Nadiem Makarim


Nadiem Anwar Makarim is the current minister of education and culture of the Republic of Indonesia. He founded Gojek in 2010, a transportation network company and logistic startup company that became Indonesia's first startup valued over US$10 billion. In October 2019, he was appointed as Minister of Education and Culture by President Joko Widodo on his second term's cabinet and subsequently resigned from his post at Gojek.

Personal life

Nadiem was born in Singapore on 4 July 1984, to Nono Anwar Makarim and Atika Algadri. His father is an activist, lawyer and is of Minangkabau-Arabian descent. His maternal grandfather is Hamid Algadri. He has two sisters, Hana Makarim, and Rayya Makarim known as a filmmaker. He married Franka Franklin and they have two daughters.

Education

Nadiem attended high school in Jakarta and United World College of Southeast Asia, Singapore, and then went to Brown University for a BA in International Relations. He did his MBA at Harvard University.

Career and business

Makarim started his career at McKinsey & Company as management consultant in Jakarta. He left to co-found Zalora, an online fashion shop, then left Zalora to become Chief Innovation Officer at Kartuku, a payment service provider.

[McKinsey & Company] (2006–2009)

After graduating from Harvard University with an MBA, Nadiem decided to come back home to Indonesia and worked at McKinsey & Co. Nadiem worked as a McKinsey consultant for 3 years.

Zalora">Zalora Group">Zalora Indonesia (2011–2012)

Nadiem became Co-Founder and Managing Director for Zalora Indonesia in 2011. In 2012, Nadiem made the decision to leave Zalora to focus on building his own startup, including Gojek, which at that time had 15 employees and 450 drivers. He claims to have learned enough from Zalora, which was his main goal in accepting the position in the first place. In Zalora, Nadiem had the chance to build a mega startup and work with some of the best talents across the region.

Kartuku (2013–2014)

After leaving Zalora and while developing Gojek, Nadiem also worked as a chief innovation officer of Kartuku. In the early days, Kartuku didn't have any competition in cashless payment solutions in Indonesia. Kartuku was then acquired by Gojek to strengthen GoPay.

[Gojek] (2010–2019)

In 2010 Nadiem created Gojek, which is today a decacorn company with valuation over US$10 billion. Gojek was first established as a call centre, offering only courier delivery and two-wheeled ride-hailing services. Today, Gojek has transformed into a super app, providing more than 20 services, ranging from transportation, food delivery, groceries, massage, house cleaning, logistics to a cashless digital payment platform called GoPay.
Makarim often uses a motorcycle taxi, known in Indonesia as an ojek. He saw this as a business opportunity and developed it into Gojek, which is founded in 2010.
Gojek was well received, and eventually received US$1,3 billion funding from investors, in a 2018-round led by Alphabet Inc's Google, JD.com Inc and Tencent Holdings. It thereby became the first Indonesian Unicorn. By 2019, the firm was worth up to US$10 billion

Awards

With Melinda Gates and the Minister of Finance of Indonesia, Sri Mulyani, Nadiem served as one of the commissioners of for Technology and Inclusive Development that focuses on helping developing countries to adapt with various new digital innovations that change the working culture.