Leadership change at Pantarei as executive team exits to form consultancy

Indonesian creative agency Pantarei recently witnessed its CEO Michael Sudarto (pictured second from left), COO Irawan Soemardjo (pictured right), CCO Hermanto Soerjanto (pictured left) and ECD Nugroho Nurarifin (pictured second from right) leave to form Paragon Inc (PINC), an independent management consultancy.

In addition to operating as an independent management consultancy, PINC will also serve as a holding company to Pantarei, as well as full-service agency Mata Angin, digital agency W3P, and influencer management agency Imadi. Following their departures, managing partner Suryani Asikin and creative director Aidil Akbar Latief have assumed full executive leadership of the 43-man team at Pantarei with immediate effect.

Sudarto said since the establishment of Pantarei in 2004, the team believed that the only thing constant is change. And this change of leadership completed the organisational transformation that it had begun earlier, with regeneration and diversity at the centre. "Now with Asikin and Latief at the top, we trust Pantarei is in a very good place to chart an even bigger story onwards," he added.

PINC's spokesperson told MARKETING-INTERACTIVE that PINC was set up to ensure the independency of the agencies within it. He added that it is a natural progression for the first generation of leaders at Pantarei and Mata Angin to move on and pursue other interests directly or indirectly related to the marketing communications businesses. The idea of forming PINC was born in 2010, on the sixth anniversary of Pantarei and the spokesperson said it was in early 2019 that it became clear that PINC could officially launch in 2020.

"The idea has always been that within PINC, there would be different type of agencies with different kind of specialised services, along with one or two anchor agencies which will focus on communications strategies to aid clients with their campaigns. This way, it would be easier to integrate the services needed by the brands we handle. So the primary goal of PINC is to always improve the SOP within the group, centralise the back office, as well as to provide advisory if needed," the spokesperson added.

In addition to the four senior partners leading PINC, there are also three junior partners supporting the company, along with several other employees in the back office. The spokesperson said that the group's focus has always been local clients with a significant presence in Indonesia, as well as any brand looking to establish itself locally.

"All of the clients of Pantarei and Mata Angin have shown their support for this leadership change. There’s no significant difference because the transition period itself has been running smoothly for almost two years," the spokesperson added.

When asked who are PINC's closest competitors in the market, the spokesperson said there has been an emergence of Indonesia's very own network of agencies, such as FAB Group with 16 agencies and Flock Creative Network with more than 10 companies. The spokesperson noted that perhaps Indonesia as a market has started to find its own unique characteristics, including having a greater understanding of local insights. "It would be interesting to see how the country's local networks evolve," he added.

Meanwhile, the issue of talent is very much real for PINC and the spokesperson said it aims to build a pipeline of talent to support its aspirations by identifying new and young talent and equipping them with in-house training and internship stints. PINC will also work with partner universities in this area, as well as hunt for startups in the marketing communications industry to invest in.

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