November 19, 2024 • 62 mins
In this episode, Dina H. Sherif sits down with Ridzki Kramadibrata, former CEO and Commissioner of Grab Indonesia, to discuss the transformative power of purpose-driven leadership in shaping Southeast Asia’s future. Ridzki reflects on his leadership journey, the unique challenges of growing a super app in emerging markets, and the critical role of innovation and teamwork in navigating crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, they explore how entrepreneurs and leaders can act as catalysts for sustainable prosperity and societal impact, with lessons that resonate far beyond Indonesia.
This candid conversation dives into building resilient organizations, cultivating values-driven cultures, and leveraging technology to address real-world challenges. Ridzki also shares his vision for Southeast Asia’s role in the global innovation landscape and the legacy he hopes to leave behind.
Key Topics Discussed:
•The role of purpose-driven leadership in navigating uncertainty and inspiring teams.
•Grab Indonesia’s pivot during the pandemic to support micro-entrepreneurs and sustain livelihoods.
•The power of innovation and culture in driving organizational success and societal impact.
•Why entrepreneurs in emerging markets must focus on creating solutions that serve local needs.
•Ridzki’s hopes for Southeast Asia to define its own narrative and become a global player.
Host: Dina Sherif
Produced by Donovan Beck
For Media Inquiries:
Donovan Beck
Communications and Storytelling Coordinator
Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
292 Main St, E38, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02142
don_beck@mit.edu
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Right? So in this episode, we'revery excited to be welcoming
(00:04):
Ridzki Kramadibrata, who is theformer CEO and President of grab
Indonesia, with a long career inthe private sector and within
Southeast Asia more broadly, Ireally wanted to invite ritzy to
this podcast, because ritzy is,for me, an example of an
(00:27):
entrepreneur and a human beingwho is truly mission driven, who
exemplifies decision making thatare deeply, that is deeply
anchored in a sense of purpose.
And I think growing businessesin global growth markets. And
growing a business in a in acountry like Indonesia can be
extremely difficult, and hemakes it seem easy, and will
(00:48):
demonstrate the kind of valuesand and deep thinking that is
required in building a venturein a global growth market. And I
hope that all of you will enjoythe conversation that I will
have with him and learn as muchfrom him as I have over the over
the years. Thank you for joiningus, and I hope that you leave
(01:08):
feeling inspired and hopeful.
Hey, so, so excited to welcomeyou Ridzki Kramadibrata to to
our podcast. You know, you and Ihave, our relationship has been
built now over what a span ofSince COVID started, starting
(01:30):
with my dear friend Tirza, whenI met her in DC, and she said,
you know, Dina grab has beendoing really amazing things in
Indonesia. And I said, well, weneed to capture that at the
Legatum center. And sheconnected me to you, and that
was beginning of our journey. Iwant to ask you a very personal
question to start us off,because aside from grab and your
(01:54):
amazing success, not just as anentrepreneur, but someone who is
in a big corporate and you spentyour life working in Indonesia
and Southeast Asia. You have avery unique leadership style,
and you have a very unique wayof showing up for your team. And
I've seen it live. What doesleadership mean to you?
(02:18):
Okay, thank you, Nina, before Igot to that question, the
pleasure is mine, definitely,you're right. It started few
years ago during COVID. Youknow, I can't believe that I'm
here podcasting with you.
I know I can't believe iteither. It's just right right
by side the main street inCambridge. So it's wonderful
(02:38):
weather as well today. So yes,it's been an amazing journey. I
think I've been too fortunate,in my opinion, in all of this.
But yes, leadership plays alittle bit part of it. To my
opinion, to me is, as a leader,you have to lead the way and
show the way. I mean, like youhear about that, but I think
(02:58):
it's much more complicated thanhow it's formulated in a
sentence. You need to gatherinformation. You need to digest
it. You need to find gist aswell how things will lead, you
know, the business, theinnovations, the team, to
something that is meaningful tothem. So that's kind of like
building a purpose to them. Ofcourse, I'm a man that is
(03:23):
believing so much about teambuilding, teamwork, how talents
play a really, really importantpart in, you know, achieving
your goals. So definitely in theprocess, it's not just me, you
know, leading people ways. It'sactually a process of, you know,
discussions, you know,accommodating informations, but
(03:43):
most importantly, to get, youknow, a conclusions of where are
we heading to. And then once youactually formulate it, you can't
believe people will really,really follow and really,
really, you know, believe in anddo whatever it takes to actually
to achieve it. Youknow, I think sometimes being in
a position of authority isreally difficult. I think it's
(04:04):
easy when we know the solutionsright. Sometimes decision making
is easy. It's a problem we knowthe solution and you can just
execute. But sometimes, whenyou're hit with a pandemic, with
a company that's still in thekind of middle of its journey,
like, like when you were CEO ofgrab Indonesia, we really don't
(04:27):
know what we're supposed to do.
And I, you know, when I speak tomy foundry fellows here at the
Legatum center, I always say,There's no such thing as a
leader. There's something calledleadership, and we need
leadership when we really don'tknow the answer. That's when we
need leadership the most, right?
So when, when the pandemic hit,and nobody really had a clue
(04:52):
what to do in Indonesia, and youwere faced with this decision,
and you were at the time grabwas really just. Which mainly a
ride a ride hailing app. Andobviously, no one would want to
get in a car or get on the backof a motorcycle in the face of a
pandemic. But for sure, youdidn't really know what to do,
and you had to really spend timewith your team, mobilize them.
(05:15):
What did what did that time looklike for you as ritzy, what was,
what was really going throughyour mind, and how were you
dealing with this very difficultprocess of decision making at a
time where nobody had anyanswers and everyone was really
shooting in the dark,interesting questions, but first
(05:36):
of all, I beck to differ on yourfirst statement over my course
of, you know, career overdecades, that has never been any
easy decisions. Decisionsalways, you know, difficult and
tough, because you always seethe you know, plus side, the
downsides, the upsides ofdecisions. You have, you know,
opposing, you know, people. Youhave, people that supporting
(05:58):
decisions. So leaders, job is toassess all of those you know,
aspects and taking some risk outof it, because, you know there
will be implications to yourdecisions making. And then it is
actually very important toinvolve, you know, more people
(06:19):
in the decision making. It'sthere's also a reason why it's
called Leadership, because it'snot single person. It's actually
a group of people to decide. Andthen, of course, within that
group of people, you will seeyou know different opinions as
well. And then maybe in certainpoints, it takes a leader to
make a hard decision, hardchoice. How
(06:41):
do you create a space to allowfor all these different opinions
to exist at the same time? It'sa culture, I guess. I think we
need to build the culture well,where people could speak up
their minds. I think in theWestern world, maybe it is much
a common practice to do that,but maybe in the eastern part of
the world. It's not such acommon practice. So you have to
encourage people in thebeginning, just to be honest
(07:04):
with you, yeah, people are notautomatically built in the
eastern part of the world tospeak up, speak up,
or to speak up to somebody witha title of CEO. Exactly. It
takes some encouragement to dothat, but once you actually, you
show that it's not only allowed,but you are welcome to do that,
(07:24):
then people will start toactually, to say their minds and
leadership then built. Now,coming back to your second
questions, all pandemic, I'mglad it's actually you know,
behind us, behind us.
For now, for now.
Now we know that you knowunpredictable things are, you
know, probably ahead of us. Butyes, pandemic is one of the
(07:45):
example where it was anextremely difficult positions. I
thought a little bit about, youknow, how leader shows way lead
away by, you know, gathering allthe informations and try to
digest it, to be able toformulate it to something that
you could do. But during thepandemic, there's little
information to no information. Ithink the whole world didn't
(08:08):
know what to do as well, notjust me, not just, you know, the
team, but some peoplejust dove right in and just
started, you know, doing whatthey thought was best without
really having the time to reallythink through. You didn't do
that.
We didn't do that. I mean, like,I remember that one of the first
questions we had was that, howlong this will last? I still
(08:33):
remember there are some, youknow, people taking a wild guess
that, oh, this will be over inabout three months, six months.
Oh, Ihad somebody say, this will be
done in two weeks, two weeks,yeah. And we know, Oh, no. How
long that it lasted, right? Soduring that uncertainty period,
it is an importance ofregrouping and then set your
(08:54):
priorities. And during my roleat that time, of course, the
priorities, and you can hear itis the what is at stake the most
are the micro entrepreneurs thatwithin the platforms. These are
the drivers, the merchants thatsuddenly seeing their business
you know, changed significantlyand impacts their lives, not
(09:17):
only their lives, but also theirfamilies. So it's an easy, you
know, thought process. We focuson them and see what we could do
to them. And of course, there'sa process in between. I thought
about, you know, how I team? Wetalk to the team, what do they
think? And then we try tostructure it as well, but
(09:40):
focusing on the this microentrepreneurs, and then we see
that pivoting the business isone good way to do it, still
using the much of the resourcesthat we have accumulated in
terms of technology, in terms ofservices. But pivoting to toward
how we could actually servetheir business this micro
(10:03):
entrepreneurs better. And then,of course, deliveries, in the
case of, you know, SoutheastAsia has played the best, I
think we partly changed howpeople behaviors, you know, took
place during the pandemic. Andit enables also to to help
governments in terms oflogistics, because during the
pandemic, logistics, especiallythe last mile, was one of the
most difficult thing. But withthe help of these micro
(10:26):
entrepreneurs, we could reach,you know, the areas where it
was, you know, very unlikely toactually tap into.
So you use your platform to getservices to people, but it
really needed a mindset shift.
You had to kind of reframe youroffering, right? It was less
about getting someone from pointA to point B, and it became the
reverse, exactly. How do you getthe point B to the person at
(10:50):
point A, exactly? But thatrequired a lot of new learning
and a lot of creativity. Thatwas really where innovation was
happening, right? Yeah.
I mean, like, if you I like theway you put it point A to point
B, and then point B, now it'sactually point B to point A. You
know, many great ideas in theworld. It's just a simple
(11:12):
concept. And concept like thatworks really, really well in the
time where it's needed the most.
And the momentum was right, thepre works was there, and then
suddenly the chains of themindset helped everyone to solve
majority of the problems. Andthen you kept purpose at the
very core, because what wasreally keeping you up at night
(11:32):
was making sure that all thepeople that you had provided
income for were not going tolose their income.
Okay, you wouldn't believe howmuch these things kept me at
night. Oh, Ido. Because I know you as a
person, I can imagine that youwere deeply concerned about all
the people who'd be potentiallylosing access to income, yeah.
(11:53):
But on the positive side aswell, it is also, not only kept
me wake up at night. But also, Imean, like this kind of things
where you so purpose driven,mission driven, and you're
impacting so many lives, somany, you know, people's
economies, you wake up soenergized as well, yeah,
thinking about the positiveimpact that you're making, you
(12:14):
and the team, yeah. And thenwhat kind of new things that you
will do to make a difference, tomake a difference, and this is
really an amazing part of it.
I totally get it and canimagine. So I'm gonna ask you a
question, a little bit aboutfailure now. Oh, because you
know, when we decide to engagein any form of leadership, all
throughout your career, forsure, there were failures. But a
(12:38):
good mentor of mine always saidfailure is only failure if you
haven't learned the lessons thatyou need to learn, but over the
span of your career, if there isone leadership failure that you
can remember that impacted you,what was it and are you willing
to share?
Yeah, so I think failures is aninteresting subject, because at
(13:01):
one point, especiallyin our cultures, exactly,
failure is not always allowed.
