represent 80% of household purchasing decisions. Understanding the needs of these consumers is a prerequisite for businesses willing to expand” Dea says. 

CEO and Founder of TinkerSpace

Citra innovates within the social enterprise sphere with a strong commitment to solving gender inequality. Operating from Bali, Citra fills the gap of knowledge and helps others scale impact.

Citra does not follow the crowd. Born and raised in a middle working class family, she has always felt like she had an unconventional career progression.

Citra’s professional life began in the marketing and advertising industry. In 2012, she moved to Singapore to work at a global brand services enterprise. The experience of working abroad suddenly removed all the boxes enclosing her worldview and boosted her confidence. Citra had always felt her local degree was inferior since Indonesia’s working culture was still favouring overseas graduates. Over time, she realized the mentality could be a barrier for a lot of people.

From Singapore, Citra moved to Bali to work at a nonprofit organization on poverty solutions for remote communities in Indonesia. She continued her journey with other social impact-oriented enterprises until founding TinkerSpace in 2019. 


TinkerSpace was first established as a social enterprise supporting other social enterprises working with women, differently abled people, and village communities. In its first year, TinkerSpace ran internships, volunteering programs, and social enterprise experience trips. 

As Citra developed programs catering to women entrepreneurs in Bali, she became aware of the specific challenges they encounter. Women find it easier to doubt themselves.  

“When you grow up in a patriarchal society and are constantly being made to question your capability to start something or to excel professionally, it’s harder for you to be confident with what you can achieve, [and] to believe in yourself,” Citra says.

This reflection led TinkerSpace to pivot in 2020. The new TinkerSpace puts key emphasis on providing branding and marketing services, as well as training, to ensure clients – who are mostly women and social entrepreneurs – can implement and maintain the marketing and branding assets themselves instead of relying on others. 

To further help women founders, Citra initiated a Women Founders Circle – a safe space where women could share their unique sets of challenges and support each other. 

Citra is also working on a social venture pilot aimed to source, train, and protect women domestic workers. It started from Citra’s own struggle to find a house assistant and her concerns over safety and abuse. 

Citra’s solution would include recruiting, vetting, and training the helpers ensuring they get better salaries over time as their skills increase, and would also function as an intermediary to ensure satisfaction of employers, but also safety of the helpers. Citra hopes it would restore dignity to the profession often taken up by women from low income families. Her challenge now is to find funding.

“It’s a business where you are going to be engaging with vulnerable women from lower income communities. That’s why I need to fundraise even before starting, instead of trying to bootstrap the idea, because I can’t just abandon the women if I run out of funds in the middle of it,” Citra says.

Citra says that for GLI to deepen its reach in the social entrepreneurship sector, it will need to have more women-focussed enablers. At the moment, the majority of the current existing enablers cater only to tech entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurs, regardless of gender, have a different mindset and focus compared to other startup founders. For one, they deal with vulnerable communities. There is not yet a visible support system for  social enterprises focusing on women as their beneficiaries.

Women experience and perceive the world differently than men. This is why solutions designed and proposed by women entrepreneurs might work better for women beneficiaries. It also means women investors might have better insight on the potential of such solutions. However, meeting women who are interested in investing is not easy.

These factors make it harder for women social entrepreneurs to advance, especially for those offering solutions for women.  While Citra understands the need for having a proven concept and business model to receive investment, she also believes that a lot more women-focussed solutions may come true if women social venture founders had more opportunities to connect and be mentored by women investors. 

“As a founder, it’s important to have somebody who also believes in the idea, in the significance and potential of the solution to solve real problems, and willing to invest in trying out the solution,” Citra highlights.

Citra believes women-centered enablers will not only empower women entrepreneurs, but also benefit women in vulnerable communities. 

Citra’s efforts at TinkerSpace show that innovations within the social enterprise sector are urgently needed and could directly align with GLI.

Co-founder & Managing Director of Indonesia TAEL Partners

While recognised as one of the most influential investors in the country, Ati Sugiharti keeps a low-profile. She does not boast about her thirty-year long successful career, or about her philanthropic activities. This is reflected in her stance on women’s empowerment: not placing women on a podium but rather on sound financial footing. 

When Ati started her career in the early 1990s, business women in Indonesia roughly fell into two kinds: the heirs of family businesses, and the “wanita karir” (career women), who had mostly pursued advanced education abroad. Ati graduated in Indonesia, and has continuously worked in her home country ever since; mostly for foreign banking institutions that were extending their footprint in the Southeast Asian market. She flourished in a multicultural environment, where women were not only tolerated but also encouraged. This has shaped Ati’s strong and independent mindset. 

