Business Sense

Harry Susilo stays true to his roots and trusts his senses when it comes to making the big decisions—facets that have contributed to his unorthodox story. Edith Emeralda writes

t is 1966 and Indonesia is still poor. A young man stands on the pier at Gresik, squinting against the setting sun while watching the fishermen pull their day’s catches ashore. He dashes to the nearest boat, bantering and haggling to find the desired quantity and quality, and then off he goes with his purchases on an auto rickshaw to cleaning and packing in Wonokromo. He doesn’t stop until the fish are in flight from Surabaya at 8am. That young man was Harry Susilo and his fish trading is the start of Sekar Group, now with Finna as its main brand.

“I had to quit school when my father had a stroke at the age of 51,” says Harry Susilo, “But I never stopped learning.”

He then shares with Indonesia Tatler his insights into a life spent mostly outside of formal education: one, pay careful attention to the experiences and wisdom of your seniors; two, see what’s happening in the world around you; and three, think critically about the “why” behind all these events.

When Susilo was growing up, he had to literally use his senses to differentiate between right and wrong, an intuitive ability that, in turn, became a habit that has helped him make good decisions as half a century rolled by. He now uses his heart to define boundaries in his sky-high dreams, “Because without boundaries, dreams cannot be reached,” he says.

Born as the eldest of 12 children, the youngest barely a toddler, in a modest household in Sidoarjo, East Java, Susilo had to be the breadwinner and role model once his father became sick. Upon looking at this condition, his father’s friend—who had come to visit from Singapore—then offered Susilo the opportunity to make money for the family by selling fish to buyers there.

In the 1970s, Toyo Menka, which is now Toyota Tsusho, asked Susilo to help out with cold storage and selling prawns. Then, in the 1980s, Marubeni—the company that now handles Nissan—also proposed business with him. At the time, Susilo wondered why, for as long as he has been in the business, all these big companies had come looking for him and not the other way around. “I realised that the sincerity, gentleness and amicability I had learned from life and not from any school are what won them over,” Susilo says. “Integrity together with balance is one of the most important things in life.”

Looking back on his childhood days, when he loved to run and cycle around the kampongs near the family’s first house and play soccer at school, he explains that keeping sportsmen as friends taught him about being a good sport and having a strong mentality. Meanwhile, having started a business at an early age, he also enjoys the company of businessmen, especially his seniors, to talk trade and continually learn. These are two of the seven pillars from different areas in society in which Susilo attributes a great deal of his success through the support received.

Politicians are also in Susilo’s circle of close friends, not because he’s one of them, but because politics and economics are always tightly intertwined. Professionals such as lawyers, doctors and accountants are also included among his associates because he likes to learn from them. Susilo has no prejudices for he completely respects all religions and races, as shown by his friends from many countries and backgrounds.

Susilo’s tight-knit family is also counted, especially the women: his supportive wife Maria Veronica, and his mother who loves and leads by example. Lastly, artists are also within the friend-sphere because he has always loved

art in its many forms, especially in nature. This is why, now that Susilo has retired, he spends as much time outdoors as possible—to the most stunningly beautiful yet challenging vistas of the North Pole, the Sahara Desert and Tibet, among many others. “I tell young people that ‘dreams are just nonsense if there are no borders to them’,” Susilo says. “Art is the tool to capture and define those dreams.”

Midday rolls closer during our chat, and he tells us about how nature inspires him. He recalls a time when stars twinkled above the cool white sands underneath a pair of tired feet; he stopped, sat and closed his eyes for a breather as the clock ticked into a new year. As the musical merriment and din behind him receded, the surf sang sweetly in his ears. “I realised then that if the water didn’t ebb through the sands, the next wave couldn’t come ashore,” says Susilo. “The younger generation will come after us.”

In the end, success for Susilo is when people still need him and in the legacy he leaves behind: the latter is in the form of the Harry Susilo Institute for Ethics in the Global Economy at the Boston University, which promotes ethics through a worldwide network of universities. That, and the Jayandaru— meaning prosperity—monument in Sidoarjo, commissioned by the local government in appreciation of Sekar Group’s contribution to the local economy and welfare of its people. A lasting legacy indeed.

“I realised then that if the water didn’t ebb through the sands, the next wave couldn’t come ashore”