People blame for failures. So Ithink you know, if you're so
irresponsible in taking decisionand make failures, maybe there's
reasons where people actuallyblame on you, and then the
(13:22):
culture is probably built onthat. Because, you know, our
cultures, maybe in the past, wasnot so much about, you know,
structuring issues and thenaddressing it, you know,
constructively, and then whereit's actually built the cultures
that people, you know, why didyou do such things? But if you
do it in a responsibly, in sortof responsible way, and
(13:44):
structure it, you've done asmuch as possible to avoid the
values and when failures happen,then people understand it's
actually beyond the control, andit's this, it's the structure
that you need to help build tomake the organizations make
(14:05):
failures. Okay, okay? Becauseotherwise, you know, you don't
make foolish mistakes and youdon't get creative, then you
don't get creative. So you youactually have to allow a set of,
you know, values to actually, toenable for the organizations to
(14:26):
become more agile and yetcreative and innovative as well.
Well in the past, I've had, youknow, as you can guess,
probably, I mean, like I, one ofthe leaders, job is to take
risk. And I told you, you know,earlier, that that has never
been easy decisions. No, I'vemet, you know, several mistakes,
(14:50):
to be honest with you. I mean,like I've done, you know, telco
businesses, airlines and thennow, platform businesses and
airlines. You know, I. Could,you know, confess that there's
so many, you know, rude mistakesthat I did as well, and it's
actually affects the, not onlythe company, but how people will
use the airlines, sure, and inthe airlines
(15:14):
are a tricky business, right?
Tricky business, exactly. Somuch safety involved,
so much safety you have to,actually to prioritize safety,
but yet, your Indian is abusiness, you have to actually
to self sustain your your ownventures as well. And in
platform business, I thinkthere's few mistakes that we've
made. I've made as well. I mean,like we're so creative, we're
(15:37):
creating so many verticals, youknow, surfaces. That sounds
really, really, you know,exciting in the beginning, but
it didn't take up. So I mean,like mistakes like this happen,
and we just assume it, as longas you're very responsible in
the process, then it's ourcommon you know, it's our risk
(15:58):
actually to take, and no one'sto blame.
But how did you I'm gonna try toget you to open up a bit. How
did you feel at those moments offailure?
It is number one. If it's, it's,it's, depends on the impact of
(16:18):
the failures.
Yeah, because failure can impactus a lot as humans. Right?
Exactly we hold ourselves,especially you. I know you to
very high standards. And whenyou, when you do go through a
failure, there's a lot ofemotions that come to the
forefront, you know? How do youdeal with those multitude of
(16:39):
emotions that come with with afailure, until you learn what
you need to learn from it.
Yes, so if it's number one, itis. There's no use for you to
regret what has happened. Yeah,of course, you learn from the
mistake, but you don't regret,because regretting is just
taking you nowhere. No, I thinkthe key things here is to
(17:01):
quickly learn from the mistakes.
I like the quick debrief. Youknow, things, when you face
something, you make mistakes.
Your team make mistakes. I makemistakes. We do quick breathing
debriefing. And then, becausethe momentum is there, and then
you can learn. You can learn,you know, as effective as
(17:22):
possible, you take more time todo debriefing and understanding
what mistakes that you havemade. It becomes more
irrelevant, and you tend toforget, you know, few details
that is actually very, veryimportant. So the key things is
here is to quickly learn fromand have the team to debrief
together with you. You know, somany mistakes we've made.
(17:48):
Sometimes the impact was notonly to to the company, to the
stakeholders, but sometimesthere's personal, you know,
impact as well. Absolutely,I think that's the most
difficult part of it sometimes,yeah,
yep. So I've had a share ofmistakes that I've made that,
you know, had some implicationsto my family, and then I had to
(18:12):
definitely quickly reviewing itand learning from it and as much
as possible not to repeat it.
And you know, the best isactually to get better out of
it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there'sonly one way, and that's
forward, but you have to makepeace with some of the things
that happened in our past,right? I like
that. I like that. You know?
I've, I've had this, someonetelling me a tragedy, plus time,
(18:36):
it's comedy. You look at someyour past mistakes, past
tragedy, you that as it'sactually a pass over time, it
becomes a little bit, you know,you you tend to love,
oh, I don't know about that forme, maybe in Indonesia you can
(18:57):
find humor, but I don't Know,Egyptians aren't so much the
same.
So, yes, don't be toodon't take yourself too
seriously. Youlearn quickly. You learn fast
and recover from it and getsbetter. Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to, I want to take usa little bit so, you know, here
(19:17):
at the Legatum center, we thinkabout entrepreneurship and
innovation as a means and not anend. So we don't, we don't for
us, it's not just about seeingmore and more entrepreneurs.
It's really more about whatentrepreneurship can do for
society. And so we talk a lot, alot about entrepreneurship and
innovation as a pathway toachieving sustainable
(19:39):
prosperity, specifically withinglobal growth markets in
countries like Indonesia likeyours, or Egypt like mine.
Thinking about entrepreneurshipand innovation as a strategic
strategy for government toreally create prosperity hasn't
really been there. Oftentimes ithappens by accident. It's not as
intentional as one. Would hope,even though to create economic
(20:02):
prosperity, you really want tosee bottom up growth, and you
need to see that throughtraditional entrepreneurship,
and you need to see that throughinnovation driven
entrepreneurship, I think you,you have witnessed live the
power of entrepreneurship andinnovation in creating
prosperity in a country likeIndonesia, right? Why is it so
(20:22):
important for entrepreneurstoday, specifically,
specifically in markets likeours, to really understand that
they have a big and criticalrole to play in achieving
prosperity in their countries?
Yeah, I really believe thatentrepreneurs is the core of the
economy. I mean, like, Wherewill economy go with all of
(20:44):
these entrepreneurs? Butentrepreneurs come in, you know,
there's a big, you know, sizecompanies, entrepreneurships,
but there's also, you know,small to medium, small to medium
size. And I see the patterns inmany countries. I thought it was
Indonesia specific, but then Istudied and learned it's
actually quite common acrosscountries that the dominant
(21:08):
players and the dominantcontributions comes actually
from small and mediumenterprises. The problem is, I
think, lies from the whether thegovernment allows the the
environment for them to thrive,for them not to only to thrive,
but to, you know, grow, grow.
And this is a typical problem inthe growth market. So what is
(21:33):
more important is for thegovernments to really, really
think about how to embrace thisbusiness, how to give, you know,
platforms for them to grow, andhow to create like ecosystem and
environment where they couldmore than thrive, they could
expand. Because in the end, youknow, there's so much that
(21:54):
governments could do in termsof, you know, subsidizing
economy, or, you know, building,you know, initiatives, you will
need to, actually, to for acountry to really, really grow,
you need to to really make surethat these players really,
really grow. So that's one sideof the economy, the small and
(22:15):
medium enterprises. But also,then they're the grabs of the
world. Then there's the grabs ofthe worlds. And I think with the
technology nowadays, theenablement of, you know, growth
markets to play, to play abetter positions in terms of,
you know, creating technologiesand things, it's much more
(22:36):
feasible and easier,you know, you say that. But here
in the United States, I'm notsure that your average person at
MIT or Harvard would think, Oh,Indonesia. Now that's a country
where innovation is happening.
Yeah, I think that's kind ofmisperceptions. That's right,
(22:58):
that's happening. A lot ofthings has changed, and has been
going on, I think, since thepast decade, with the enablement
of the new technology peoplecould create, you know,
innovations, technologies, youknow, even from home. And then,
of course, scale with the helpof of course, investors, feces
and rest to help grow to asizable business. And this kind
(23:23):
of revolutions, the techrevolutions happening in the
growth market, includingIndonesia, people you know,
starting to create amazinginnovations, yeah, and then
doing things that was notpossible in the past, but now
it's so possible and challengingthe businesses from the
established markets, like in theUS Europe, of course, taking
(23:44):
advantage from their ownmarkets, first for Southeast
Asia's case, of course,Southeast Asia market, I know,
in Africa, Latin America,similar things happening. And I
think that will be themisperceptions that happening
right now. You know, many peoplein the developed market didn't
think that the revolution isgoing so rapidly and so fast,
(24:09):
but it is going that fastlately.
You know, I have a good friend.
His name is ChristopherSchroeder. He spent a lot of
time in the Middle East startinghe was really fascinated with
this growth and evolution oftech startups in the Middle
East, specifically post all ofthe uprisings that happened in
2011 to the extent that heactually wrote a book called
(24:29):
Start uprising. And he alwayssays something he said. He says
that within emerging markets orglobal growth markets, countries
like Egypt or Indonesia or or inNigeria, the introduction of the
smartphone was a game changer,because that gave access to your
(24:51):
everyday person, to technologythat was extremely powerful.
Wonderful. Do you find this tobe true in Indonesia? Yeah,
I think it is true. And withoutthe smartphone grab wouldn't
be able to be what it is. Yeah.
I think the the predictions inthe past that saying, like, you
(25:17):
know, chip sets will be muchsmaller, much affordable, but
yet, you know, faster it hasplace. It's finally plays a part
through the growth market. Butfew things that was not, you
know, people was not So payingattention in the you know, two
decades ago that mobility, likeyou mentioned, I mean, like
mobile device now, has become soeasily, so affordable. And then
(25:40):
don't forget the existence ofbroadband right now, yeah,
that's right, has, you know,enable many, you know,
innovations that was notpossible to be made in the past.
Now, with the existence ofthose, you know, you know, very
fast chipset in a mobile andthen broadband existed in, you
know, growth market like, youknow, Latin America, Africa,
(26:03):
Southeast Asia,I actually think we were in a
better position, right? Becausewhen, when, when the mobile
phone came into existence,Africa was able to leapfrog in
terms of technology. We weremuch faster than the United
States even. And there, I thinkthere's a lot of potential for
global growth markets toleapfrog, because we were not
weighed down by old technology.
(26:28):
We can immediately leapfrog andembrace new technology. I think
the issue is the Do we have thewill, the political will to do
that? SometimesI like leapfrog terminology
because it is what important?
Yeah, and with the technology, Ithink, I think the growth market
has two advantages. Number one,the technology that enables them
(26:52):
to live rock. But number two isalso very important, a market of
consumers that's so keen toadapt new things. Yes, you see
how, you know, people adapt, youknow, new technologies. You
know, much easier, easier in thegrowth market, and there's
this need for services, right?
Exactly, because,you know, maybe in an
(27:13):
established market like USEurope, things has been
established, and then peopledon't need, you know, any extra
things. You know, you go to yourgroceries, it's kind of like,
you know, it's standard. But inIndonesia, for examples, it's so
different kind of quality if yougo to the brick and mortar, and
depends onreal areas as well, urban
center, exactly, yeah,absolutely. And
(27:38):
then with the, you know,existence of new technology,
there's no difference. Forexamples, telemedicine, for
examples. I mean, it used to bein remote area. It's hard to
access doctors, but with theexistence of telemedicine, they
could access the same quality ofmedical service to the ones that
(27:58):
you know receive it in themetropolitan area. So the
adoption level is differentbecause people are so much in
need of same qualities.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So Iwant to ask you a question about
values. Wow, because I know youthink about values a lot. I know
(28:23):
I think about values a lot, andyou have to make a decision
every day, almost to stick bycore values that we have
learned. But when you're anentrepreneur and an in a in a
rapidly changing market,sometimes your values are
constantly being questioned, andsometimes you really have to
(28:47):
think very hard about where yourred line is. You know, what line
Are you absolutely not willingto cross? And then sometimes
your values are what really leadyou to staying in the course of
making a difference in the faceof all the different challenges
that entrepreneurs face inmarkets like like in Indonesia,
(29:11):
or actually, more broadly,Southeast Asia, because they're
all rapidly changing and growingmarkets. How important is it for
entrepreneurs to really spendtime thinking and understanding
their values and what they standfor and what their red lines
are.
