Podcast Episode 1 – Who Is Seven Stones Indonesia?

Podcast Episode 1 - Who Is Seven Stones Indonesia?
The Seven Stones Indonesia Team.

INTRODUCTION: MUSIC + SNIPPET OF EPISODE

We just didn’t see it fitting with what we thought was a good way to do business.

It always, it all seems to be very cut-throat and very commission-based and it was all to do with how much money can you make and there was no sense of a journey particularly the customer journey.

Property I think anywhere in the world is kind of perceived as a not so honest profession, you know, people think that that’s people always trying to sell you something you don’t really need and it’s always overpriced and that sort of mentality and I guess culture got even worse in Bali. 

So that’s we wanted to change, I guess trying to reflect what Bali was all about you know it was about culture it was about dignity it was about honesty it was about paradise you know giving people good experiences. So I think to me that’s what seven stones is it’s a good experience it’s a good value it’s a high level of integrity and professionalism. 

INTRODUCTION: MUSIC 

Achintya Nilsen :  Welcome hello to the first ever Seven Stones Indonesia podcast. 

My name is Achintya Nilsen and I’m going to be your host for today.

For the audience, why don’t the other two people we have here, co-directors of Seven Stones introduce yourselves.

Andy : After you Terry

Terje : Age before Beauty right? 

Andy : My name is Andy and I’m a British expat living in Indonesia for 30-odd years or so. 

Been living in Bali since 2000 and I’m a Co-Founder and Director of Seven Stones Indonesia along with Terry, who’s about to introduce himself.

Terje : Well you could have told them your second name Andy. 

But I guess we’ll have to leave that for the second episode

 Andy : I could have yeah. 

You’ll have to tune in for the next one to find that out

Terje : Yeah, my name is actually Terje, but it ends up with Terry normally in Indonesia.

I’m Norwegian. I came to Indonesia a long time ago, as a kid a few times. 

I moved here full time in 1993, and before I knew, I got married and got three kids and businesses and moved to Bali in 2004. And 2016 we set up Seven Stones where I’m a Director and Co-Founder and that’s what we’re going to talk about.

Achintya Nilsen : Cool. So second names in the second episode.

Andy : You have to subscribe right.

Achintya Nilsen : We’ll keep the audience, you know, keep them guessing.

Andy : Keep them on the edge.

Terje : What’s Andy’s second name. 

Achintya Nilsen : Well your second name too. 

Achinty Nilsen : All right So since it’s a Seven Stones podcast why don’t you guys start off, you briefly mentioned Terry about what Seven Stones Indonesia is, could you maybe go into a little detail?

Terje : Yeah that’s a good question. I think now we’re pretty clear on what Seven Stones is and it’s been an interesting journey. But we started off as a real-estate company. But always wanted to be a different real-estate company, adding good values, good understandings of the market, in particular Bali, but also other parts of Indonesia. 

And I guess the change of mind for us has been to expand on that, because I don’t think that the traditional way of doing brokerage, property brokerage, marketing, and so on is accepted anymore. There’s a new sort of trend coming, people want more, they want value. So among that we obviously provide other values. We’ve opened up legal departments, we’ve opened up now also branding and we’ll probably eventually end up becoming more or less an investment company I think. So that’s the product line I guess of what we’re offering. 

But more importantly I think the values is what makes it different and maybe the difference if you look at Seven Stones compared to other companies. 

Andy : Just to give a little bit of further depth to that. We were both working together at a different real estate company here.

Achintya Nilsen : Yeah I was just about to ask how you guys met

Terje : Well we can’t tell you that

Andy : The first time we met was actually in Paradise Property when it was in their first office in Laksmana in Jalan Oberoi. And there was a Canggu Club Membership party going on two doors down I think, wasn’t that when we first met?

 It was probably over a glass of wine. 

Terje : Yeah I think, yeah, alcohol was definitely involved. 

But I think it started off with a Japanese client that I was taking around to make a magazine and then I got at the same time also involved with, that time Canggu Club, which is now Finn’s Recreation Club. And we did have some launch parties to sell memberships and I remember both you and other people that we’ve [worked with]. 

Andy : Yeah 

But that was in 2005 or something like that.

I left that company in 2008 or 2009, I think, to set up a motorbike business to do Harley-Davidson tours around Bali. So I left that and left that business in the capable hands of Terry for the next what 25 years or something like that.

