Gojek co-founder Nadiem Makarim named Indonesia education and culture minister

The Indonesian government has named former Gojek CEO and co-founder Nadiem Makarim (pictured) as the minister of education and culture.

The appointment of the 35-year-old, announced by president Joko Widodo, marks the country's youngest minister of education on record. In a press release, Gojek said that the news was communicated in an email to all staff today.

Makarim said in the email that he started this company with nothing, other than a deep desire to change things for the better. "We saw that the streets of Jakarta were a mess and that there was an informal community of ojek drivers who could easily act as a huge part of the solution to that mess, if only they were organised and working efficiently," he explained, noting that Gojek has now become an "iconic company that flies the flag for the future of Indonesia and Southeast Asia".

News of Makarim's resignation to take up a role in the cabinet broke earlier this week. Gojek told Marketing Interactive in a statement that Gojek group president Andre Soelistyo and Gojek co-founder Kevin Aluwi will share responsibility for leading the company through its next stage of growth as co-CEOs.

In the email, Makarim said both of them have played central roles in moving the company along its path from that office in South Jakarta onto the global stage.

Calling Soelistyo and Aluwi "Gojek’s best", he said he has "complete faith" not only in their technical skills and ability to execute flawlessly, but also in their integrity and their desire to do the right thing every step of the way. “High emotions are involved in running a company like Gojek but Andre and Kevin are always the steady voices of reason, approaching problems with intelligence and compassion. I couldn’t ask for better successors," he added.

In a statement to Marketing Interactive, Gojek confirmed that Makarim will keep his stake of undisclosed amount in Gojek but will not have any advisory or executive role at the company.

A joint statement released by Soelistyo and Aluwi said they will be focusing on what the Gojek of the next ten years is going to be like. They said: “This company has changed the lives of so many people in Indonesia and around the region, and our key priority is to ensure that we can continue to act as a positive force in society for the foreseeable future.”

Under the new structure, Soelistyo will focus on corporate functions and management of capital allocation, international expansion as well as the payments and financial services businesses, while Aluwi will focus on the product development elements of the Gojek business as well as marketing, organisational development and the transportation and food delivery businesses.

Since co-founding Gojek, Aluwi has held significant leadership roles across product and functional teams within the organisation. He has used his background in business intelligence to pioneer the use of data for decision-making across the Gojek business. He has also assembled deep technology expertise across the data, engineering and product teams, with a focus on enhancing the platform’s overall user experience. Prior to his role at Gojek, Aluwi spent time at Zalora Indonesia, Merah Putih Incubator and Salem Partners.

Similarly, Soelistyo has played a pivotal role in laying a solid foundation for Gojek’s rapid growth. He has overseen over US$4 billion of fundraising, which attracted key investors such as Google, Tencent, Astra, KKR and Warburg Pincus. He has also laid the foundation for the company’s business strategy for long term sustainability. Prior to joining Gojek, Soelistyo was an executive director at Northstar Group, Indonesia’s largest private equity fund, and was previously the head of corporate finance at Delta Dunia Makmur.

Gojek has grown exponentially over the years to process over two billion transactions a year. The company’s fundraising efforts have attracted some of the world’s most exciting companies including Google, Tencent, Mitsubishi, Visa, AIA and Astra, with Series F set to raise well over US$2 billion. The Indonesia-based company has also launched operations in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. In Indonesia, Gojek app has become the most-used on-demand application, where its food and payments businesses have overtaken transport to become the largest businesses within the group, said the company.

In other news, opposition leader Prabowo Subianto has also been recruited to president Widodo's new cabinet as the defence minister, much to many Indonesian's dismay. Indonesians are questioning Subianto's loyalty and alignment to president Widodo, who defeated Subianto in the last two presidential elections, according to ST.