So I think failures is at thecore of our initiatives. I think
(29:37):
things like visions, cultures,you really need to think through
it and believe in what's yourpath to it. And then this is
another key things, bring inpeople, like minded people along
with you, along to actually tofight for it. You know as to
(29:58):
this market like you know, you.
As Europe, I think values havebeen built for long, I think for
centuries, maybe. And then it'snot that difficult, that hard
for people to, you know, stickto their values, because it's
you're surrounded with peoplethat already quite understand. I
think regulatory environments inthe United States ensure that
(30:20):
certain values are upheld, rightexactly, and then it has built
in the cultures and peoplealready, you know, automatically
know that it is there. But inthe growth markets, you you tend
to kind of like, open the way.
You're like, you're you'refighting not only for your
cause, but it's also for, youknow, setting an example,
(30:41):
setting an example, becausegenerations, you will be
surprised, there's actually manypeople striving to fight the
same values, and then by showingexamples, and then by showing it
to the world that you could doit, then same, like minded
people, even though maybe not inthe same organizations as You
are, but looking at you that youwere actually seeing how you
(31:04):
behave, we behave. I rememberlast year, some of the students
who met you here on campus, youknow, they came to me, they
said, you know, Pa ritski is alegend in Tunisia because he
stands for certain values.
That's also a heavy burden.
It is. But I think it is partwhen you actually do it on a
(31:26):
mission, that you're so awarethat there are so many people
there looking for an examplethat you could be successful by
stand up to your values. Thenyou're kind of like planting
seeds. Then you will see soon,people, you know, starting to,
you know, showing the worlds aswell. Then you you suddenly
(31:48):
realize that you're not soalone, yeah, you actually have
companies, yeah, and then tohave that. And then together
with them, build a new kind of,you know, you know, value
driven. You know, entrepreneursvalue driven, you know,
businessmen and setting up, youknow, the regions and countries
to for a better futures likethat. I think it's so
(32:10):
fulfilling.
I agree. I think we need more,yeah, even here in the United
States, you know, I thinkpurpose is so important, and we
don't spend enough time talkingabout the importance of purpose
and values when you start aventure, but also as you grow
(32:30):
it, because that's alwaysbrought into question you're all
these pulling forces, pullingyou in different directions can
take you away from your purpose.
Can also sometimes make you say,oh, you know what? Maybe I'll
turn a blind eye to a certainvalue I have. These are tough
decisions, you know, and when Ithink about you, because also
during the pandemic, you madesome really hard choices about
(32:52):
partnering with the Indonesiangovernment. And I think a lot of
your decisions were very muchanchored in your purpose of
ensuring that those who aredependent on grab Indonesia for
income were able to continue tohave access to the income. And
(33:15):
you had to build a strategicpartnership and take on the
government as an ally. That'ssomething that a lot of emerging
market entrepreneurs have to do,but it's not always easy to work
with with the government,partner with them to chart a new
path or a new way of doingthings. Yeah. So if you're
(33:37):
giving advice to a new on a newinnovation driven entrepreneur
across global growth growthmarkets could be in Southeast
Asia, could be Africa, could beMiddle East, could be Latin
America. We all have difficultgovernments to deal with, and
not so difficult. I think, youknow, it's not as
(33:58):
straightforward as people think.
I think governments, at least inmy country, sometimes the
government is extremelydifficult, but sometimes that's
a huge opportunity to reallycreate change and shift mindsets
and create a new opening for newsystems to evolve. And I think
you did that in Indonesia. Sowhat advice would you have to
(34:21):
entrepreneurs on how they canreally work with their
governments as an ally?
So yes, governments comesometimes could be quite
difficult to deal with, but Ithink we don't blame them. I
mean many, especially for thetech startups, many of the
things that we do didn't existbefore, so it's hard for them to
(34:41):
sometimes to absorb, tounderstand, let alone to set
policy on how to regulate it. Soso don't blame on them on this.
So I think number one advice isto build a platform of
communication, because you needto communicate. You need to
understand what's their way ofthinking. And. And they need to
understand also, what thereasons that we do things, and
(35:06):
mind memany hours and hours to do that,
and then, let alone the weunderstand that the time of the
government's very, very, youknow, it's, it's difficult to
get, but you had to fight forit, because, you know you would,
you would need that to be ableto serve your purpose. Number
(35:28):
two, I think my advice is youreally need to believe in what
you do, and you do Avengers. Ifyou don't believe what you do,
it's hard to convince people.
You need to do someinternalization, internalizing
yourself as well, making surethat you really do what you
believe. And then you believewhat you do, because then it's
hard to convince people if youreally look no so not so
believing to what you do, right?
(35:54):
And then in between, of course,there will be, you know,
arguments, you know, again,agreements, disagreements, that
happens? Yeah, and I think theguiding light through that is
that again you look at yourselfagain, do you do the things for
the right reasons or not? Onceyou know that you do things for
the right reasons, you knowpeople, in the end, eventually,
(36:19):
will come aboard. Will comeapart.
Whatever the situation is, Ifound it quite consistent. You
need to actually, to askyourself and team first, you
believe that you do the rightfor the right reasons. In fact,
I told my team several times, ifany of you ever doubting that
you do things for the rightreasons, just come to me
(36:40):
directly, and we'll do adiscussions and read. Let's do a
debate as well immediately,because if you don't believe
that you do the for the rightreasons, I cannot actually trust
you to talk to other peopleoutside, because then it'll be a
wrong message. So once yousorted all of those things,
(37:01):
definitely things will be mucheasier. And I found it like, you
know, in the case of Indonesia'sthen, government is really,
really supportive, like the, youknow, all of these SMEs going to
digitalizations. It's very muchsupported then, in fact, now
they understand the pain pointsthat these small businesses,
(37:24):
micron small businesses, needsto be formalized, giving some
kind of like, you know, benefitsas well in the process for a
bigger purpose. Because thengovernment realized the
importance of this small andmedium enterprises. So then what
happens is that we went on roadshows, you know, to city, cities
to, you know, remote cities inin Asia, to Papua, to Sulawesi
(37:48):
to Sumatra. And we did, youknow, road shows together. And
this is the result of thoseengagement, long engagements,
and then believing in what youdo and doing it for the right
reasons.
I love that, and it kind ofbrings, brings us back to the
original point. If you're anentrepreneur and you see
yourself as a vehicle toachieving prosperity in your
(38:11):
country, you start to functionvery differently than if you're
an entrepreneur and you'rethinking, Oh, I just need to
make money. I need to give moneyback to my shareholders, and
profit becomes your ultimategoal, as opposed to, I think you
function very differently whenyou're thinking, well, profit is
important, but the change I cancreate in my country is more
(38:35):
significant as kind of theguiding departure point you show
up differently to differentstakeholders in the ecosystem,
right? Yes, Iagree with that, yeah, yeah. So
I know that for you, culture isreally, really important. I've
seen it live. I've also seen howyour team I've seen how they
work together. I've seen howdedicated they are, how open and
(39:00):
honest. And you know, there'salways this debate, what's more
important building culture orstrategy, or is it both? And I
know that in your case, buildinga culture was really, really
important for you, and I, Iimagine it was important for you
(39:21):
even before you took on thisrole at grab. And I imagine it
will be important to you longafter. Can you, can you share
with those listening yourthoughts around building a
culture in an organization canbottom up and and what is
important to you in thatculture?
(39:45):
I think it's important,especially when you're in a
mission to achieve something andyou're facing mountains, it's a
steep, you know, way forward. Imentioned this earlier to
bringing in like minded people.
Yeah, people lie though ritzy,but then it, I hate
(40:05):
to say this, but, you know,some, sometimes people are
really good at talking a goodtalk. Yeah,
so, so now this is the key. Imean, like people lie during
interviews. Maybe then, sure,then you, you, you onboarding,
you know, different kind of youknow that you thought you
onboarding like minded people,but then it is not. What do you
(40:26):
do? Hence, this cultures plays avery important role. You know,
many, many companies says theyhave cultures, but it ended up
only on posters, on emailswithout giving examples. So
number one, giving examples isvery, very important. You cannot
(40:48):
convince team that you livecertain values if you only send
emails but you don't be seentested to those values. You have
to showcase if you face, youknow, a tough decisions, but
then you you choose to actuallylive up to your cultures that
you have conveyed before. Peoplesee examples that you've been,
(41:11):
you know, cornered to a certainsituations. But then you make
tough decisions to defend thecultures and prioritize cultures
first. I think that's veryimportant examples. And showing
examples, I mean people thatwill spread and people will
really, really convince that youreally do live a certain values.
Number two is, of course, youknow, we jokingly, you know,
(41:35):
mentions about interviewingprocess, but then you found out
different people. So again, notjust to put, you know, cultures
in posters or whatever it is,you really have to actually
regularly, you know, assesscultures in the organizations in
to the team as well. So it hasto be regularly, you know,
(41:55):
assessed. Whatdo you do when you find somebody
who is an outlier? Do you getrid of them?
Number one is, of course, todevelop, we give feedbacks. You
know, people.
You give feedback. You know,remember, you remember last year
when you were here? Yes, sir.
Mustafa was here. The Yeah, he,you know, he said, he says to
me, said, Dina, you know, one ofthe lessons that I've learned in
(42:15):
business and helping otherentrepreneurs build businesses
over the years, is that whensomebody shows you through
actions that their values don'tmatch the values that are
important to the culture you arebuilding, you have to get them
out fast. But then I know otherpeople who say you need to give
(42:36):
people space to evolve. Where doyou stand?
I stand for the second. For thelatter, because I've seen also
examples where people changed.
We give good. It's actually thepurpose as well. I mean, you
bring in some like mindedpeople, but also you try to get
people to be like minded people,maybe certain people you know
(42:59):
didn't really you know, yeah,into that values. But once you
give examples, you givefeedbacks. I've seen people you
know really, really change. Butof course, the first you know
mindset will also applies. At acertain point you need to have
(43:19):
deadlines as well. You cannot,you know, let people you know,
slip, slip, not changing, andthen dragging too long of a
time, because that will drag theorganization. Yeah, there will
be tough decisions as well. Inthe end, if it's actually you've
given a chance and you've givenfair feedbacks and open
feedback, but not even you know,you're seeing an effort being
(43:43):
given by certain people. Youhave to
make tough decisions. How do youmake those tough decisions?
Once you've gone through thoseprocess, it'll be very
objectives. You have to be veryobjective. You cannot be
subjective. No,I get it, but, you know,
sometimes making a toughdecision when you're a really
kind person is hard.
(44:06):
Once it's structured andobjectives, even though I'm a
kind, you know, kind ofpersonality, the way you said,
Thank you for believing me as akind person, by the way. But
then one is structures, one isobjectives, you know, the
reasons, then you can't failobjectively. No, emotions,
nothing. It is just because ofit just doesn't fit. It
doesn't fit. Yeah, and how doesculture fit with strategy?
(44:33):
Because I believe this just myinterpretation of what I've seen
from you, that they're bothdeeply intertwined, but
oftentimes we teach them asseparate things, but in your
What are, what is your belief ofhow culture and strategy really
fit together?
