Behind Every Great CEO is a Great CEO Office Team: Ours is Led by Arvy (2/2)
In the first part of our interview, we talked about the elusive CEO Office function, how it’s different depending on the needs of each company, and how ours functions under Arvy’s leadership. This second part will dive deeper into Arvy’s career journey — his background, his aspirations, and how he got in touch with our CEO before joining Mekari.
We think it’s interesting that you chose a role in the CEO Office function that not a lot of people know about. How did it happen? Were you aiming to get into that role from the start of your career?
I think CEO Office was not a common function back then, but I’m lucky enough to have found my passion early on in my career. I landed my first job as an analyst in a global consulting firm where I got exposed to various projects of different nature. That experience has taught me a lot to appreciate stakeholder management as an art form and find project management as an intriguing skill to hone. At the same time, I had a revelation that I wanted to pursue a career as a Generalist rather than a Specialist. So those exposures & skill set come in handy at my current role now.
It’s awesome that you found your passion early on in your career, not a lot of people get to experience that. What happens next?
I took a quick break to get my masters degree before I continued working. I worked for the local branch of an International Bank for a year or so. Then, I went on to work on a challenging project for another global consulting firm. This time round specializing in Capital Infrastructure Projects. Half of my tenure there was spent working on the MRT Jakarta project. I was involved in the development of its Long Term Corporate Strategic Plan (RJPP) to make sure its sustainable operation despite any changes in the government structure, which was often a recurring issue back then.
You’ve touched on banking and consulting so far, how about getting into the CEO Office function? How did that happen?
Capital Infrastructure was not really moving much back then as it was an election year — so a lot of projects got postponed. Then, I came into this opportunity, to work for the insurance arm of a local conglomerate. It was really an eye opening experience in terms of real business transformation. My team was essentially tasked to change how the company “functioned” fundamentally: from strategic planning, project initiations & management, stakeholder reporting, cross departmental collaborations until new business incubation. Though it was not branded a “CEO Office” it functioned like one.
Technically, I’ve only gotten “CEO Office” in my title for the first time 3 years later while working for a global insurance company, but I’ve been doing what someone in the CEO Office function does for a while at this point, which I like a lot:
”My favorite part of the job is getting to see the company’s turnaround be it big or small — through stakeholder management and stitching multiple agendas to one cohesive strategy.“
Must be very rewarding seeing the impact of your mostly background work coming into the foreground.
Yes. Our impact might be intangible if you see it in isolation, but when everything is done right and falls into place, the overall results will be very tangible. I’ve seen it happen throughout my professional journey with most of the companies I’ve had a pleasure working with.
So, you’ve found your ideal line of work in the CEO Office function. How did you first hear about Mekari?
Well, I was first approached by Suwandi, our CEO for the position a year before I joined Mekari. Unfortunately, I needed to turn him down because I just started working on another startup. Back then, I wasn’t thoroughly convinced about the company, the industry and how I can significantly contribute to its growth. (his offer was to work with Sleekr, Mekari hasn’t been formed yet.)
I thought you joined as soon as you heard about us! What happened next?
After some time, I noticed the aggressive inorganic growth of Sleekr, with its acquisition of Talenta and merger with Jurnal. The news was also amplified with Mekari Conference that I kept noticing on various digital platforms. Seeing that, I decided to (re)approach Suwandi.
How did it go, approaching someone you’ve turned down before?
I asked Suwandi whether the offer was still on the table, but he told me he needed to think about it first since all the key positions had been filled. But I pitched my thoughts anyway on what sort of role and scope that I can help him with and how it will help him especially during the change management process post merger and acquisitions in the company.
Having spent more than a year working with us as the SVP of CEO Office & Special projects, can you tell us your proudest achievement and the biggest challenge you faced so far?
My proudest achievement so far I think was when I managed to implement an integrated CRM system in one of the business verticals before my probation ended (within the first 3 months) with minimum resources. The system serves as the foundation for business alignment & monitoring visibility that we continuously build even up till today.
Like most startups, our biggest challenge is that we want to grow fast, but more sustainably. The challenge lies in fixing more fundamental problems (e.g., data governance, process documentation, stakeholders collaboration, risk management, etc.) as we go.
At Mekari, we want to move fast but not break things. Well some little things will still be broken along the way, but at least we try to minimize the impact.
