Indonesia Opens the BUMN Door to Foreign Talent... But Only 'Famous' Ones
Danantara’s “foreign talent” drive sells the look of reform, not transformation. Here’s why Indonesia’s state-owned enterprises remain unchanged.
Good news, global professionals: Indonesia is officially open for expat business… so long as your résumé reads like a G20 cocktail party guest list. Yes, the headlines are true. Indonesia is opening its BUMNs to foreign leadership. Dust off your Oxford pin, rehearse your panel intro voice, and double-check your FT feature from 2019. You might just get in.
Except you probably won’t. This isn’t talent liberalisation in any meaningful or market-wide sense. This is not Singapore in the 2000s, or Dubai in its sovereign-operator phase. This is a selective rollout of visual credibility. Indonesia doesn’t need foreign professionals. It needs foreign proof from prestigious names that confer borrowed trust.
And it’s being done tastefully. A velvet rope here. A strategic waiver there. Maybe one or two former airline execs, transformation leads, or ex-MBB partners; just enough to tick the “we’re serious now” box in front of international investors. It’s reputational optics masquerading as open hiring. But unless your LinkedIn headline includes a globally adored acronym, you’re not in the show.
From VC Flex to SOE Signaling: The Circle Is Complete
If you’ve been around Southeast Asia’s venture ecosystem long enough, all of this should feel strangely familiar. The names have changed. The setting is different. But the tactic? Carbon copy.
In the startup boom of the late 2010s, local venture capital firms made a habit of hiring Ivy League MBAs and ex–McKinsey consultants. Why? Because it helped raise money. The signal to Limited Partners was simple:
We’re sophisticated,
We’re international,
Trust us with your millions.
Founders took the cue. Suddenly, every startup wanted someone “ex–Gojek,” even if their job was just to give the fundraising deck a splash of unicorn DNA. It was about optics.
Now Indonesia is playing that same game with bigger budgets and a sovereign logo.
The SOE sector is bloated and widely seen as dysfunctional. Enter Danantara, the newly launched holding company designed to consolidate, modernize, and sell a new story to the world. The problem? No one believes the story yet.
The solution? Hire a few expats with ultra-pedigreed backgrounds. From names investors already respect. Publicly. And loudly.
It doesn’t matter that these hires are unlikely to control the levers that matter, like capex, procurement, or fleet decisions. It matters that their names appear in investor decks and press releases. “Ex–Singapore Airlines” running finance at Garuda gives the impression of transformation, whether or not anything has changed beneath the hood.
The VCs did it first. Danantara is just doing it with a sovereign fund on the line. The only real difference is that now the fundraising goal isn’t a Series B. It’s billions in global capital for a portfolio of national assets.
“Open to Expats” If You’re Ex-Something Fancy
Indonesia’s recent decision to open up BUMN leadership roles to foreign nationals sounds like a watershed moment. On paper, it is. BP BUMN now has the power to waive the long-standing “must be Indonesian” requirement for state-owned enterprise directors. To the untrained eye, it might resemble Singapore’s or Dubai’s longstanding meritocratic talent market. But look closer and you’ll realise that this isn’t liberalisation.
The unwritten rule is simple. You’re welcome, if your last employer looks impressive in an investor deck.
“Ex–Singapore Airlines” will do.
“Ex–McKinsey” is solid.
“Ex–Gojek” maybe, if you were in the right room.
Your actual experience in Indonesia, your ability to navigate unions, bureaucracies, vendor games, or the legendary e-catalogue procurement nightmare? That’s not the criteria. Not now.
A marquee hire suggests modernisation. It implies reform without the uncomfortable business of actually doing it. It plays well in international media, and even better in a Danantara investor presentation.
Competent expats with Indonesian tenure who know the ground reality and can recite the BUMN org chart in their sleep, won’t see these roles. This isn’t about operational capability.
The Real Product Is the Aesthetic
The real objective here isn’t to transform Garuda into Emirates or PLN into a lean, high-efficiency grid operator. It’s not even really about improving bottom lines or dismantling layers of bureaucratic drag. What’s being sold is the impression of reform. It’s the narrative of modernisation, staged and styled for maximum visibility to those sitting in Singapore, New York, or Abu Dhabi with capital to allocate and a taste for the familiar.
Danantara and BP BUMN aren’t orchestrating a wide-scale recruitment of technical heavyweights to address inefficiencies or rewrite procurement standards. They are curating a look. It’s a portfolio play. A handful of global names, placed just right across the state asset landscape, creates the illusion of momentum. You do not need deep change across 1,000 companies when three strategic hires can be fed into the global comms machine to suggest that Indonesia is “opening up” and getting serious.
This model borrows directly from startup-era playbooks. In that world, optics often mattered more than operating discipline. A founder could raise millions simply by landing an “ex-Gojek” hire. The presence of that individual gave cover to investors, boards, even the media.
Now, state enterprises are playing the same game. A few foreigners with impressive résumés are handed titles, photo ops, and just enough rope to be mentioned in a bond prospectus. Behind them, nothing shifts.
Capex is still managed through backchannels.
Route planning is steered by political calculus.
Procurement is “refined,” not overhauled.
The dysfunction is rebranded. The expat is a visual cue for progress. The product is the idea of transformation. And for now, that’s apparently enough.
Talent Liberalisation? Or Brand-Name Human Furniture?
In countries where true foreign leadership in state-owned enterprises is welcomed, it comes with real responsibility.
Budget authority.
Staffing decisions.
Power to cancel sweetheart deals or push back on politically driven contracts.
Essentially, the freedom to act like an actual CEO rather than a strategic ornament.
That level of trust is not on offer here. Not in Indonesia. Not in this moment. The roles being offered are carefully placed set pieces, deployed for narrative effect, like placing an Eames chair in your living room to imply you read design magazines. A prestigious foreign hire is there to signal good taste, modern thinking, and credibility to the outside world.
The individuals being hired are not the problem. They are experienced, and capable. But they are being positioned as representations. A kind of high-status décor. The goal is not to empower them to lead internal change but to appear like change is underway.
If you are an expat with a strong operational track record in Indonesia, deep networks, and a passion for actual delivery, pause before polishing your CV. Unless you have a brand name that doubles as investor bait, this wave is not for you. This is about selectively borrowing brand equity, not opening the floodgates to international talent.
Think furniture shopping vs. liberalisation. A few impressive pieces arranged to impress the guests, while the old system stays safely tucked behind the door marked “internal use only.”
Indonesia’s announcement of opening BUMNs to foreign leadership sounds like reform, looks like reform, and is being marketed as reform. But it is not the kind of reform people think it is. It’s not about injecting foreign capability at scale or opening the floodgates to global executive talent. It’s about carefully curating the appearance of change.
This isn’t a lie. It’s a version of the truth designed for the investor roadshow. Bringing in a few high-profile expats from marquee institutions is enough to sell the idea that Indonesia’s state companies are being modernised. It creates a talking point. It earns international headlines. And crucially, it helps to unlock capital.
But beneath the aesthetic, the structure remains largely untouched. Real authority stays local. Critical decisions still sit with entrenched systems and political interests. Foreign hires are welcome, but only in the exact measure required to play their role on stage.
So yes, if your résumé doubles as a credibility asset, you may get the call. For everyone else, the doors remain mostly closed. What’s being liberalised here is the image of opportunity.
At StratEx - Indonesia Business Advisory we work with boards, investors, and transformation teams to put real talent in roles that move the needle. Contact us if you’re interested in hires that make good vs. hires that look good.