By the late 2000s, a new professional group of self-made “entrepreneurs” emerged in Indonesia, driven by a growing hype around tech innovation. Ati co-founded her own private equity management firm, TAEL Partners. But in this flourishing community, most women did not have the necessary social and economic resources to join the world of the other growth-driven Indonesian entrepreneurs. As a result, resource-deprived women have been historically underrepresented, or mostly remained into the pool of informal workers. 

Ati does not describe herself as a “feminist”, and she places more value on the investing discipline than bold risk-taking. But she acknowledges the persisting gender imbalance in some segments of the economy, and is clear about the potential of entrepreneurship as a great gender equalizer. When her friend Ibu Noni Purnomo (a successful CEO) brought Ati into the ANGIN’s Women Fund, she was as much attracted by the idea of supporting entrepreneurship, as providing the necessary tools and know-how to fearless women. The Fund was not just about filling a funding gap. With the other co-funders, they leveraged their collective expertise to build a comprehensive mentoring program for the investees. Ati, shared her 20 years of experience in financial institutions to help them build strong financials. For her, the success of Burgreens, one of the Fund’s investees and Indonesian first plant-based restaurant chain, lies more in its strong financial grounds than in its women’s leadership. This implies that women are naturally capable of managing their enterprises, even when the gender lens for women’s leadership per se is not emphasized.

Ati believes that women’s economic empowerment cannot go without the groundwork of capacity building. It is crucial to make sure that women are equipped with the know-how and the skills to establish a business from scratch. “We have to encourage women, but business is business. It is not because you are a woman that you should have a privilege” she states with a down-to-earth tone. Funding opportunities have to be more systematically connected to skills transfer, which could be done by better leveraging community approaches. The peer-to-peer lending fintech enterprise Amartha, for instance, provides loans not to individuals, but to a group of women: this allows them to carry each other where needed and has significantly improved the default rate. 

Impact investing requires investors to value the benefits that are not as easily quantified as their expected annual Return on Investment (RoI). But not being profit-driven doesn’t have to entail that the initiative is not profitable. “People talk a lot about impact investing, but they are still looking for a 20% RoI. One cannot have its cake and eat it too: investors have to admit the idea that a 5% annual RoI is acceptable” Ati says.  

The adage ”teach a poor man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, is deep-seated within Ati’s mind. It fits both market-oriented supporters and social business advocates. The only problem is that we have long forgotten to picture a woman instead. And to give her access to the fish pond. Ati is one of those who is discretely feminizing the proverb within high financial spheres.

Chairman of the Regional National Craft Council (Dekranasda) of East Java Province

Arumi leads East Java’s capacity building of women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses. A diligent self-learner, Arumi has carved out a space in government on boosting partnerships with the private sector to create greater impact.

The actress-turned-government official makes her own calls. Arumi started her modelling career in 2006 when she was only 12 years old, before steadily rising to fame appearing in television dramas and commercials. As an actress, Arumi always had full autonomy on projects to take on. She retained that as she left the profession and got married.

When her husband ran for the position of East Java’s Deputy Governor, Arumi gave her full support and helped with the campaign. She wanted to get out of her comfort zone and venture into something new. At the time, Arumi’s only experience was working in the entertainment industry. She had to learn everything from scratch.

“I had no perspective from any other kind of work, and suddenly I had to be in contact with farmers, teachers, and many others,” Arumi remembers. And as she took on that challenge, she grew. Through making mistakes and sometimes bad decisions, Arumi evolved into a much better version of herself. 

“I used to be selfish and always thought about ‘what can I get for myself’ but now I have a different perspective. Not only do I survive, I thrive,” Arumi says. 

Now, Arumi attributes her success to the ability to direct the course of her own life, with no father or husband forcing her. She wants to see other women have the same liberty.

“I’ve never felt like there’s a judgement towards me or any expectation that is built for me. First, because I negotiated for it, and second, because that’s how I was raised by my parents,” Arumi said.

As current chairman of the Regional National Craft Council (Dekranasda), Arumi works tirelessly to find, guide and train thousands of small to medium women entrepreneurs in East Java. The program aims to be with them every step along the way – from teaching how to sew, buying the machines, to creating and marketing the brands.  

Through public-private partnership the East Java Government has accelerated the integration of businesses into Indonesia’s digital economy. Private sector players such as Indonesian Business Women’s Association (IWAPI), Go-Jek, Bukalapak, and Tokopedia are invited to contribute.

“The potential contribution of East Javan women to the economy have not been fully explored – not because they are not capable, but because of gender inequalities often perpetuated in the name of ‘culture’, or sometimes ‘religion’. These doctrines make women believe they cannot do anything, and this is where we try to intervene,” Arumi says.