Terje : A lifetime yeah

Andy : And then we got back together again about four years ago. 

Terje : That was the second glass of wine actually. 

Andy : But the reason I mention that is because we were both working for a property company, we’re very ingrained in that business. And we just didn’t see it fitting with what we thought was a good way to do business. It always, it all seems to be very cut-throat and very commission-based and it was all to do with how much money can you make and there was no sense of a journey, particularly the customer journey.

Prior to me going back to the real-estate business I was working with a variety of different hotels here, and was doing training courses for the staff to do with customer journeys, and doing customer journey mapping and the whole customer experience thing. And that really triggered something in me because of the results I was seeing, but also because it touched me and it touched the people that I was teaching and it definitely touched the guests. And we were thinking there’s got to be a way that we can actually bring some of those elements into what was traditionally seen as a very cut-throat, untrustworthy business, which was doing property and real-estate here.

Real-Estate agencies generally doesn’t have a very positive reputation. And what we wanted to do was to kind of change that concept and change the mindset of people that were dealing with properties and that’s kind of where the whole idea of Seven Stones started. It was very much to do something different. 

In those days I think our tagline was to do business with like-minded souls and do good then do well. And that was something that was definitely driving us, but we didn’t we didn’t implement it properly. So we’ve kind of taken a couple of steps back and gone through these rebranding exercises. Which I guess is one of the reasons why we’re here talking to you guys today. To kind of try to explain what that exercise has led us to. And what we now feel is a much stronger brand. 

Because it’s all to do with customer experiences and it’s all to do with doing the right thing and it’s all to do with helping people. 

Terje : Creating value more than anything. And I think just to step back a little bit that was the thing for me too.

That property, I think anywhere in the world is kind of perceived as a not so, you know, honest profession. People think it’s people always trying to sell you something you don’t really need and always overpriced and that sort of mentality and I guess culture got even worse in Bali. 

So that’s what we wanted to change, I guess, trying to reflect what Bali was all about, you know, it was about culture it was about dignity it was about honesty it was about paradise, you know, giving people good experiences. So I think to me that’s what Seven Stones is. It’s a good experience, it’s a good value, it’s a high level of integrity and professionalism. 

Andy : And what interestingly, what we’ve done with that concept of the Bali aspect which is where we’ve chosen to live. We’re really on board with the idea of balance and the Tri Hita Karana concept. Which we’re happy to explain in detail. 

Achintya Nilsen : Do you want to give a quick explanation of what Tri Hita Karana is?

Andy : Well in my understanding it’s three senses of well being, three senses of prosperity. One is the relationship that humans have to humans, the other is the relationship humans have with nature and the natural world, and the other one is the relationship that humans have with the ethereal. 

Terje : Yeah I think the Tri Hita Karana is one concept and in each of those pillars that Andy talked about it gets broken down further so you have the Pancamanu, Pancawana and then Pancasila. Which is one of the pillars of Indonesia’s founding fathers’ philosophy. 

But I think you can also take in the Tat Twam Asi concept of Bali where everything is perceived as being one. And that’s what we see is there is no, well there is I, and you, and us and so on, but it’s all connected somehow. And everything needs to act and react in a balance so that, I think, has influenced our thought process and also now more clarity in the brand. Very good clarity. 

Achintya Nilsen : So just to recap you, Seven Stones Indonesia opened their doors first 2016. And originally starting as a real-estate property service you’ve now included a bit more of other services as well. 

Andy  :Well, a bit, further bit of background to that.

The whole idea of that really came about with an initiative from Terry about a year or so ago, where he got into his head this idea of ‘Investment Roadmaps’. And we started to write about that and write blogs about that and it started to be the sort of the driver when people were coming in to talk to us about buying property.

It was the idea of Investment Roadmaps, what are you going to do with it why are you doing it what do you hope to achieve at the end of it.

So that the idea was that the property aspect that you’re buying something, land or villa or hotel or something, at the end of the day. That was kind of at the end of the journey, not the end of the journey but further down the journey, there are aspects to it that we usually ignored before you got to that, in the traditional real-estate agency they would usually be ignored.  Because the idea would be to close the deal, get your commissions, and wham bam thank you ma’am type of thing. 

Whereas Terry’s idea was much more interested in looking at it in terms of a roadmap. We start here to achieve this which leads to that which brings us this which eventually gets to investing in this particular property or this particular business, that sort of thing. And that kind of grew, that whole idea grew because it turns out that a major part of that was to do with legal advice. 