I found it actually many peoplefound it is difficult to find an
(44:55):
organization with like mindedpeople, yeah? So once. So you as
a different person, not me,people, you found a very fitting
organization of like mindedpeople. Honestly, they will tend
to be very loyal. They're lessabout materialistic. Of course.
(45:15):
You know, we fight as hard toactually, to give, you know,
better compensations and things,but they will care less about
that. They will be more likethis is an organization that I
find it fits in. It's mission,loyal to
this mission, loyal to thismission. I've seen that like,
you know, obviously tears is oneof my closest I've seen how
(45:36):
loyal she is. That is not aneasy thing to achieve, and I
think that's just because of theexample that was set, and what
the keeping the purpose at thevery center, right? So I want to
ask you, you know, since this isMIT, right, and MIT is about
technology, and we're about deeptech too, right? And AI and I
(46:03):
would say some of the moreadvanced technologies right now
are starting to proliferate theworld. But a lot of emerging
markets are really scared ofsome of these new advanced
technologies, like AI, digitalassets, cryptocurrency, but, but
these are these new technologiesare just tools, and I think that
(46:27):
there are a lot of fears rightnow with from governments about
what some of these newtechnologies are going to do in
their countries. Are, are theygoing to be faced with an even
bigger job unemployment crisis,or what should they be doing so
in a country like Indonesia, andI would say, thinking more
(46:48):
broadly about Southeast Asia inyour mind, how can we better
embrace and adopt some of thesenew advanced technologies to
create prosperity, and How cangovernments start looking at
things differently, so that someof the entrepreneurs who are
really building ventures in thisspace stay in our countries and
(47:09):
don't come here. You know,yesterday, I was in a round
table discussion about angelinvesting in the Middle East,
and one of the entrepreneurs,he's in biotech, and he left,
you know, he left Jordan, andhe's building his business here.
Another one of theentrepreneurs, again, is in
(47:30):
biotech, amazing engineer, leftEgypt, and is here in Boston. We
want these entrepreneurs to stayin their countries, but yet,
they feel that they can't, theydon't have the space to engage
in R and D, doing thingsproperly, have the right,
(47:52):
supportive regulatoryenvironments. I think we we need
to, even at the Legatum center,we need to do better at having
conversations with policymakersabout what some of these
technologies mean mean, and whatthey can actually do to the
advancement of our owncountries, not just from an
economic perspective, but frommore of a inclusive prosperity
(48:14):
perspective. What are yourthoughts on on how we can better
integrate all of these advancedthat are coming. They're coming
anyway. There's nothing we cando about it. But how is it that
we can stay ahead of the curveas opposed to finding ourselves
behind the curve?
I think the pattern has beenthere for long. New
(48:36):
technologies, as you mentioned,comes anyway. Yeah, it happens
in the past. I mean, youwouldn't believe when automobile
was first exist. In existence,yeah, in UK,
the ultimate, the ultimateinnovation. Exactly
back then in UK, there was a soridiculous policy in
anticipations of the automobile,that was called, I think, a red
(48:59):
flag policy, if I'm notmistaken, red flag regulations.
So you know, this was so funny.
So everyone, anyone withautomobiles, it was not as fast
as today, definitely would needto have two people in front of
the automobile, walking, yeah,and then carrying red flags.
Oh, my goodness, you wouldn'tbelieve it, right? I did not
(49:22):
know that. And then,of course, as it's become more
advanced, they they just got ridof that regulations, because it
become irrelevant. Yeah, so youknow, people you know, don't
blame the governments, evenpeople at that time you know,
act, you know, weirdly,strangely to new things. And now
it comes the AI, you know, thelarge language models, whatever
(49:42):
it is. I think the key here isfor us to because nobody knows
it's I think it's the same, likepandemic. Nobody knows where
this will lead to. I. Yeah,because it's going
so fast, which means we knew weneed new learning. We need to
(50:04):
create space for that learningexactly, and not be afraid.
Not Be afraid what is veryimportant for us to keep on
engaged and learning to eachother where this could lead to
and then there will be, youknow. You know, different
triggers to make it you knowdifferently. It's suddenly, you
know, because it's like, now,like companies become is, like
(50:24):
competing in this AIS, sothey're kind like, you know,
creating new innovations out ofit. It could lead to something
else that we wouldn't know. Andthen it is very important for us
to, you know, discuss together.
I mean, like learning togetheras well, and then seeing from
the positive side of it, andmany positive side of it, and as
much as possible to to managethe the negative sides of it. I
(50:44):
know, even, you know,educational institutions, you
know, trying to understand aswell how to deal with this,
which students as well, youknow, using AIS to do their, you
know, assignments and work.
But I think our friend chat,GBT, yeah. I
mean, like it is, it isbecoming, you know,
(51:06):
commonalities, right now, I see,but these things can be used to
create efficiency if we use themproperly, and they can be used
to create damage. Iknow, even myself now I tend to
use, you know, AIS to help me.
Don't need so much, you know,personal assistance these days.
I mean, like, just to be honestwith you, yeah, could help me to
(51:27):
actually build, you know, atleast, you know, the core, you
know, structures, and then Icould do, you know, my things,
yeah, on my own. It helps me alot. And I know lots of people
being helped a lot by theexistence of AIS, but you need
people that knows how to usethis technology for good ways.
What brings us back to values?
Brings back to values, and thenI think the discussions will
(51:51):
have to come back again tovalues. You know, whether it is
companies, governments,educational institutions. How
could we make values as theguiding light to actually
purpose and purpose definitely?
Yeah,I agree with that. I agree it's
not easy, though. So you know,you're the one who brought up
(52:12):
purpose again, and I because Ithink purpose is so important,
right? And I don't know that weeducate students to really think
about purpose, although I thinklately at MIT, there's been a
there's been a healthy debateabout, are we using science and
technology for good, or are weusing it not for evil? Because
(52:33):
it could be both ways. And Ithink purpose is what determines
which direction you go in. AndI, you know, ritzy, I've seen
you as a CEO, I've seen you as afriend, I've seen you as a
father, I've seen you as ahusband, like I've seen you in
your different roles. And Ithink purpose is really
(52:54):
important to you. How is it thatyou think of purpose and how you
navigate all of the differentaspects of your life.
Thanks for asking that. I mean,like, maybe it's a process. I'm
not becoming what I am just likethat. I think it's through
(53:17):
process, through decades. Youknow, maybe in my younger
version of me, I was not even afather, so I didn't know how
actually to be a father, that'sright. And then once you become
a father, then you try to thinkabout how you merge your values
in your professional lives to bea good father as well. So it's a
process. But again, I think itcomes back to two things. Number
(53:42):
one, doing things for goodreasons. It's always me and my
principles. And as my careergrew, I know that I will have
more power to do it. So then forme, it is more the purpose to
create benefits in a way throughwhat I do to as many as people,
(54:05):
actually, more people that Icould actually be doing to
actually to get them benefitedfrom what I do. And then setting
example of this to the teammember, to my families, and they
start to believe in me as well,that I do it for good reasons.
That's why you see probably mymy wife, my my kids. You know,
(54:26):
they're so keen to actually tobe with me. I'm proud, yeah?
Because theysee the look of pride. I looked
at your wife in class the otherday and I saw pure pride. Yeah,
so beautiful.
Thank you. Because they alsobelieve in me, and they also see
the impacts that I'm making tomany people, and that's where
(54:46):
the pride came from, becausethey know that I do for the
right reasons. I do things forthe right reasons. I hope I
could do my share to show thisto the world. That there's never
been a perfect, you know,situations, but the way that you
(55:07):
involve people, you know, thatwill make people believe in you,
and they will. They will dotheir shares, you know, once you
actually convincing them thatit's possible to so again, it's
about, you know, I talked toMark Allen earlier as well. I
think myself like more like acandle, where I just don't, you
(55:32):
know, I don't, you know, justlight up what's around me. But
my purpose is also to light upother candles as many as
possible, so then people couldbe the examples to the world.
And I hope I do my shares ofthat part. And I really hope
that it's successful in a way. Itake, you know, not not lightly,
(55:59):
but i i care much less about,you know, methodal achievements,
but I take seriously about howdo we make impact and we
influence people in a good wayto make the world a better
world,and where does your Faith fit
in, you know, and I think aboutyour your example of a candle, I
(56:21):
immediately in my mind, youknow, I, I'm Muslim, and the
word light, Noor is mentioned somany times in our faith, yes,
and I, for me, the lesson I takefrom that has always been. You
have to be a source of light ineverything you do, even when
(56:44):
you're experiencing loss, deeploss. And I know you have
experienced deep loss, and Ihave experienced deep loss, and
you need to find a way to findthe light entrepreneurs, very
difficult journey. It's a verylonely journey when you're
building a venture, it's evenlonelier when you're building a
venture in a very difficult,volatile market. How do you
(57:06):
continue to find a way to be asource of light and to continue
to also help others hold on totheir own light?
So faith is my source of energy,yeah, definitely, I take
(57:28):
seriously, you know, of faith,because, again, I spoke about,
you know, believe in what you doand do what you believe. It's
actually maybe originating fromthe faith. So I know that I'm
not here in the world, not for apurpose. Everyone has their own
(57:49):
roles. And, you know, sometimespeople seeing me like, wow,
you're quite successful,relatively. But I take it as a
role instead. This is a rolethat I am being the
responsibility to be in and Ineed to be as responsible as
possible to show examples, andthen I can actually, I can stand
(58:16):
before you know in the afterlifethat I've done my part. I've
done my part and responsibly,and that's the least that I
could hope. Yeah,that's beautiful. I think our
time, our journeys, are soactually very, very short. You
know, I always say very longdays, very, very short years,
(58:38):
extremely short years, and Timejust flies, I know, and in the
face of time flying by, youreally have to hold on to
creating meaning and impactbefore your time actually ends.
So ritzy. My last question toyou, because I'm a big believer
in hope and the need for hope,and we're living really
(59:02):
difficult times in the worldright now. We have wars, various
climate climate catastrophes.
Southeast Asia is a victim tothat. I think there's a lot of
struggle right now in the world,and people are really facing a
(59:24):
hard time finding their way, butthere's also a lot of cause for
hope. And you know, I drive alot of hope when I when I hear
your story, and when I think ofwhat you have done with your
life, through your throughoutyour career journey. And I
think, wow, Southeast Asia islucky because they have a great
(59:47):
example of an entrepreneur likeyou and many others. But what
are you most hopeful about whenit comes to entrepreneurship and
innovation in Southeast Asiatoday?
I think I. What I'm most hopefulabout is that I believe in
Southeast Asia. It's a region of600 million people. What my hope
(01:00:10):
is that, and I believe in it aswell. I mean, in the decade from
now, two decades from now, theworld will see South Asia, not
just, you know, geographicalmap, geographical locations in
the world, but it will become animportant players in the global
mapping. I know there's so manychallenges. There's so many, you
(01:00:35):
know, mountains that we'll haveto actually to conquer. However,
there's so many opportunitieslies there as well. And my hope
is that we don't depend on, youknow, of course, we collaborate,
but we don't depend on someoneelse for our faith in the
futures. But I believe that, youknow, Southeast Asian people
(01:00:56):
will define the course to be,you know, play to play, actually
a better part and more importantrole in the global mapping. In
the future, so many things willhappen. I know you mentioned
issues about, you know, climatesustainability, tech, education,
talent, whatever it is,infrastructures, but I believe
(01:01:19):
that together, we could solvethat problem and create our own
solutions to it as well.
