CEO recognised for driving the expansion of Indonesia’s “Super App” into new markets as part of an ambitious international expansion plan

December 6 - Nadiem Makarim, founder and chief executive officer of GOJEK, has been selected for the 2018 Bloomberg 50, an annual list of icons and innovators who have changed the global business landscape in measurable ways over the past year.

Mr Makarim is one of only two Southeast Asian business leaders to have made the list. An unranked list, the Bloomberg 50 represents the most influential thought leaders in industries ranging from technology and finance to entertainment and politics, and whose 2018 accomplishments were particularly noteworthy.

According to Bloomberg, Mr Makarim has transformed GOJEK, Indonesia’s Super App, into an exciting regional presence following the announcement of the company’s international expansion plans. In just this year, the Indonesia-based, on-demand multi-service platform technology group expanded to Vietnam and Singapore, with Thailand soon to follow.

Mr Makarim says: “We are deeply honored as a company to be receiving this accolade, never would we have ever guessed that we would be recognised as a global change agent. It is important to state that the engine of innovation in our company is, and always will be, the GOJEK team with their hard work and creativity. Also, we would not be here without our drivers and merchants. We provide the platform, but they are the ones who do all the work that delights our users and creates value for society.”

GOJEK was founded eight years ago as a ride-hailing company, and has transformed into a Super App, providing access to a wide range of services including transportation, payments, food delivery, logistics, and other on-demand services. Today GOJEK partners with over 1 million drivers and around 30,000 service providers throughout the country, while facilitating over 100 million transactions per month. Its food delivery service, GO-FOOD, currently covers more than 300,000 food merchants, 80 percent of which are MSMEs, making it the largest food delivery service in South East Asia.

More people outside of Indonesia are recognising GOJEK as a credible alternative in ride-hailing and other services. After launching ride-hailing and food in Vietnam, and its beta app in Singapore, GOJEK is set to launch in Thailand in the coming weeks.

On GOJEK’s future, Mr Makarim says: “GOJEK is a unique organism, we never bow down to the status quo. We see problems that frustrate us, and we know that the only antidote to this frustration is to do something about it. I hope that years from now, GOJEK will be talked about as the company that proved technology is actually the key enabler in unleashing an economy, in making it leapfrog into the next stage of societal evolution.”

The Bloomberg 50 was released last week. Business leaders that have been included in the list in the past include Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla’s Elon Musk and Martin Lau of Tencent.