While salary gaps are closing in East Java, there is still a strong culture that perceives women as intimidating when they become successful. There is a lot of fear as a result. As a leader, Arumi tries to be aware of it. She encourages learning together with the people she leads. She advocates for continuous adaptation and flexibility.

For women to prosper, they must believe in themselves first. They have to be confident, for everyone else – including the banks and the investors – to believe in them too. Arumi reaffirms that her government’s commitment to gender empowerment will always be strong.

“It is both a privilege and a challenge,” Arumi says. She feels a kind of obligation to give women in her region better opportunities. Not just in terms of career and financials, but also mindset and perspectives.

In response to disasters, Arumi distributes aid to the most impacted families, prioritizing women workers laid off by factories. Arumi and her team are now working to identify how to prepare them to face future economic challenges. Plans include free and open-to-all webinars to teach the public the basics of doing business.

Arumi sees good opportunities for women post-pandemic. With innovations within the online space and remote working, women with kids can now have a higher chance to be hired without having to be physically present in the office.

Arumi has become a major figure in East Java on her own terms and her work shows how strong women leaders are urgently needed within the government ranks. Arumi’s position is strategic for GLI players who want to look for opportunities outside of the capital and for policy makers to learn from.

Co-Director of Hollaback! Jakarta

A fierce women’s rights activist and advocate, Anindya combines her experience in nonprofit organizations with community-based initiatives to end gender-based violence in the workplace and public places.

Anindya is a bold feminist – as say the description on her social media accounts. Born in Semarang, Central Java in 1990, she makes savvy use of digital tools to execute her public campaigns.

Growing up, the 29-year-old wanted to be an engineer. Anindya was heavily influenced by academics and professors in the extended family on her father’s side – himself an outspoken artist during the Soeharto era. Although activism runs in the family, gender equality was a cause she committed to much later.

Anindya had never specifically thought about women issues, although deep down she knew she was often being discriminated against as a woman. She was first introduced to the concept in her English debating team at university. Then, she became even more enlightened after participating in a program requiring her to work with underprivileged communities in remote areas. The program exposed her to issues affecting women such as child marriage and unregistered marriages (nikah siri).

From then on, Anindya decided to focus her work on gender inequality.

After university, Anindya joined the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA), where she was involved in projects investing in women through sexual and reproductive health, working with youth, sex workers, and gender minorities. She helped create youth-friendly clinics to ensure teenagers have access to information and healthcare related to their sexual and reproductive issues.  

Later, with Save the Children, Anindya worked to increase youth employment in West Java. There, she noticed most of the unemployed youth she worked with were males. The reason was because most garment factories in West Java preferred to employ women as they were easier to exploit.

Anindya then tried to bring more women to join the training sessions, and found that most of them were not allowed to go by their husbands. “They were really young mothers, I would say they were children who had children,” Anindya said. Unfortunately, her efforts to implement gender lens in the program faced heavy obstacles, even more so because most of her team at the time were males.

With her current role at Hollaback! Jakarta, Anindya gives trainings and workshops on sexual harassment to private and public enterprises, such as ride hailing app Go-Jek and MRT, amongst others.

“If you want to make your office a safe space for everyone it means you have to try solve the problem of sexual harassment,” she said.

For Anindya, GLI is not only about investing in the women, but also those who are most marginalized. Beyond numbers of women CEOs or founders, GLI needs to talk about how it affects minority groups and impacts those who are truly in need.

“I understand talking about women leaders is important because there’s still not many of them, but the issue should not be that binary (between having women leaders or not), but it has to transform into something intersectional,” Anindya said.

Conversations around GLI will have to incorporate other issues, like social class and workers issues, she added.

For the whole space to flourish, advocacy, activism, and business sectors cannot be separated from one another. “A lot of people still stay in their boxes. For example, people from the business or for profit sector and people from the social activism sector often stay within their own lanes and not talk to each other.”

Anindya swears that advocacy works, even when it’s for for-profit ventures. When Go-Jek created a campaign about sexual harassment, its business persona improved. “Did that bring them profit? Yes. Did that bring safety to their customers? Yes.” she says. 

“For me, it’s not a problem if you do it for profit,” Anindya said. “What becomes a problem is when businesses do not have enough knowledge or information about issues they want to tackle. Then it becomes merely riding on a trend.”

Making public spaces safer is vital to encourage more women to work and become more productive. Anindya’s knowledge on women issues could open a path for businesses wanting to reach a wider demographic, attract talent, and improve their public image.