I mean, what a beautiful way toend, if you you know, to truly
believe that Southeast Asia ison a path to to really owning
its own destiny. That is awonderful, very, I think, for
me, inspiring piece of hope.
(01:01:41):
You're too kind. Dana,I wish I was too kind. But, you
know, I also I wish for the samefor my region. Yes, I think it's
time for people across globalgrowth markets to really own
their own narrative and to becreating the very solutions to
their own problems internallywithin our own countries, and so
I think it's a it's a beautifulmessage to share with everyone.
(01:02:05):
So I thank you for your time.
Much welcome, and also for beingwho you are, and for coming here
to share a little piece of yourstory with everyone else.
I love being here. We lovehaving you. Thank you so much.
Right? So in this episode, we'revery excited to be welcoming
(00:04):
Ridzki Kramadibrata, who is theformer CEO and President of grab
Indonesia, with a long career inthe private sector and within
Southeast Asia more broadly, Ireally wanted to invite ritzy to
this podcast, because ritzy is,for me, an example of an
(00:27):
entrepreneur and a human beingwho is truly mission driven, who
exemplifies decision making thatare deeply, that is deeply
anchored in a sense of purpose.
And I think growing businessesin global growth markets. And
growing a business in a in acountry like Indonesia can be
extremely difficult, and hemakes it seem easy, and will
(00:48):
demonstrate the kind of valuesand and deep thinking that is
required in building a venturein a global growth market. And I
hope that all of you will enjoythe conversation that I will
have with him and learn as muchfrom him as I have over the over
the years. Thank you for joiningus, and I hope that you leave
(01:08):
feeling inspired and hopeful.
Hey, so, so excited to welcomeyou Ridzki Kramadibrata to to
our podcast. You know, you and Ihave, our relationship has been
built now over what a span ofSince COVID started, starting
(01:30):
with my dear friend Tirza, whenI met her in DC, and she said,
you know, Dina grab has beendoing really amazing things in
Indonesia. And I said, well, weneed to capture that at the
Legatum center. And sheconnected me to you, and that
was beginning of our journey. Iwant to ask you a very personal
question to start us off,because aside from grab and your
(01:54):
amazing success, not just as anentrepreneur, but someone who is
in a big corporate and you spentyour life working in Indonesia
and Southeast Asia. You have avery unique leadership style,
and you have a very unique wayof showing up for your team. And
I've seen it live. What doesleadership mean to you?
(02:18):
Okay, thank you, Nina, before Igot to that question, the
pleasure is mine, definitely,you're right. It started few
years ago during COVID. Youknow, I can't believe that I'm
here podcasting with you.
I know I can't believe iteither. It's just right right
by side the main street inCambridge. So it's wonderful
(02:38):
weather as well today. So yes,it's been an amazing journey. I
think I've been too fortunate,in my opinion, in all of this.
But yes, leadership plays alittle bit part of it. To my
opinion, to me is, as a leader,you have to lead the way and
show the way. I mean, like youhear about that, but I think
(02:58):
it's much more complicated thanhow it's formulated in a
sentence. You need to gatherinformation. You need to digest
it. You need to find gist aswell how things will lead, you
know, the business, theinnovations, the team, to
something that is meaningful tothem. So that's kind of like
building a purpose to them. Ofcourse, I'm a man that is
(03:23):
believing so much about teambuilding, teamwork, how talents
play a really, really importantpart in, you know, achieving
your goals. So definitely in theprocess, it's not just me, you
know, leading people ways. It'sactually a process of, you know,
discussions, you know,accommodating informations, but
(03:43):
most importantly, to get, youknow, a conclusions of where are
we heading to. And then once youactually formulate it, you can't
believe people will really,really follow and really,
really, you know, believe in anddo whatever it takes to actually
to achieve it. Youknow, I think sometimes being in
a position of authority isreally difficult. I think it's
(04:04):
easy when we know the solutionsright. Sometimes decision making
is easy. It's a problem we knowthe solution and you can just
execute. But sometimes, whenyou're hit with a pandemic, with
a company that's still in thekind of middle of its journey,
like, like when you were CEO ofgrab Indonesia, we really don't
(04:27):
know what we're supposed to do.
And I, you know, when I speak tomy foundry fellows here at the
Legatum center, I always say,There's no such thing as a
leader. There's something calledleadership, and we need
leadership when we really don'tknow the answer. That's when we
need leadership the most, right?
So when, when the pandemic hit,and nobody really had a clue
(04:52):
what to do in Indonesia, and youwere faced with this decision,
and you were at the time grabwas really just. Which mainly a
ride a ride hailing app. Andobviously, no one would want to
get in a car or get on the backof a motorcycle in the face of a
pandemic. But for sure, youdidn't really know what to do,
and you had to really spend timewith your team, mobilize them.
(05:15):
What did what did that time looklike for you as ritzy, what was,
what was really going throughyour mind, and how were you
dealing with this very difficultprocess of decision making at a
time where nobody had anyanswers and everyone was really
shooting in the dark,interesting questions, but first
(05:36):
of all, I beck to differ on yourfirst statement over my course
of, you know, career overdecades, that has never been any
easy decisions. Decisionsalways, you know, difficult and
tough, because you always seethe you know, plus side, the
downsides, the upsides ofdecisions. You have, you know,
opposing, you know, people. Youhave, people that supporting
(05:58):
decisions. So leaders, job is toassess all of those you know,
aspects and taking some risk outof it, because, you know there
will be implications to yourdecisions making. And then it is
actually very important toinvolve, you know, more people
(06:19):
in the decision making. It'sthere's also a reason why it's
called Leadership, because it'snot single person. It's actually
a group of people to decide. Andthen, of course, within that
group of people, you will seeyou know different opinions as
well. And then maybe in certainpoints, it takes a leader to
make a hard decision, hardchoice. How
(06:41):
do you create a space to allowfor all these different opinions
to exist at the same time? It'sa culture, I guess. I think we
need to build the culture well,where people could speak up
their minds. I think in theWestern world, maybe it is much
a common practice to do that,but maybe in the eastern part of
the world. It's not such acommon practice. So you have to
encourage people in thebeginning, just to be honest
(07:04):
with you, yeah, people are notautomatically built in the
eastern part of the world tospeak up, speak up,
or to speak up to somebody witha title of CEO. Exactly. It
takes some encouragement to dothat, but once you actually, you
show that it's not only allowed,but you are welcome to do that,
(07:24):
then people will start toactually, to say their minds and
leadership then built. Now,coming back to your second
questions, all pandemic, I'mglad it's actually you know,
behind us, behind us.
For now, for now.
Now we know that you knowunpredictable things are, you
know, probably ahead of us. Butyes, pandemic is one of the
(07:45):
example where it was anextremely difficult positions. I
thought a little bit about, youknow, how leader shows way lead
away by, you know, gathering allthe informations and try to
digest it, to be able toformulate it to something that
you could do. But during thepandemic, there's little
information to no information. Ithink the whole world didn't
(08:08):
know what to do as well, notjust me, not just, you know, the
team, but some peoplejust dove right in and just
started, you know, doing whatthey thought was best without
really having the time to reallythink through. You didn't do
that.
We didn't do that. I mean, like,I remember that one of the first
questions we had was that, howlong this will last? I still
(08:33):
remember there are some, youknow, people taking a wild guess
that, oh, this will be over inabout three months, six months.
Oh, Ihad somebody say, this will be
done in two weeks, two weeks,yeah. And we know, Oh, no. How
long that it lasted, right? Soduring that uncertainty period,
it is an importance ofregrouping and then set your
(08:54):
priorities. And during my roleat that time, of course, the
priorities, and you can hear itis the what is at stake the most
are the micro entrepreneurs thatwithin the platforms. These are
the drivers, the merchants thatsuddenly seeing their business
you know, changed significantlyand impacts their lives, not
(09:17):
only their lives, but also theirfamilies. So it's an easy, you
know, thought process. We focuson them and see what we could do
to them. And of course, there'sa process in between. I thought
about, you know, how I team? Wetalk to the team, what do they
think? And then we try tostructure it as well, but
(09:40):
focusing on the this microentrepreneurs, and then we see
that pivoting the business isone good way to do it, still
using the much of the resourcesthat we have accumulated in
terms of technology, in terms ofservices. But pivoting to toward
how we could actually servetheir business this micro
(10:03):
entrepreneurs better. And then,of course, deliveries, in the
case of, you know, SoutheastAsia has played the best, I
think we partly changed howpeople behaviors, you know, took
place during the pandemic. Andit enables also to to help
governments in terms oflogistics, because during the
pandemic, logistics, especiallythe last mile, was one of the
most difficult thing. But withthe help of these micro
(10:26):
entrepreneurs, we could reach,you know, the areas where it
was, you know, very unlikely toactually tap into.
So you use your platform to getservices to people, but it
really needed a mindset shift.
You had to kind of reframe youroffering, right? It was less
about getting someone from pointA to point B, and it became the
reverse, exactly. How do you getthe point B to the person at
(10:50):
point A, exactly? But thatrequired a lot of new learning
and a lot of creativity. Thatwas really where innovation was
happening, right? Yeah.
I mean, like, if you I like theway you put it point A to point
B, and then point B, now it'sactually point B to point A. You
know, many great ideas in theworld. It's just a simple
(11:12):
concept. And concept like thatworks really, really well in the
time where it's needed the most.
And the momentum was right, thepre works was there, and then
suddenly the chains of themindset helped everyone to solve
majority of the problems. Andthen you kept purpose at the
very core, because what wasreally keeping you up at night
(11:32):
was making sure that all thepeople that you had provided
income for were not going tolose their income.
Okay, you wouldn't believe howmuch these things kept me at
night. Oh, Ido. Because I know you as a
person, I can imagine that youwere deeply concerned about all
the people who'd be potentiallylosing access to income, yeah.
(11:53):
But on the positive side aswell, it is also, not only kept
me wake up at night. But also, Imean, like this kind of things
where you so purpose driven,mission driven, and you're
impacting so many lives, somany, you know, people's
economies, you wake up soenergized as well, yeah,
thinking about the positiveimpact that you're making, you
(12:14):
and the team, yeah. And thenwhat kind of new things that you
will do to make a difference, tomake a difference, and this is
really an amazing part of it.
I totally get it and canimagine. So I'm gonna ask you a
question, a little bit aboutfailure now. Oh, because you
know, when we decide to engagein any form of leadership, all
throughout your career, forsure, there were failures. But a
(12:38):
good mentor of mine always saidfailure is only failure if you
haven't learned the lessons thatyou need to learn, but over the
span of your career, if there isone leadership failure that you
can remember that impacted you,what was it and are you willing
to share?
Yeah, so I think failures is aninteresting subject, because at
(13:01):
one point, especiallyin our cultures, exactly,
failure is not always allowed.
People blame for failures. So Ithink you know, if you're so
irresponsible in taking decisionand make failures, maybe there's
reasons where people actuallyblame on you, and then the
(13:22):
culture is probably built onthat. Because, you know, our
cultures, maybe in the past, wasnot so much about, you know,
structuring issues and thenaddressing it, you know,
constructively, and then whereit's actually built the cultures
that people, you know, why didyou do such things? But if you
do it in a responsibly, in sortof responsible way, and
(13:44):
structure it, you've done asmuch as possible to avoid the
values and when failures happen,then people understand it's
actually beyond the control, andit's this, it's the structure
that you need to help build tomake the organizations make
(14:05):
failures. Okay, okay? Becauseotherwise, you know, you don't
make foolish mistakes and youdon't get creative, then you
don't get creative. So you youactually have to allow a set of,
you know, values to actually, toenable for the organizations to
(14:26):
become more agile and yetcreative and innovative as well.
