HARA welcomes Taco Bottema and Wolf Kluge as advisors

HARA is pleased to announce that Dr. Taco Bottema and Wolf Kluge have joined the team as advisors.

Taco Bottema, PhD

With more than 20 years of senior managerial experience from the United Nations, the European Union, and the Asian Development Bank, Bottema is a welcome addition to HARA’s advisors. His previous projects revolve around livelihood, agriculture, natural resource management, and capacity and institutional development at local and central levels.

Currently, Bottema actively strives to improve sustainable agriculture in Southeast Asia. Through his ventures and consultations, he helps the Indonesian state-owned fertilizer company Pupuk Indonesia with introducing sustainable agriculture products to the market. Actively working towards bettering the situation of local farmers is something both Bottema and HARA have in common.

“HARA takes upon itself the task to better the life and livelihood of farmers and growers in Indonesia and I will support any initiative in that direction. But the HARA story is rather special. HARA tries to mobilize a lot of so far unused data. At the same time, they appeal to young and progressive farmers, and make a mix with the other stakeholders in the agriculture and rural sectors. It is ambitious and visionary, and HARA knows the technologies involved.”

— Taco Bottema

With his extensive knowledge in sustainable agriculture, Bottema will be able to provide keen insights on the development and implementation of HARA and will help to optimize the social impacts to the ecosystem.

“My hope and expectation is that HARA becomes a real multidimensional platform, touching not only the business side of growers, but also education and social development. I think HARA sends both a societal and a business message to the public sector institutions that energizes a sector which in the public domain has grown tired and has run out of inspiration.”

— Taco Bottema

Wolf Kluge

Over 18 years ago, Kluge decided to invest his time in Indonesia to help rebuild the financial industry after the Asian Financial Crisis. As a pioneer in providing financial access to Indonesians, he created a wide range of lending products and built the base for the digitalization of the loan approval process for smallholder businesses.

Until the beginning of 2018, he held a position in the board of directors of BTPN, one of the largest private banks in Indonesia. Before joining BTPN, he held positions at Deutsche Bank, Aegis Korea, and Danamon, in several countries around the world.

“HARA is the missing piece that will allow banks, governments, NGOs, and other commercial parties to provide efficient and effective support to the agricultural sector. In the past, a lack of complete and reliable data was an almost insurmountable challenge. HARA will help them overcome that obstacle.”

— Wolf Kluge

As a seasoned financial risk expert, Kluge advises on the development of lending products in the HARA ecosystem.

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