Siti Hartati Murdaya

Siti Hartati Tjakra Murdaya (Chow Li Ing),^[1] born August 29, 1946,^[2] is a prominent Indonesian businesswoman and community leader who co-founded the PT. CCM group of companies, which is involved in real estate, IT, timber, plantations, consumer goods and engineering. The company’s real estate assets include shopping centers, office buildings, hotels and the Jakarta International Expo Center. In 2012, Hartati was listed by Forbes as one of Asia’s 50 Power Businesswomen.^[3]

Early years

Hartati grew up in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta, the eldest of seven children in a devout Buddhist family. Her father, Tjakra Bhudi, was a former journalist. She studied economics at Tri Sakti University, and worked in her father’s saw mill company as the general manager after graduation. In 1971, the 25-year-old Hartati met a young entrepreneur, Widyawimarta Poo and they were married in 1972. A year later, Hartati left her father’s company to assist her husband in building his business together. In 1984, Hartati went on to attend an Executive Program for Graduate Students at Stanford University in California, as well as a programme in Management for Smaller Companies at the National University of Singapore in 1985. Hartati’s 4 children, who have all been educated in the US from a young age, currently reside in San Francisco, New York, and Jakarta.^[2]

Business

When Hartati and her husband founded the PT. CCM group of companies in the early 1970s, it was known only as a company in the utilities and construction business. But as the business grew, they went on to cooperate with some of the world’s biggest power companies, such as Fuji Electric of Japan and Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) of Switzerland, won the license for the production of Nike shoes in Indonesia, and market the products of some of the world's top technology firms, such as IBM, HP, Hitachi, Fujitsu and Symantec.^[4] As of 2013, the group employs about 45,000 people across various industries ranging from property to retail to agri-business. Each is run independently under professional management.

Community Involvement

WALUBI Hartati has been the head of the Indonesian Buddhist Council since 1998.^[3] That same year, she founded WALUBI, a consortium of Buddhist organisations representing various sects, including Lembaga Keagamaan Buddha, Dewan Sangha, Badan Kehormatan and Wadah Kemasyarakatanin, in an effort to cultivate greater communication and cooperation as a group and promote Buddhism in Indonesia. One of WALUBI’s strong tenets is a commitment to community service, along with having an open mind to others’ faiths and beliefs.

WALUBI is involved in post-disaster relief work as well as medical missions where medical staff of different faiths volunteer together to provide free treatment, such as cataract removals, cleft-lip corrections in children, tumor removals and dental care, to thousands of patients. Hartati organises and participates in many of these missions herself.^[5]

Controversy

In February 2013, Hartati was sentenced to 32 months in prison and fined $15,000 after a court found her guilty of bribery. She was accused of paying $309,000 in bribes to Amran Batalipu, the former regent of Buol in Central Sulawesi, to speed up the application process of a business permit for her oil palm plantation company, PT Hartati Inti Plantation.^[6][7] She resigned from Indonesia's Democratic Party's patron board and National Economic Committee after she was arrested.^[8]

References