Well in the past, I've had, youknow, as you can guess,
probably, I mean, like I, one ofthe leaders, job is to take
risk. And I told you, you know,earlier, that that has never
been easy decisions. No, I'vemet, you know, several mistakes,
(14:50):
to be honest with you. I mean,like I've done, you know, telco
businesses, airlines and thennow, platform businesses and
airlines. You know, I. Could,you know, confess that there's
so many, you know, rude mistakesthat I did as well, and it's
actually affects the, not onlythe company, but how people will
use the airlines, sure, and inthe airlines
(15:14):
are a tricky business, right?
Tricky business, exactly. Somuch safety involved,
so much safety you have to,actually to prioritize safety,
but yet, your Indian is abusiness, you have to actually
to self sustain your your ownventures as well. And in
platform business, I thinkthere's few mistakes that we've
made. I've made as well. I mean,like we're so creative, we're
(15:37):
creating so many verticals, youknow, surfaces. That sounds
really, really, you know,exciting in the beginning, but
it didn't take up. So I mean,like mistakes like this happen,
and we just assume it, as longas you're very responsible in
the process, then it's ourcommon you know, it's our risk
(15:58):
actually to take, and no one'sto blame.
But how did you I'm gonna try toget you to open up a bit. How
did you feel at those moments offailure?
It is number one. If it's, it's,it's, depends on the impact of
(16:18):
the failures.
Yeah, because failure can impactus a lot as humans. Right?
Exactly we hold ourselves,especially you. I know you to
very high standards. And whenyou, when you do go through a
failure, there's a lot ofemotions that come to the
forefront, you know? How do youdeal with those multitude of
(16:39):
emotions that come with with afailure, until you learn what
you need to learn from it.
Yes, so if it's number one, itis. There's no use for you to
regret what has happened. Yeah,of course, you learn from the
mistake, but you don't regret,because regretting is just
taking you nowhere. No, I thinkthe key things here is to
(17:01):
quickly learn from the mistakes.
I like the quick debrief. Youknow, things, when you face
something, you make mistakes.
Your team make mistakes. I makemistakes. We do quick breathing
debriefing. And then, becausethe momentum is there, and then
you can learn. You can learn,you know, as effective as
(17:22):
possible, you take more time todo debriefing and understanding
what mistakes that you havemade. It becomes more
irrelevant, and you tend toforget, you know, few details
that is actually very, veryimportant. So the key things is
here is to quickly learn fromand have the team to debrief
together with you. You know, somany mistakes we've made.
(17:48):
Sometimes the impact was notonly to to the company, to the
stakeholders, but sometimesthere's personal, you know,
impact as well. Absolutely,I think that's the most
difficult part of it sometimes,yeah,
yep. So I've had a share ofmistakes that I've made that,
you know, had some implicationsto my family, and then I had to
(18:12):
definitely quickly reviewing itand learning from it and as much
as possible not to repeat it.
And you know, the best isactually to get better out of
it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there'sonly one way, and that's
forward, but you have to makepeace with some of the things
that happened in our past,right? I like
that. I like that. You know?
I've, I've had this, someonetelling me a tragedy, plus time,
(18:36):
it's comedy. You look at someyour past mistakes, past
tragedy, you that as it'sactually a pass over time, it
becomes a little bit, you know,you you tend to love,
oh, I don't know about that forme, maybe in Indonesia you can
(18:57):
find humor, but I don't Know,Egyptians aren't so much the
same.
So, yes, don't be toodon't take yourself too
seriously. Youlearn quickly. You learn fast
and recover from it and getsbetter. Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to, I want to take usa little bit so, you know, here
(19:17):
at the Legatum center, we thinkabout entrepreneurship and
innovation as a means and not anend. So we don't, we don't for
us, it's not just about seeingmore and more entrepreneurs.
It's really more about whatentrepreneurship can do for
society. And so we talk a lot, alot about entrepreneurship and
innovation as a pathway toachieving sustainable
(19:39):
prosperity, specifically withinglobal growth markets in
countries like Indonesia likeyours, or Egypt like mine.
Thinking about entrepreneurshipand innovation as a strategic
strategy for government toreally create prosperity hasn't
really been there. Oftentimes ithappens by accident. It's not as
intentional as one. Would hope,even though to create economic
(20:02):
prosperity, you really want tosee bottom up growth, and you
need to see that throughtraditional entrepreneurship,
and you need to see that throughinnovation driven
entrepreneurship, I think you,you have witnessed live the
power of entrepreneurship andinnovation in creating
prosperity in a country likeIndonesia, right? Why is it so
(20:22):
important for entrepreneurstoday, specifically,
specifically in markets likeours, to really understand that
they have a big and criticalrole to play in achieving
prosperity in their countries?
Yeah, I really believe thatentrepreneurs is the core of the
economy. I mean, like, Wherewill economy go with all of
(20:44):
these entrepreneurs? Butentrepreneurs come in, you know,
there's a big, you know, sizecompanies, entrepreneurships,
but there's also, you know,small to medium, small to medium
size. And I see the patterns inmany countries. I thought it was
Indonesia specific, but then Istudied and learned it's
actually quite common acrosscountries that the dominant
(21:08):
players and the dominantcontributions comes actually
from small and mediumenterprises. The problem is, I
think, lies from the whether thegovernment allows the the
environment for them to thrive,for them not to only to thrive,
but to, you know, grow, grow.
And this is a typical problem inthe growth market. So what is
(21:33):
more important is for thegovernments to really, really
think about how to embrace thisbusiness, how to give, you know,
platforms for them to grow, andhow to create like ecosystem and
environment where they couldmore than thrive, they could
expand. Because in the end, youknow, there's so much that
(21:54):
governments could do in termsof, you know, subsidizing
economy, or, you know, building,you know, initiatives, you will
need to, actually, to for acountry to really, really grow,
you need to to really make surethat these players really,
really grow. So that's one sideof the economy, the small and
(22:15):
medium enterprises. But also,then they're the grabs of the
world. Then there's the grabs ofthe worlds. And I think with the
technology nowadays, theenablement of, you know, growth
markets to play, to play abetter positions in terms of,
you know, creating technologiesand things, it's much more
(22:36):
feasible and easier,you know, you say that. But here
in the United States, I'm notsure that your average person at
MIT or Harvard would think, Oh,Indonesia. Now that's a country
where innovation is happening.
Yeah, I think that's kind ofmisperceptions. That's right,
(22:58):
that's happening. A lot ofthings has changed, and has been
going on, I think, since thepast decade, with the enablement
of the new technology peoplecould create, you know,
innovations, technologies, youknow, even from home. And then,
of course, scale with the helpof of course, investors, feces
and rest to help grow to asizable business. And this kind
(23:23):
of revolutions, the techrevolutions happening in the
growth market, includingIndonesia, people you know,
starting to create amazinginnovations, yeah, and then
doing things that was notpossible in the past, but now
it's so possible and challengingthe businesses from the
established markets, like in theUS Europe, of course, taking
(23:44):
advantage from their ownmarkets, first for Southeast
Asia's case, of course,Southeast Asia market, I know,
in Africa, Latin America,similar things happening. And I
think that will be themisperceptions that happening
right now. You know, many peoplein the developed market didn't
think that the revolution isgoing so rapidly and so fast,
(24:09):
but it is going that fastlately.
You know, I have a good friend.
His name is ChristopherSchroeder. He spent a lot of
time in the Middle East startinghe was really fascinated with
this growth and evolution oftech startups in the Middle
East, specifically post all ofthe uprisings that happened in
2011 to the extent that heactually wrote a book called
(24:29):
Start uprising. And he alwayssays something he said. He says
that within emerging markets orglobal growth markets, countries
like Egypt or Indonesia or or inNigeria, the introduction of the
smartphone was a game changer,because that gave access to your
(24:51):
everyday person, to technologythat was extremely powerful.
Wonderful. Do you find this tobe true in Indonesia? Yeah,
I think it is true. And withoutthe smartphone grab wouldn't
be able to be what it is. Yeah.
I think the the predictions inthe past that saying, like, you
(25:17):
know, chip sets will be muchsmaller, much affordable, but
yet, you know, faster it hasplace. It's finally plays a part
through the growth market. Butfew things that was not, you
know, people was not So payingattention in the you know, two
decades ago that mobility, likeyou mentioned, I mean, like
mobile device now, has become soeasily, so affordable. And then
(25:40):
don't forget the existence ofbroadband right now, yeah,
that's right, has, you know,enable many, you know,
innovations that was notpossible to be made in the past.
Now, with the existence ofthose, you know, you know, very
fast chipset in a mobile andthen broadband existed in, you
know, growth market like, youknow, Latin America, Africa,
(26:03):
Southeast Asia,I actually think we were in a
better position, right? Becausewhen, when, when the mobile
phone came into existence,Africa was able to leapfrog in
terms of technology. We weremuch faster than the United
States even. And there, I thinkthere's a lot of potential for
global growth markets toleapfrog, because we were not
weighed down by old technology.
(26:28):
We can immediately leapfrog andembrace new technology. I think
the issue is the Do we have thewill, the political will to do
that? SometimesI like leapfrog terminology
because it is what important?
Yeah, and with the technology, Ithink, I think the growth market
has two advantages. Number one,the technology that enables them
(26:52):
to live rock. But number two isalso very important, a market of
consumers that's so keen toadapt new things. Yes, you see
how, you know, people adapt, youknow, new technologies. You
know, much easier, easier in thegrowth market, and there's
this need for services, right?
Exactly, because,you know, maybe in an
(27:13):
established market like USEurope, things has been
established, and then peopledon't need, you know, any extra
things. You know, you go to yourgroceries, it's kind of like,
you know, it's standard. But inIndonesia, for examples, it's so
different kind of quality if yougo to the brick and mortar, and
depends onreal areas as well, urban
center, exactly, yeah,absolutely. And
(27:38):
then with the, you know,existence of new technology,
there's no difference. Forexamples, telemedicine, for
examples. I mean, it used to bein remote area. It's hard to
access doctors, but with theexistence of telemedicine, they
could access the same quality ofmedical service to the ones that
(27:58):
you know receive it in themetropolitan area. So the
adoption level is differentbecause people are so much in
need of same qualities.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So Iwant to ask you a question about
values. Wow, because I know youthink about values a lot. I know
(28:23):
I think about values a lot, andyou have to make a decision
every day, almost to stick bycore values that we have
learned. But when you're anentrepreneur and an in a in a
rapidly changing market,sometimes your values are
constantly being questioned, andsometimes you really have to
(28:47):
think very hard about where yourred line is. You know, what line
Are you absolutely not willingto cross? And then sometimes
your values are what really leadyou to staying in the course of
making a difference in the faceof all the different challenges
that entrepreneurs face inmarkets like like in Indonesia,
(29:11):
or actually, more broadly,Southeast Asia, because they're
all rapidly changing and growingmarkets. How important is it for
entrepreneurs to really spendtime thinking and understanding
their values and what they standfor and what their red lines
are.
So I think failures is at thecore of our initiatives. I think
(29:37):
things like visions, cultures,you really need to think through
it and believe in what's yourpath to it. And then this is
another key things, bring inpeople, like minded people along
with you, along to actually tofight for it. You know as to
(29:58):
this market like you know, you.
