Background · Indonesia · Malé · Singapore
I started on the ramp at Malé airport, learned marketing by building the first Centralized Marketing Department inside the country's largest company, spent nine years in oil trading in Singapore, then co-owned a resort from bare island to sale. Today I am building a technology company between Indonesia and Singapore.
Loama Resort Maldives · developed 2011–2013, operated and sold by 2017
The chapters
Air Maldives · 1995–2000
I started as ground staff at Malé airport, coordinating everything an aircraft needs between touchdown and takeoff, then sourcing and managing the airline's in-flight amenities. It is where I learned what customers actually notice, and where I decided I needed to study if I wanted to go further.
State Trading Organisation · 2003–2004
Back from a marketing degree in Malaysia, I was given, as a fresh graduate, the job of creating and running STO's first Centralized Marketing Department, serving every outlet of the country's largest company. It meant changing a system that had been in place for years. It was hard, and it was the most satisfying work I had done to that point.
Maldives National Oil Company · 2004–2011
Transferred to Singapore as the company's representative, I did the groundwork for a young national oil company to establish its place in the international market: relationships with other national oil companies and the majors, deals, trading and operations, working alongside STO's Singapore sister company. Alongside, I ran a Singapore trading business of my own.
Loama Resort Maldives · 2011–2017
I brought a listed company in to invest and develop a 105-room, five-star resort, as the only local partner, co-owner and an active shareholder from the first day to the last. We built the property in three years, operated it, and sold it three years later. It was not smooth. It taught me more than every other job combined, and it is why I now spend time helping new resort investors avoid the mistakes we made.
Goloca · 2018–2019
We built and launched the Maldives' first boat management and booking app. Boat owners were not yet ready to let a platform see their bookings and earnings, and the tax questions were unresolved. Rather than keep spending, we closed it cleanly, before the pandemic. I count it as a lesson, not a loss.
Mihaaru · 2021–2022 · Indonesia · 2022–present
A short spell as Director of Business Development at Mihaaru, the country's largest private news agency, in an industry new to me, where I set out a way forward before moving to Indonesia. Since then I have set up and supported the operations of PT. Merawin Mitra Grup, a sourcing and trading company in Indonesia now focused on furniture and hospitality products, and, quietly, built what comes next.
If any of this sounds like the problem you are working on, tell me about it.