Achintya Nilsen : And that’s why you’ve incorporated legal services, and as well as business and marketing.

Terje : I think I can actually remember way back in our first office, we had, the whole office was full of white boards and we were actually going to conquer the world but we have to adjust the target a little bit. 

And yeah we did start talking about roadmaps, which made a lot of sense. Because we see a lot of cases where people buy a piece of land or villa and they want to put it out on AirBnB, and maximise their returns, and rent it out short-term, just to find out that it’s in a Green Belt or it’s in a Residential Area. Which then complicates the permits and it just becomes a painful experience. 

And a big part of that is legal advice, which, we, I don’t really know why but in Bali it’s been very common to kind take a lot of shortcuts and not look into regulations and kind of put them under the table and get rid of them. And that set people up for issues later on. 

And our plan was always long-term business plans and long-term business relationships with clients. And we had a lot of talks about the obvious conflict of interest  of that, of selling people real-estate and doing legal advice, which we’re very aware of, and make people aware of too. But I think the aspect of people being exposed to think through that process is also another aspect. Not just the legality of it. They understand that this is something they want to do a business with, or something they want to retire in, or a business first and then retire in, or they’re just in for the investment and at some stage might want to sell out. How do you do that to minimize, you know, tax exposure and impact and so on and so on. So it was just difficult for us to find legal advisors that would spend the time we felt was needed with the clients to do that. And then we started doing it ourselves. 

And I think in some way we actually, we had been doing it for a long time as part of the real-estate, but we didn’t think of having it as a business stream or service. It was just kind of something we did. But once we crystallized into that and took it off, it started working really well. And then I guess the next thing now is the marketing and branding.

Andy : Yeah, I mean, certainly the marketing and the branding side of it is kind of the last part of that puzzle if you like.

For example, you know, we’ve gone through the reasons why somebody wants to set up a business and where they want to do it and what they need to do it. And we’re now also in the position to be able to say well okay you want a restaurant, you want a hotel, you want this kind of business, we’re able to kind of do these marketing and branding maps too, so that we can take you from thinking of a good name, an effective name, an effective logo; to looking at your market segments, to looking at how you would socialize your message within your team, and then delivering that to your target audiences, and your target market. 

So it’s almost like we’ve got packages of different things within each department. So there’s a bunch of stuff that goes on in the legal thing, there’s a bunch of stuff actually that goes on in the real-estate thing, and there’s a bunch of stuff that goes on in the marketing. 

You can actually take just one bit of that from any one of those three divisions and we’ll do something for you. Or you can take a little bit of one mixed with a little bit of another mixed with a little bit of another thing. 

So it’d be a much bigger, and I hate to use the phrase ‘one-stop’, because we’ve known people in the past who’ve used that One-Stop-Shop idea and it’s been a front for doing more dodgy stuff and we don’t want it to be that way. We want it to be a place where people can rely on us to kind of hold their hand and walk them through a process, and listen to what they want to say, and develop something that’s both suitable to them and suitable to a target audience. 

Terje : I think the business aspect of this too, when you see in particular for expats, but also quite often Indonesians when they come into Bali. They start looking for a let’s say a piece of land, and very often it’s also a painful experience. It’s a green belt,  it’s a residential zone, the agent don’t really know the owner but he heard from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone. Then you get into construction and that can also be a very painful experience, you need to be on it, you need to be focused. Eventually then you get into a point, a management company and some of them are really good and some of them are not so good and some of them are tearing you apart and ripping you off. So it makes sense to try to consolidate those aspects to have a much more efficient business module for people. 

And I think we talked a lot about branding and the value of branding and I think now with Covid-19 being on-going and all businesses being more or less down-and-out, that aspect is going to be tremendously important when we come back out of this; where there is going to be customers and tourism is going to return and guests are going to come back to Bali but we really really have to stand out in a proper way. 

Andy : Well the whole world’s changed right, because of that. 

You know so what may have worked for you pre-covid-19 might not be the same formula for success afterwards 

Achintya Nilsen : Which we’ll get into for the next episode. 

Okay, so that was a lot of very great information, and just to summarize for the audience in case anyone got a little lost. 

The delivery of your brand basically I can come in as a customer and have everything sorted out for me. If I was say, wanting to make a restaurant business and I had my ideas, you guys would handle the legal aspect the property aspect of it and then eventually also market it to the right audience and all that.