As Europe, I think values havebeen built for long, I think for
centuries, maybe. And then it'snot that difficult, that hard
for people to, you know, stickto their values, because it's
you're surrounded with peoplethat already quite understand. I
think regulatory environments inthe United States ensure that
(30:20):
certain values are upheld, rightexactly, and then it has built
in the cultures and peoplealready, you know, automatically
know that it is there. But inthe growth markets, you you tend
to kind of like, open the way.
You're like, you're you'refighting not only for your
cause, but it's also for, youknow, setting an example,
(30:41):
setting an example, becausegenerations, you will be
surprised, there's actually manypeople striving to fight the
same values, and then by showingexamples, and then by showing it
to the world that you could doit, then same, like minded
people, even though maybe not inthe same organizations as You
are, but looking at you that youwere actually seeing how you
(31:04):
behave, we behave. I rememberlast year, some of the students
who met you here on campus, youknow, they came to me, they
said, you know, Pa ritski is alegend in Tunisia because he
stands for certain values.
That's also a heavy burden.
It is. But I think it is partwhen you actually do it on a
(31:26):
mission, that you're so awarethat there are so many people
there looking for an examplethat you could be successful by
stand up to your values. Thenyou're kind of like planting
seeds. Then you will see soon,people, you know, starting to,
you know, showing the worlds aswell. Then you you suddenly
(31:48):
realize that you're not soalone, yeah, you actually have
companies, yeah, and then tohave that. And then together
with them, build a new kind of,you know, you know, value
driven. You know, entrepreneursvalue driven, you know,
businessmen and setting up, youknow, the regions and countries
to for a better futures likethat. I think it's so
(32:10):
fulfilling.
I agree. I think we need more,yeah, even here in the United
States, you know, I thinkpurpose is so important, and we
don't spend enough time talkingabout the importance of purpose
and values when you start aventure, but also as you grow
(32:30):
it, because that's alwaysbrought into question you're all
these pulling forces, pullingyou in different directions can
take you away from your purpose.
Can also sometimes make you say,oh, you know what? Maybe I'll
turn a blind eye to a certainvalue I have. These are tough
decisions, you know, and when Ithink about you, because also
during the pandemic, you madesome really hard choices about
(32:52):
partnering with the Indonesiangovernment. And I think a lot of
your decisions were very muchanchored in your purpose of
ensuring that those who aredependent on grab Indonesia for
income were able to continue tohave access to the income. And
(33:15):
you had to build a strategicpartnership and take on the
government as an ally. That'ssomething that a lot of emerging
market entrepreneurs have to do,but it's not always easy to work
with with the government,partner with them to chart a new
path or a new way of doingthings. Yeah. So if you're
(33:37):
giving advice to a new on a newinnovation driven entrepreneur
across global growth growthmarkets could be in Southeast
Asia, could be Africa, could beMiddle East, could be Latin
America. We all have difficultgovernments to deal with, and
not so difficult. I think, youknow, it's not as
(33:58):
straightforward as people think.
I think governments, at least inmy country, sometimes the
government is extremelydifficult, but sometimes that's
a huge opportunity to reallycreate change and shift mindsets
and create a new opening for newsystems to evolve. And I think
you did that in Indonesia. Sowhat advice would you have to
(34:21):
entrepreneurs on how they canreally work with their
governments as an ally?
So yes, governments comesometimes could be quite
difficult to deal with, but Ithink we don't blame them. I
mean many, especially for thetech startups, many of the
things that we do didn't existbefore, so it's hard for them to
(34:41):
sometimes to absorb, tounderstand, let alone to set
policy on how to regulate it. Soso don't blame on them on this.
So I think number one advice isto build a platform of
communication, because you needto communicate. You need to
understand what's their way ofthinking. And. And they need to
understand also, what thereasons that we do things, and
(35:06):
mind memany hours and hours to do that,
and then, let alone the weunderstand that the time of the
government's very, very, youknow, it's, it's difficult to
get, but you had to fight forit, because, you know you would,
you would need that to be ableto serve your purpose. Number
(35:28):
two, I think my advice is youreally need to believe in what
you do, and you do Avengers. Ifyou don't believe what you do,
it's hard to convince people.
You need to do someinternalization, internalizing
yourself as well, making surethat you really do what you
believe. And then you believewhat you do, because then it's
hard to convince people if youreally look no so not so
believing to what you do, right?
(35:54):
And then in between, of course,there will be, you know,
arguments, you know, again,agreements, disagreements, that
happens? Yeah, and I think theguiding light through that is
that again you look at yourselfagain, do you do the things for
the right reasons or not? Onceyou know that you do things for
the right reasons, you knowpeople, in the end, eventually,
(36:19):
will come aboard. Will comeapart.
Whatever the situation is, Ifound it quite consistent. You
need to actually, to askyourself and team first, you
believe that you do the rightfor the right reasons. In fact,
I told my team several times, ifany of you ever doubting that
you do things for the rightreasons, just come to me
(36:40):
directly, and we'll do adiscussions and read. Let's do a
debate as well immediately,because if you don't believe
that you do the for the rightreasons, I cannot actually trust
you to talk to other peopleoutside, because then it'll be a
wrong message. So once yousorted all of those things,
(37:01):
definitely things will be mucheasier. And I found it like, you
know, in the case of Indonesia'sthen, government is really,
really supportive, like the, youknow, all of these SMEs going to
digitalizations. It's very muchsupported then, in fact, now
they understand the pain pointsthat these small businesses,
(37:24):
micron small businesses, needsto be formalized, giving some
kind of like, you know, benefitsas well in the process for a
bigger purpose. Because thengovernment realized the
importance of this small andmedium enterprises. So then what
happens is that we went on roadshows, you know, to city, cities
to, you know, remote cities inin Asia, to Papua, to Sulawesi
(37:48):
to Sumatra. And we did, youknow, road shows together. And
this is the result of thoseengagement, long engagements,
and then believing in what youdo and doing it for the right
reasons.
I love that, and it kind ofbrings, brings us back to the
original point. If you're anentrepreneur and you see
yourself as a vehicle toachieving prosperity in your
(38:11):
country, you start to functionvery differently than if you're
an entrepreneur and you'rethinking, Oh, I just need to
make money. I need to give moneyback to my shareholders, and
profit becomes your ultimategoal, as opposed to, I think you
function very differently whenyou're thinking, well, profit is
important, but the change I cancreate in my country is more
(38:35):
significant as kind of theguiding departure point you show
up differently to differentstakeholders in the ecosystem,
right? Yes, Iagree with that, yeah, yeah. So
I know that for you, culture isreally, really important. I've
seen it live. I've also seen howyour team I've seen how they
work together. I've seen howdedicated they are, how open and
(39:00):
honest. And you know, there'salways this debate, what's more
important building culture orstrategy, or is it both? And I
know that in your case, buildinga culture was really, really
important for you, and I, Iimagine it was important for you
(39:21):
even before you took on thisrole at grab. And I imagine it
will be important to you longafter. Can you, can you share
with those listening yourthoughts around building a
culture in an organization canbottom up and and what is
important to you in thatculture?
(39:45):
I think it's important,especially when you're in a
mission to achieve something andyou're facing mountains, it's a
steep, you know, way forward. Imentioned this earlier to
bringing in like minded people.
Yeah, people lie though ritzy,but then it, I hate
(40:05):
to say this, but, you know,some, sometimes people are
really good at talking a goodtalk. Yeah,
so, so now this is the key. Imean, like people lie during
interviews. Maybe then, sure,then you, you, you onboarding,
you know, different kind of youknow that you thought you
onboarding like minded people,but then it is not. What do you
(40:26):
do? Hence, this cultures plays avery important role. You know,
many, many companies says theyhave cultures, but it ended up
only on posters, on emailswithout giving examples. So
number one, giving examples isvery, very important. You cannot
(40:48):
convince team that you livecertain values if you only send
emails but you don't be seentested to those values. You have
to showcase if you face, youknow, a tough decisions, but
then you you choose to actuallylive up to your cultures that
you have conveyed before. Peoplesee examples that you've been,
(41:11):
you know, cornered to a certainsituations. But then you make
tough decisions to defend thecultures and prioritize cultures
first. I think that's veryimportant examples. And showing
examples, I mean people thatwill spread and people will
really, really convince that youreally do live a certain values.
Number two is, of course, youknow, we jokingly, you know,
(41:35):
mentions about interviewingprocess, but then you found out
different people. So again, notjust to put, you know, cultures
in posters or whatever it is,you really have to actually
regularly, you know, assesscultures in the organizations in
to the team as well. So it hasto be regularly, you know,
(41:55):
assessed. Whatdo you do when you find somebody
who is an outlier? Do you getrid of them?
Number one is, of course, todevelop, we give feedbacks. You
know, people.
You give feedback. You know,remember, you remember last year
when you were here? Yes, sir.
Mustafa was here. The Yeah, he,you know, he said, he says to
me, said, Dina, you know, one ofthe lessons that I've learned in
(42:15):
business and helping otherentrepreneurs build businesses
over the years, is that whensomebody shows you through
actions that their values don'tmatch the values that are
important to the culture you arebuilding, you have to get them
out fast. But then I know otherpeople who say you need to give
(42:36):
people space to evolve. Where doyou stand?
I stand for the second. For thelatter, because I've seen also
examples where people changed.
We give good. It's actually thepurpose as well. I mean, you
bring in some like mindedpeople, but also you try to get
people to be like minded people,maybe certain people you know
(42:59):
didn't really you know, yeah,into that values. But once you
give examples, you givefeedbacks. I've seen people you
know really, really change. Butof course, the first you know
mindset will also applies. At acertain point you need to have
(43:19):
deadlines as well. You cannot,you know, let people you know,
slip, slip, not changing, andthen dragging too long of a
time, because that will drag theorganization. Yeah, there will
be tough decisions as well. Inthe end, if it's actually you've
given a chance and you've givenfair feedbacks and open
feedback, but not even you know,you're seeing an effort being
(43:43):
given by certain people. Youhave to
make tough decisions. How do youmake those tough decisions?
Once you've gone through thoseprocess, it'll be very
objectives. You have to be veryobjective. You cannot be
subjective. No,I get it, but, you know,
sometimes making a toughdecision when you're a really
kind person is hard.
(44:06):
Once it's structured andobjectives, even though I'm a
kind, you know, kind ofpersonality, the way you said,
Thank you for believing me as akind person, by the way. But
then one is structures, one isobjectives, you know, the
reasons, then you can't failobjectively. No, emotions,
nothing. It is just because ofit just doesn't fit. It
doesn't fit. Yeah, and how doesculture fit with strategy?
(44:33):
Because I believe this just myinterpretation of what I've seen
from you, that they're bothdeeply intertwined, but
oftentimes we teach them asseparate things, but in your
What are, what is your belief ofhow culture and strategy really
fit together?
I found it actually many peoplefound it is difficult to find an
(44:55):
organization with like mindedpeople, yeah? So once. So you as
a different person, not me,people, you found a very fitting
organization of like mindedpeople. Honestly, they will tend
to be very loyal. They're lessabout materialistic. Of course.
