Meet Marlin R. Siahaan: The Extrovert Behind TMI’s Mission to Strengthen Indonesia’s Startup Ecosystem
To drive further commitment in empowering digital entrepreneurs in Indonesia, Telkomsel appointed Marlin R. Siahaan to lead its venture capital company, Telkomsel Mitra Innovation (TMI). With 21 years of experience in the media and technology industry, Marlin (often called Iyut) is considered the right female executive to lead TMI in finding potential startups to collaborate with by optimizing the ecosystem, assets, and competencies possessed by Telkomsel.
Throughout her career, Marlin is known as an extrovert who constantly challenges herself to always think outside the box. Her creative and expressive nature always brings out fresh ideas to the table, cultivating experience through extensive networks across sectors. Not surprisingly, she was later assigned to many strategic positions in several well-known companies.
Marlin started her professional experience in digital technology and telecommunications in 2009. Her first journey was part of Interactive Hub, the first and exclusive Facebook business partner in Southeast Asia. Then she was hired by Yahoo Indonesia as part of the first batch team. She was responsible for educating the market on how to transform their business in utilizing media technology from the perspective of digital marketing strategy and providing digital enterprise business solutions.
Along with the rapid development of the digital telecommunication industry in Indonesia, in mid-2014, Marlin decided to move to Telkomsel. In this largest digital telecommunication company in Indonesia, she was trusted to take on the role of General Manager and was responsible for leading the transformation of the entire local digital advertising division.
While at Telkomsel, Marlin also led the digital account team and fostered collaboration across other functions. She also contributed to creating innovation and technology in advertising and big data that have strengthened Telkomsel’s position as the largest digital telecommunications company in Indonesia.
Three and a half years later, Marlin briefly moved to Google Indonesia, where she led the Indonesian team as a country manager for one of its subsidiaries, Waze, before she finally returned to Telkomsel in 2019 to head up its venture capital unit, Telkomsel Mitra Innovation.
All of her experiences and achievements certainly do not come without challenges. She has to deal with various conditions where many resources are reluctant to get out of their comfort zone.
Wherever Marlin works, as an agent of change, she is committed to establishing multiple collaborations across the industry, transforming the work culture, and bringing in rejuvenation. She chose to build a solution-based and result-oriented work atmosphere rather than proceeding in a complicated bureaucracy.
Seeing this action, her presence is expected to be a wind of change to strengthen TMI’s positioning as a startup partner, which provides support through accurate and measurable strategic investments.
Meanwhile, as Telkomsel’s venture capital unit, TMI is committed to continuing to accelerate the development of national and global startups, through funding support and long-term empowerment that will answer the needs of the Indonesian people.
TMI itself continues to develop investments in future solutions for the nation which focuses on several industries: commercial, advertising media and entertainment, financial, health, and education. Also, the tech industry focuses on and is relevant to the telecom industry, such as connecting devices, hardware, software, data and analytics, as well as network and infrastructure.
Through the use of assets and capabilities in the digital ecosystem built by Telkomsel, TMI focuses on three main things: accelerating innovation (accelerate), providing additional funds to maximize business potential (additional funds), and connecting startups with other investor ecosystems (affiliates).
Since its founding in May 2019, TMI has invested more than USD 40 million and helped develop Indonesian startups, such as Kredivo, PrivyID, Qlue, Halodoc, Tanihub, Tada, SiCepat, Inspigo, and, recently, Feedloop. TMI also opens investment opportunities for global companies who want to develop their business potential in Indonesia, which aims to encourage positive developments for the national digital ecosystem. This effort has been realized through Telkomsel’s collaboration with a startup from Silicon Valley USA, Roambee.
“In the future, TMI will be further developed to open up various collaboration opportunities and empower startups more broadly. We have prepared a lot of things to design various strategic plans for the future. Hopefully, all these actions will be able to encourage the empowerment of prospective digital entrepreneurs in Indonesia through the use of the digital ecosystem owned by Telkomsel, for the sake of strengthening Indonesia’s digital ecosystem that is inclusive and sustainable,” said Marlin.