Terje :  I think that’s correct and I think that we spend quite some time with clients without necessarily charging anything, to make them aware and also to make us understand what they want to achieve. And then they have the opportunity, there’s no strings attached they can use other real-estate agents, they can use other legal advisors, or they can use other branding companies but that gives us a, what we call again a roadmap that we can take the client through and make sure we perform the best way possible for them.

Achintya Nilsen : So with all this what is kind of your vision with Seven Stones and this whole rebranding going forward?

Terje : Make a lot of money 

Andy : Yeah, actually yeah. You know it’s a business so we want to make a lot of money. 

But I think one of the reasons we want to make a lot of money is because we want to help more people we really really — the core thing for us is to be able to offer people help. 

Achintya Nilsen : Yeah, as I understand that is actually part of, part two actually of your three main pillars or philosophy. Where you work with People, Profit and Planet?

 Andy : People, Profit and Planet.

People is obviously our clients and our customers, but for us it also means the people that are working with us. So it’s our colleagues and our associates and our contacts and all that sort of stuff those are people too. We want to do right by everybody on that front.

The profit side is the business side, and that obviously means we want to be successful. We’re not doing business to not make money, we do want to make money, and we feel that the more money we make the more things we’re going to be able to do to help more people so it’s kind of like this

Achintya Nilsen : Cycle 

Andy : A non-vicious cycle.

A nice cycle.

And the other one is planet. Because for us it’s super important for us to start to get the word out there to work more with people that are more eco-conscious. That are more aware of looking after their local communities, and the aspects that we can all contribute to for that. 

So stuff to do with education, stuff to do with health, stuff to do with community development, supporting the local communities that we’re actually working with. So those, the profit the people and the planet, those are three really important pillars to us.

Terje : I think for me the people thing is kind of like if we compare that to a friendship, you have good friends and you have not so good friends, and you have the gossiping and have all the stories. And I think both employees, or partners as we call them, we don’t really call anyone employees, we call everyone partners and clients, we want to be their friends, we want to be their best friends. Because into that comes a long-term sustainable relationship. 

And profits we obviously need to make profit to be able to do what we want to do, but we also know that we’ll make our business partners’ profit margin better too. We’ll perform for them so they can focus on what they need to do to make their business as viable as possible with the right values. 

And a big thing for us is planet and environment and social causes and eco aspects, because we only have, or at least for now one planet maybe we find another one later on, but we need to take care of it and we need to think long term. We need to think of our kids, we need to think of our grandchildren and the next generations to come.

Andy : Our tagline for the new rebranding that we’ve gone through Seven Stones Indonesia, the tagline for it is ‘Partners In Growth’. So we dtoo feel that the sense of being a partner with somebody is an important thing to say and two shout about.

Achintya Nilsen : So you’re holding hands with your customers. 

Andy : Yeah.

Achintya Nilsen : And taking them through.

Andy : Yeah.

Achintya Nilsen : I think that whole planet involvement and being partners with people already sets you apart from quite a few businesses here but I wanted to go back into that. And also you mentioned values a lot, so what sort of values and what sort of principles do you think sets Seven Stones apart from any other business, company, or real-estate or legal here in Indonesia? 

Terje : I think in terms of what we provide is probably more than anything transparency on the whole process. So I think our customers understand what’s going on when a company set up, deed of establishments, whatever it is getting build permits, and so on they can actually follow the process. We also are very transparent on rules and laws and regulations because then a client can do what we call risk management. So some people want to be a bit risky, some will want to be really conservative, and with the right information they can do that. We also deliver time, I think, more than anything. We talk to people and say you can do all of this yourself but we can do it a lot more efficient, and probably with the right structure to it, so you save a lot of time into this. 

One of the things that I talk a lot about and I think is important in particular for expats is that, any country has a legal structure, a government structure, and so on that reflects the people in the culture and very often we see expats experiencing a lot of stress because they want to fit their own norm or view on that, from whatever country they come from. And that just doesn’t work so you have to understand the Indonesian logic behind their legal system, behind their government, and so on. And then you can have a very fruitful relationship with a client and the client also evolves into a fruitful relationship with his, you know, surroundings, the community that he invested into, and do something.

Achintya Nilsen : So would you say, Seven Stones Indonesia is kind of like a bridge almost? 