(45:15):
You know, we fight as hard toactually, to give, you know,
better compensations and things,but they will care less about
that. They will be more likethis is an organization that I
find it fits in. It's mission,loyal to
this mission, loyal to thismission. I've seen that like,
you know, obviously tears is oneof my closest I've seen how
(45:36):
loyal she is. That is not aneasy thing to achieve, and I
think that's just because of theexample that was set, and what
the keeping the purpose at thevery center, right? So I want to
ask you, you know, since this isMIT, right, and MIT is about
technology, and we're about deeptech too, right? And AI and I
(46:03):
would say some of the moreadvanced technologies right now
are starting to proliferate theworld. But a lot of emerging
markets are really scared ofsome of these new advanced
technologies, like AI, digitalassets, cryptocurrency, but, but
these are these new technologiesare just tools, and I think that
(46:27):
there are a lot of fears rightnow with from governments about
what some of these newtechnologies are going to do in
their countries. Are, are theygoing to be faced with an even
bigger job unemployment crisis,or what should they be doing so
in a country like Indonesia, andI would say, thinking more
(46:48):
broadly about Southeast Asia inyour mind, how can we better
embrace and adopt some of thesenew advanced technologies to
create prosperity, and How cangovernments start looking at
things differently, so that someof the entrepreneurs who are
really building ventures in thisspace stay in our countries and
(47:09):
don't come here. You know,yesterday, I was in a round
table discussion about angelinvesting in the Middle East,
and one of the entrepreneurs,he's in biotech, and he left,
you know, he left Jordan, andhe's building his business here.
Another one of theentrepreneurs, again, is in
(47:30):
biotech, amazing engineer, leftEgypt, and is here in Boston. We
want these entrepreneurs to stayin their countries, but yet,
they feel that they can't, theydon't have the space to engage
in R and D, doing thingsproperly, have the right,
(47:52):
supportive regulatoryenvironments. I think we we need
to, even at the Legatum center,we need to do better at having
conversations with policymakersabout what some of these
technologies mean mean, and whatthey can actually do to the
advancement of our owncountries, not just from an
economic perspective, but frommore of a inclusive prosperity
(48:14):
perspective. What are yourthoughts on on how we can better
integrate all of these advancedthat are coming. They're coming
anyway. There's nothing we cando about it. But how is it that
we can stay ahead of the curveas opposed to finding ourselves
behind the curve?
I think the pattern has beenthere for long. New
(48:36):
technologies, as you mentioned,comes anyway. Yeah, it happens
in the past. I mean, youwouldn't believe when automobile
was first exist. In existence,yeah, in UK,
the ultimate, the ultimateinnovation. Exactly
back then in UK, there was a soridiculous policy in
anticipations of the automobile,that was called, I think, a red
(48:59):
flag policy, if I'm notmistaken, red flag regulations.
So you know, this was so funny.
So everyone, anyone withautomobiles, it was not as fast
as today, definitely would needto have two people in front of
the automobile, walking, yeah,and then carrying red flags.
Oh, my goodness, you wouldn'tbelieve it, right? I did not
(49:22):
know that. And then,of course, as it's become more
advanced, they they just got ridof that regulations, because it
become irrelevant. Yeah, so youknow, people you know, don't
blame the governments, evenpeople at that time you know,
act, you know, weirdly,strangely to new things. And now
it comes the AI, you know, thelarge language models, whatever
(49:42):
it is. I think the key here isfor us to because nobody knows
it's I think it's the same, likepandemic. Nobody knows where
this will lead to. I. Yeah,because it's going
so fast, which means we knew weneed new learning. We need to
(50:04):
create space for that learningexactly, and not be afraid.
Not Be afraid what is veryimportant for us to keep on
engaged and learning to eachother where this could lead to
and then there will be, youknow. You know, different
triggers to make it you knowdifferently. It's suddenly, you
know, because it's like, now,like companies become is, like
(50:24):
competing in this AIS, sothey're kind like, you know,
creating new innovations out ofit. It could lead to something
else that we wouldn't know. Andthen it is very important for us
to, you know, discuss together.
I mean, like learning togetheras well, and then seeing from
the positive side of it, andmany positive side of it, and as
much as possible to to managethe the negative sides of it. I
(50:44):
know, even, you know,educational institutions, you
know, trying to understand aswell how to deal with this,
which students as well, youknow, using AIS to do their, you
know, assignments and work.
But I think our friend chat,GBT, yeah. I
mean, like it is, it isbecoming, you know,
(51:06):
commonalities, right now, I see,but these things can be used to
create efficiency if we use themproperly, and they can be used
to create damage. Iknow, even myself now I tend to
use, you know, AIS to help me.
Don't need so much, you know,personal assistance these days.
I mean, like, just to be honestwith you, yeah, could help me to
(51:27):
actually build, you know, atleast, you know, the core, you
know, structures, and then Icould do, you know, my things,
yeah, on my own. It helps me alot. And I know lots of people
being helped a lot by theexistence of AIS, but you need
people that knows how to usethis technology for good ways.
What brings us back to values?
Brings back to values, and thenI think the discussions will
(51:51):
have to come back again tovalues. You know, whether it is
companies, governments,educational institutions. How
could we make values as theguiding light to actually
purpose and purpose definitely?
Yeah,I agree with that. I agree it's
not easy, though. So you know,you're the one who brought up
(52:12):
purpose again, and I because Ithink purpose is so important,
right? And I don't know that weeducate students to really think
about purpose, although I thinklately at MIT, there's been a
there's been a healthy debateabout, are we using science and
technology for good, or are weusing it not for evil? Because
(52:33):
it could be both ways. And Ithink purpose is what determines
which direction you go in. AndI, you know, ritzy, I've seen
you as a CEO, I've seen you as afriend, I've seen you as a
father, I've seen you as ahusband, like I've seen you in
your different roles. And Ithink purpose is really
(52:54):
important to you. How is it thatyou think of purpose and how you
navigate all of the differentaspects of your life.
Thanks for asking that. I mean,like, maybe it's a process. I'm
not becoming what I am just likethat. I think it's through
(53:17):
process, through decades. Youknow, maybe in my younger
version of me, I was not even afather, so I didn't know how
actually to be a father, that'sright. And then once you become
a father, then you try to thinkabout how you merge your values
in your professional lives to bea good father as well. So it's a
process. But again, I think itcomes back to two things. Number
(53:42):
one, doing things for goodreasons. It's always me and my
principles. And as my careergrew, I know that I will have
more power to do it. So then forme, it is more the purpose to
create benefits in a way throughwhat I do to as many as people,
(54:05):
actually, more people that Icould actually be doing to
actually to get them benefitedfrom what I do. And then setting
example of this to the teammember, to my families, and they
start to believe in me as well,that I do it for good reasons.
That's why you see probably mymy wife, my my kids. You know,
(54:26):
they're so keen to actually tobe with me. I'm proud, yeah?
Because theysee the look of pride. I looked
at your wife in class the otherday and I saw pure pride. Yeah,
so beautiful.
Thank you. Because they alsobelieve in me, and they also see
the impacts that I'm making tomany people, and that's where
(54:46):
the pride came from, becausethey know that I do for the
right reasons. I do things forthe right reasons. I hope I
could do my share to show thisto the world. That there's never
been a perfect, you know,situations, but the way that you
(55:07):
involve people, you know, thatwill make people believe in you,
and they will. They will dotheir shares, you know, once you
actually convincing them thatit's possible to so again, it's
about, you know, I talked toMark Allen earlier as well. I
think myself like more like acandle, where I just don't, you
(55:32):
know, I don't, you know, justlight up what's around me. But
my purpose is also to light upother candles as many as
possible, so then people couldbe the examples to the world.
And I hope I do my shares ofthat part. And I really hope
that it's successful in a way. Itake, you know, not not lightly,
(55:59):
but i i care much less about,you know, methodal achievements,
but I take seriously about howdo we make impact and we
influence people in a good wayto make the world a better
world,and where does your Faith fit
in, you know, and I think aboutyour your example of a candle, I
(56:21):
immediately in my mind, youknow, I, I'm Muslim, and the
word light, Noor is mentioned somany times in our faith, yes,
and I, for me, the lesson I takefrom that has always been. You
have to be a source of light ineverything you do, even when
(56:44):
you're experiencing loss, deeploss. And I know you have
experienced deep loss, and Ihave experienced deep loss, and
you need to find a way to findthe light entrepreneurs, very
difficult journey. It's a verylonely journey when you're
building a venture, it's evenlonelier when you're building a
venture in a very difficult,volatile market. How do you
(57:06):
continue to find a way to be asource of light and to continue
to also help others hold on totheir own light?
So faith is my source of energy,yeah, definitely, I take
(57:28):
seriously, you know, of faith,because, again, I spoke about,
you know, believe in what you doand do what you believe. It's
actually maybe originating fromthe faith. So I know that I'm
not here in the world, not for apurpose. Everyone has their own
(57:49):
roles. And, you know, sometimespeople seeing me like, wow,
you're quite successful,relatively. But I take it as a
role instead. This is a rolethat I am being the
responsibility to be in and Ineed to be as responsible as
possible to show examples, andthen I can actually, I can stand
(58:16):
before you know in the afterlifethat I've done my part. I've
done my part and responsibly,and that's the least that I
could hope. Yeah,that's beautiful. I think our
time, our journeys, are soactually very, very short. You
know, I always say very longdays, very, very short years,
(58:38):
extremely short years, and Timejust flies, I know, and in the
face of time flying by, youreally have to hold on to
creating meaning and impactbefore your time actually ends.
So ritzy. My last question toyou, because I'm a big believer
in hope and the need for hope,and we're living really
(59:02):
difficult times in the worldright now. We have wars, various
climate climate catastrophes.
Southeast Asia is a victim tothat. I think there's a lot of
struggle right now in the world,and people are really facing a
(59:24):
hard time finding their way, butthere's also a lot of cause for
hope. And you know, I drive alot of hope when I when I hear
your story, and when I think ofwhat you have done with your
life, through your throughoutyour career journey. And I
think, wow, Southeast Asia islucky because they have a great
(59:47):
example of an entrepreneur likeyou and many others. But what
are you most hopeful about whenit comes to entrepreneurship and
innovation in Southeast Asiatoday?
I think I. What I'm most hopefulabout is that I believe in
Southeast Asia. It's a region of600 million people. What my hope
(01:00:10):
is that, and I believe in it aswell. I mean, in the decade from
now, two decades from now, theworld will see South Asia, not
just, you know, geographicalmap, geographical locations in
the world, but it will become animportant players in the global
mapping. I know there's so manychallenges. There's so many, you
(01:00:35):
know, mountains that we'll haveto actually to conquer. However,
there's so many opportunitieslies there as well. And my hope
is that we don't depend on, youknow, of course, we collaborate,
but we don't depend on someoneelse for our faith in the
futures. But I believe that, youknow, Southeast Asian people
(01:00:56):
will define the course to be,you know, play to play, actually
a better part and more importantrole in the global mapping. In
the future, so many things willhappen. I know you mentioned
issues about, you know, climatesustainability, tech, education,
talent, whatever it is,infrastructures, but I believe
(01:01:19):
that together, we could solvethat problem and create our own
solutions to it as well.
I mean, what a beautiful way toend, if you you know, to truly
believe that Southeast Asia ison a path to to really owning
its own destiny. That is awonderful, very, I think, for
me, inspiring piece of hope.
(01:01:41):
You're too kind. Dana,I wish I was too kind. But, you
know, I also I wish for the samefor my region. Yes, I think it's
time for people across globalgrowth markets to really own
their own narrative and to becreating the very solutions to
their own problems internallywithin our own countries, and so
I think it's a it's a beautifulmessage to share with everyone.
(01:02:05):
So I thank you for your time.
Much welcome, and also for beingwho you are, and for coming here
to share a little piece of yourstory with everyone else.
I love being here. We lovehaving you. Thank you so much.
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