Indigenous Mollo Leader and Environmental Activist

Aleta is an environmental activist recognized internationally for peaceful weaving protests to protect her people’s land from illegal miners. A charismatic indigenous Mollo leader, Aleta demonstrates how investment activities can respect the earth and its inhabitants.

“I grow big and strong because of collaboration with other people,” Aleta says.

Aleta’s story never loses its power no matter how many times it’s been told. She rose to become a leader in the community when her village and farms were threatened by landslides and polluted water from the cutting of marble stones on the Nausus and Anjaf mountains in Timor Tengah Selatan (TTS) Regency, East Nusa Tenggara. The mining enterprises also conducted deforestation – jeopardizing woods, herbs, and other natural resources vital to the people’s daily needs.

Realizing their survival was in danger, Aleta – who later became known as ‘Mama Aleta’ – gathered people from nearby villages to join her to protest. She received death threats to a point where she had to carry her baby and hide in the forest. But Aleta persisted.

According to Aleta’s tribe’s traditions, women were responsible for processing food, and collecting dye and medicine from the mountains. Thus, when the mountains were being destroyed, it was women who were at the forefront of the protests. After several years of gathering support, Aleta and 150 other women occupied the mining sites, quietly sitting on the marble rocks and weaving their traditional clothes. Meanwhile, the men took up the roles of cooking, cleaning, and caring for the children.

In 2013, Aleta won USD 150,000 from the Goldman Environmental Prize, an annual prize awarded to grassroot environmental activists from all over the world. Instead of taking the money for herself, Aleta wanted to use it to further her mission of protecting the environment. That was how the Mama Aleta Fund (MAF) program was born.

“The mission of this fund is to identify and help other women’s fight in saving their livelihoods and their surroundings,” Aleta says.

Beyond financial support, Aleta also hopes MAF could be a platform pooling knowledge and information about indigenous traditions, leadership and organizing. MAF aims to facilitate the creation of other “Aletas” in Indonesia.

Because there was very little attention paid to environmental issues, MAF took a while to get recognized. It was eventually decided that the fund would be managed under Mama Aleta Fund Foundation (YDMA), a vehicle for receiving donations and grants from willing partners.

Aside from YDMA, Aleta is currently active in two other organizations she founded: Indigenous Peoples Organization A’taimamut Organization (POKJA OAT) and Taim Hine Aleta Baun Foundation. The organizations work for the preservation of East Nusa Tenggara’s traditional ways of living including  farming, livestock breeding, and weaving groups, as well as cultural festivals.

Aleta sat in the local parliament from 2014 to 2019, all the while staying true to her campaigns against exploitative investments. Even now, since retiring from this position, any investment targeting East Nusa Tenggara must win Aleta’s support. Aleta has one simple message for anyone wishing to do business on her island: “Lands and forests cannot be destroyed, stones cannot disappear, and water cannot be dried up”. 

“We have an immense connection with these four elements and if one of them is destroyed, everyone will fall into poverty,” Aleta affirms.

For the community, economic activity means selling things humans can produce such as garments, corn, livestock products, art and crafts. One motto her people always hold is that one can sell what one can make, but one should not sell what one cannot make. 

Aleta’s work demonstrates that women’s labour is closely tied to humanity’s livelihood and survival. In the chain of cultural obligations, women are responsible for many essential tasks, without which the community cannot survive. 

Moving forward, Aleta is determined to teach others what she has learned as a leader and an activist. Aleta is a vital link in the GLI chain. Her perspective provides a lens to understand how sustainable economic activities could and should work: in harmony with nature.

Diversity and Inclusion Leader at P&G Indonesia

Whether by introducing paternity leave or onsite daycare, Angela makes sure women are seen and treated as equal in her organization. A natural influencer, Angela gracefully navigates through resistance and obstacles to bring change.

Angela was taught that she must not limit herself. That was instilled in her adolescence by her all-girl Catholic school education. Known for its strict discipline, the school and its principal shaped her view on what women can do: everything. At home, her father taught her to believe in herself. Both are lessons Angela later found to be vital.

There were times when Angela felt very unconfident. For instance, the time when she ran for chairman of her law school’s student organization. But then she realized she only needed to change her mindset. “Getting people on board with new ideas means changing the mindset,” Angela said.

Angela joined Procter and Gamble (P&G) Indonesia in the legal department almost 10 years ago. Five years later, she was asked to lead the Diversity and Inclusion Team. Directed at all employees, the enterprise’s diversity and inclusion program aims to establish gender equality in the workplace.

At first, Angela and her team faced some resistance in executing the proposed initiatives. But the persistence and patience in building understanding and making sure all needs were met became key in changing people’s minds. “(Resistance) is mostly because people are not clear on the intentions,” Angela said.

