Staff interview #30 Ivonny Sualdani

I lead the Quipper Campus Business Development team at our Jakarta office. Quipper Campus is a service we developed for Indonesia, and I joined a few months after the launch when it was still a very small team. We now provide comprehensive information about higher education campuses all over Indonesia. We help to broaden students’ horizons with information about different careers and majors, as well as providing them with psychometric and aptitude tests.

As Team Leader, I manage the team and help to decide the direction of the business and the product itself. Our goal is to match the marketing needs of each campus with the student perspective. On the business side, I need to understand our partners’ marketing strategy so we can better serve their needs. On the product side, I need to closely follow student trends and make sure our platform accommodates their needs in a way that really engages them.

I worked in the education field for five years before I joined Quipper. During that time, I had the opportunity to visit schools all over Indonesia, which helped me to understand the struggling conditions in each region. I strongly believe that education is the main way to raise the standard of living and reduce rates of poverty.

Many Indonesian parents think education is expensive. One of the challenges we face is changing the mindset of the parents, and even the students themselves. They often think of education as an expense, rather than an investment. With Quipper Campus, we show them all the available career and study options, along with scholarships and other financial support they can access.

When I discovered Quipper and interviewed for a job here, I was really impressed by the company’s vision of “Distributors of Wisdom”. Quipper’s main concern is the student experience. They teach us to pay attention to every detail and how we can contribute to education in Indonesia, not only from a business perspective. This vision aligns with my personal goals.

Around 80% of students choose the wrong major because they don’t receive enough direction on how to choose a major and career. Currently we have more than 5,000 students taking our aptitude tests on a weekly basis. The tests reveal different learning styles and personality types to guide them towards making better choices. We work with psychologists on the design of these tests. This helps us forge a strong relationship with school counsellors in Indonesia, as most don’t have a psychology background and can’t design such tests on their own.

It’s rewarding to know that so many schools use our tests to better understand their students’ interests and strengths. It’s also rewarding to know that we can generate so many leads for our campus partners by providing something of real value to students. We help students to identify themselves before making a decision about where and what to study. We know teenagers have a lot of questions about themselves. With Quipper Campus, we want to be their friends and one-stop solution to help them identify and achieve their dreams.

I hope that eventually Quipper can be top of mind for all students. I also hope that Quipper can be an official partner to the Indonesian Government in improving our national higher education system. I’m really confident in the quality we deliver for students. Of course we have a lot of competition, but I can say that the people we have here are best, and we just need to show our real value to students and the government.

I’m very grateful for the appreciation of my achievements this year. The MVP award came as a surprise, because in Quipper we have many talented and qualified people. Now I understand that every small step we take counts.

Last year I achieved my sales target and helped to build an ecosystem between Quipper Video and Quipper Campus. We have to support each other as a unified Quipper in Indonesia. Quipper Video has so many competitors, but together with Quipper Campus it can deliver a unique benefit to society. To create this shared ecosystem at Quipper is very important.

In my team, we set a target monthly and we celebrate our achievements together.  Every month we have a casual dinner where we congratulate and support each other. In Indonesia, we have the Quipperior of the Month for the top-performing employee, so I also give credit to my team that way.

As leader of the Quipper Campus team, I have to manage people with different jobs. I have to understand marketing promotions strategy, school relations and client relations, plus content strategy and product development, which were not my area before. As a salesperson, I have to consider not only revenue generation, but also what kind of value we should pursue in order to keep the product and team sustainable in the long term.

I need to maintain close communication with my team and always be ready to support them. Most of the team are recent graduates, so their way of sharing information is different from mine. Sometimes they think of themselves as entrepreneurs and don’t like to be pushed to do something. They are talented and  smart people, but they also need to  work collaboratively with other team members and communicate effectively along the way. Using my experience, I have to be a role model and explain why we need to do certain things and the positive impact it will bring, so they understand their individual importance to the team.

When I first joined Quipper, I was impressed with the fast pace of work and the thinking of the leadership team. I’m still adjusting to this, even though I’ve already made a lot of changes to my professional habits.

To give an example, when I first joined Quipper I was still a salesperson and didn’t really understand about scalability and how to evaluate if something is worth doing. Now I feel I have really changed my mindset. I have to measure the scalability and analyze the risk of each action for the sustainability of our business. As a result, my analytical skills have developed a lot in the three years since I joined.

Quipper provides a big space to learn and improve ourselves. Every idea and input is counted. Leaders really listen to you and give you the space to be creative. If I compare myself to three years ago, I’m a totally different person. I never used to think about impact, but now I always put the user first. If you want to have a real impact on people in Indonesia, Quipper is the place to be.

2020/7/20

* The business (including business name and business description), people and titles introduced in the article are those at the time of the interview. It may be different at this time.