Dian Siswarini: Climbing BTS, Establishing Career

The Extraordinary General Meeting of Shareholders officially appointed Dian Siswarini becomes President Director as well as the CEO of XL Axiata replacing Hasnul Suhaimi. Hasnul himself already said since last January that Dian was the candidate of choice to assume the leadership of XL.

During Hasnul's nine-year tenure at XL, Dian was often involved in managing various types of XL digital services, such as launching digital advertisements, XL Tunai mobile payments, to the online store Elevenia, which is a joint venture between XL and SK Planet from South Korea.

Dian Had Resigned

Previously Dian Siswarini too never gave up his post as Chief Digital Services Officer, in June 2014. However, Dian finally made a stop at the blue telecommunications company and was appointed Vice President Director, a new position created to accommodate the shifting trend of the telecommunications business.

Dian Siswarini and the Telecommunications Industry

The woman who had studied in the Department of Electrical Engineering, ITB, already had sufficient experience in masterminding in the telecommunications industry. He started his career as an Engineering Supervisor in a multi-national company, since then he has started to focus on his career in the telecommunications sector. For two years, Dian was also part of Indosat (formerly PT Satelindo) as a supervisor.

XL became the throne that made Dian's career just fly and rise to the surface. At XL, Dian has also served as Manager of Network Design and Engineering to Vice President of Network. His achievements are quite brilliant at XL, so that he becomes a person who is quite prioritized by XL.

Climbing BTS Tower

Dian once wrote in his personal blog, that he doesn't seem to care that the work he does is a job that men usually do. According to him, any field of work does not belong to either gender. No kidding, BTS tower (Base Transceiver Station) he often climbs to do repairs and field work. Talking about leadership related knowledge, academically in 2013 Dian took the Executive Program at the Harvard Advance Management Program, Harvard Business School, United States.

Hasnul can be said to be the one who prints the seeds of leadership spirit to Dian. Dian is always encouraged to learn about the telecommunications industry landscape. For some time Dian has also been assigned to study the telecommunications market in friendly countries such as Malaysia, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Singapore.

Women Can Lead

According to Diane, spatial abilities is one of the advantages of women that strengthens her ability to be a leader. Spatial abilities This is what a woman can do multitasking solve different problems at the same time even in different places. Dian is quite optimistic that in the future there will be many female leaders who will contribute to various types of industrial sectors.

"If the female CEO was a conductor (driver) in an orchestra, sheet music is a business and levelling is a company's business process. A female CEO will be able to listen well to the rhythm that comes out of the musical instrument in front of her without losing her concentration at all to listen to the rhythm of the musical instrument at the end of the orchestra she leads," Dian wrote in her personal blog.

Stronger Market Challenges Welcome Dian

There's a big mission the new CEO has to start thinking about. That is, to increase XL's profit margin. Recorded XL liability as of September 2014 amounting to Rp 43,91 trillion and total equity of Rp 13,96 trillion. While market conditions are still undergoing transformation and look dynamic, XL's precise marketing strategy for digital products must be promoted and presented.

Competition between telecommunication products is also a challenge that must be considered carefully. The 4G era has begun to spread in Indonesia, this is also a challenge as well as an opportunity to bring XL to its peak.

Last year XL also had selling 3.500 telecommunication towers worth Rp5,6 trillion to PT Solusi Tunas Pratama Tbk. This effort is said to be a step to reduce XL's debt burden. With the right leadership, XL shouldn't have to experience such times again. Like it or not, Dian has to be quick to run XL's control wheel in order to continue to appear at the top of the country's telecommunications industry.

One of Dian's homework after occupying the highest position in XL Axiata is of course how the telco can generate revenue amidst the oppression of the infrastructure business by OTT services. In a time when revenues from telephone and SMS are dropping dramatically, and OTT services are increasingly eroding data access, telcos are forced to look at other opportunities outside dumppipe provided by telco.

Of course this is not only a challenge for telcos in Indonesia, but also throughout the world. Is Dian able to maintain XL Axiata's revenue growth in the midst of this challenging situation? Only time will tell.