New Aristocrat
“entrepreneurs,” says 26-year-old Richard Muljadi, “are the new aristocracy.” Like the kings and princes of the past, they are the leaders of today’s world, he points out. They create and build new industries and companies that transform the way we all live. “One of my biggest inspirations was reading a biography of (Russian businessman and Chelsea Football Club owner) Roman Abramovich,” says Muljadi in an interview at his office in the Gandaria 8 office tower in south Jakarta. “He was orphaned as a young boy and did not finish college, yet he became a billionaire before reaching the age of 40. When I was a student and thinking about what I wanted to achieve in life, I said Twenty-six-year-old Richard Muljadi helps large organisations save millions by making their operations more sustainable. He told chris hanrahan why he became an entrepreneur and advisory firm – that he and his brother, 31-year-old Shawn Muljadi, founded last year. “We chose to go into technology and food because we see these as strategic growth industries,” he explains. Their sister, 29-yearold Nathania Muljadi, is General Manager of Mulia Graha Abadi.
After gaining his Bachelor of Business and Commerce degree, specialising in economics and marketing, at the end of 2009 from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, Muljadi came back to Indonesia to help his father run the family business. But before joining Mulia Graha Abadi as a Director in 2012, he worked as a fund manager at Ciptadana Securities, a private and more affordable to become sustainable are important to us,” says Muljadi. “We work with a number of clean-tech companies.” He adds that he admires the work of behavioural scientists Dr Robert Cialdini and Richard H. Thaler. Dr Cialdini has been described as “a foundational figure in the science of persuasion” by The New York Times. Thaler is the co-author of Nudge, a book in which the concepts of behavioural economics are used to tackle many of society’s major problems. Muljadi points out that “behavioural science and the psychology of persuasion play a pivotal role in becoming more sustainable. The key to landslide change is making resource consumption visible and social.”
Outside of work, Muljadi enjoys boating and jet skiing at weekends. He owns four dogs (two Rottweilers and a couple of German shepherds) that he likes to take for walks in the parks near his home in Menteng. He plans to marry some time after he turns 30 and he feels that three children would make an ideal family. Very importantly, he is proud to be helping his grandmother and his father with their philanthropic work. One pet project they have is developing and upgrading a hospital, Sumber Waras. “My grandmother is a very inspirational person,” Muljadi smiles. “She still works full-time. Her dream is to build a world-class teaching hospital in Jakarta. I have learned so much from her, and from my father, about how to conduct myself as a businessman and how to live as a Christian. For me, the satisfaction in being an entrepreneur is starting something and watching it grow. There are struggles and ups and downs in this kind of life, but a business owner must accept this if he is to be successful. For me, it’s very satisfying to know that, as a result of building businesses, I am creating job opportunities for people and benefiting society.”