Last year, P&G Indonesia rolled out a 30-day paternity leave for its male staff. According to Indonesia’s 2003 Manpower Law, married fathers are only entitled to two days of paid paternity leave. By giving men more time to be with their newborns, they are expected to be more sympathetic towards their female colleagues – whether as a manager or as a staff.

“Support from men [on gender equality initiatives] can be much more effective for women in the workplace,” Angela said.

The program also spearheaded the implementation of onsite daycare services, identified by Angela as an unmet need. In the Jakarta office, the biggest demand is during the Eid holiday, while in the plant facility the demand for daycare is triggered by working in shifts. 

Early this year, Angela oversaw the enterprise’s program Gerakan Maju Wanita Indonesia (ANJANI) for training women entrepreneurs. Businesses from a variety of sectors such as design, construction and property, marketing & communication services, food, travel, IT and legal were involved in the four-day  training workshop. Senior female representatives from P&G Indonesia as well as external speakers from corporations such as ANGIN and Facebook led the sessions. The women entrepreneurs were given training on business strategy, strategic customer targeting, developing mobile friendly creatives, access to capital, human resources, leadership and tips on how to successfully pitch to large corporate organizations, among others.

Among P&G’s strategies about gender equality is also through public communication. Globally, P&G has been an active campaigner and publisher of its gender equality efforts.

Despite having worked for years for women development in the workplace, GLI is still a new term for Angela. But she is convinced that gender lens is something that’s been done by multiple parties whether its corporations or the government, subconsciously or consciously.

Angela sees herself as a capacity builder and networker. Through the ANJANI program, which she led with her team at P&G, Angela did not only design and deliver modules of training, but also connected people by inviting partners to get involved. Angela could also point to the best practices for people wanting to push for gender equality in their workplace.

Alexandra is an investor, networker and capacity builder through the up and coming co-working space and community for working mothers and entrepreneurs. She also influences the GLI space by building awareness about financial literacy for youth. 

Women can have it all, according to Alexandra. If a woman wants to be both a successful professional or serial entrepreneur, and at the same time a devoted mother, she should be able to do so. That belief is what drives Alexandra’s women empowerment mission.

Alexandra’s mother, who had to leave work to take care of her children and also ran her own business as a party planner, inspired Alexandra’s own vision for women. 

Alexandra studied information technology at Monash University before joining a prominent bank as a management trainee. Like others, Alexandra was placed through different departments until she finally settled on her current role in marketing for wealth management. In this role, Alexandra has the opportunity to educate the wider public about the importance of early wealth planning. 

“My mother always stressed that it’s very important for women to be independent in all aspects, never stop to educate yourself including on financial literacy and multitask whenever possible”, Alexandra says.

“First, you never know what will happen. And second, if you were financially literate, you could do more things and open more opportunities for society,” she adds.

Alexandra walks the talk. Thanks to her job at the bank, Alexandra has learnt how to manage her finances since the early stage. Now, she is using her savings to invest in ventures. 

Worknest is Alexandra’s newest initiative. It is a space and community for working and stay-at-home mothers who wish to work productively while taking care of their children.  

“It’s more than a coworking space with kids facilities. It is a space and community design to support productive moms and creative kids all in one,” Alexandra says.

Alexandra noticed some of her friends quitting their full-time employment or significantly reducing their working hours once they start a family and have children, often due to minimum support or infrastructure.

At the same time, she saw a cultural shift in working style where it’s possible for people to work remotely. This culture was being amplified by the rise of new jobs, and COVID-19, that push people to be productive outside the traditional office space. Lastly, Alexandra realized that becoming a mother does not dissolve somebody’s individual potential and passion: a woman’s self-actualization and work contribution does not end when starting your family and having children. 

Worknest will also be launching an online community version with online classes and activities for moms and kids to do at home.

“From Worknest we will be able to support the working moms, women and the industry where they work, and last but not least children’s creative development. Worknest builds infrastructure and communities that empower women, their families and the industry where they work” Alexandra says.  

“It’s challenging. There are times they look down on us. As if there’s a norm that women have to prove that we can do it as well, that we can be in the same space,” she says. 

Alexandra hopes the space could help dispel the notion that once women become mothers, they are less productive than their peers without children. We want to empower and encourage more women to pursue their passion, realize their potential, collaborate with others to achieve their big dreams and never shy away from challenges. 

Alexandra believes GLI can generate the most meaningful impact in the education sector: “GLI needs to start with educating women in Indonesia, it could start by teaching them how to be independent in all aspects, because from that everything will show.”