Terje : Yeah, I like that terminology. Building bridge over troubled water, (not always troubled water), but I think it’s like humans now are waking up to understand that we’re very different, we have very different perceptions. Even people that grew up in the same environment and same communities. Let alone across oceans and borders and cultures.

So I think that’s true, that we help people to understand that and build this bridge maybe not always from an expat into Indonesia, but also sometimes from an Indonesian perspective towards a foreign company or entity that wants to come and invest in Indonesia too.

Achintya Nilsen : So the company itself is not new, but this whole branding process you guys are going through is recent.

Andy : It’s given us clarity.  So if you look at some of the documents that we originally produced back in 2016, they’re really close to what we have now kind of formulated a little bit and developed a little bit further. They’re really close actually. I don’t think there’s been too much of a change from when we first started out in terms of mindset.

Terje : I think the right word is clarity. And maybe clarity in ourselves to begin with and then now towards the market. But the ideas and the concepts of what we wanted to do and achieve has stayed the same. And that’s the exercise we’ve gone through, how do you translate and in some way build that bridge from our complicated minds, into a market and into something that the customers and, you know, clients and people that we deal with can understand.

Achintya Nilsen : So it’s semi new and improved.

Andy : New and improved I guess.

Terje : Same old song. 

Achintya Nilsen : Just going back to the beginning you mentioned kind of wanting to be a good or more, a different real-estate, changing the–

Andy : We wanted to change the face of real-estate.

Achintya Nilsen : Exactly yes.

Just going back to that. What sort of hope or aim do you have moving forward with the brand? And what kind of impact do you want to have on, this island specifically, or Indonesia, or what’s the broader goal?

 

Andy : That’s a good question and that might take a long time to answer. 

With Bali specifically, we see the sort of enormous potential that Bali has as a tourist destination here. It regularly wins awards for having the best resorts and the best hotels and all that sort of stuff. It’s on a lot of people’s bucket list to come and see and visit. It’s a very popular place. 

But we also see that there are problems with it. There’s a lot of greed involved with the way that, particularly land prices, have rocketed over recent years. But there’s also this, almost this, lack of understanding of the idea of balance. Which is kind of ironic because Bali is a place of balance. But we see that there are areas and aspects to business here where the environment has been ignored, education has been largely ignored, so has sort of health services for local communities. And it’s all about, it’s not so much about the local communities as such, but it’s much more about business and big business. And just making a hell of a lot of money as quickly as possible and then kind of leaving it and going away and then you guys sort it out on your own kind of thing.  

So I think it’s kind of a utopian idealistic sort of back-thought that we ‘ve got too. 

That we can actually make a difference here, we can actually change how business is done, and make more people more aware of the impact that they have on their environment. And the environment  doesn’t mean that beautiful trees and the flowers and the butterflies and that sort of thing. It actually means your working environment, it means your people environment, it means your community environment, all of those different things.

Terje : I think the challenge and the pros and cons and the benefits and the doubts I guess from tourism, is it’s not really a new thing for Bali or anywhere. It’s always challenges when a new or an old culture gets exposed to something new and an exposure almost overnight. I think the first time that mass tourism was seen as a problem and exposed in press in Europe was 1934, so it’s been around for a while.  

So I do think we can make an impact and I think we can make and impact more than anything on having those communications with people; talking to the communities talking to the expats, bridging that again into the government and the balinese people. So that there is a dialogue and where it goes from there is not for us to decide, or others to decide, but it’s a healthy process I guess where everyone gets their say, and state what they think is good and where do we want to go with this.

Andy : That’s important too I think Terry. Because one of the things that definitely came out when we were doing this rebranding thing with Affinity, was the experience that we’ve got. I’m not kind of trying to blow trumpets here or whatever, but I’ve been here for 33 years and Terry’s been here for 133 years or something like, you know, 25-30 years.  We’ve got a lot of experience here. And that means that we, some say that we know better than anybody else, but we are sensitive to and aware of a lot of things that can easily be addressed and easily be solved with a particular kind of mindset. And often we’ve seen people without that, accepting of the culture here, go in and just be a bull in a china shop. And just cause more trouble than was necessary.

Terje :  I think you see that on both sides of this that, a lot foreigners comes in here and it’s like, ‘oh why aren’t they doing it the way they should,’ or ‘why don’t they do it like us’ and ‘why do they have to be so difficult’. And the Indonesian government or Indonesians and Balinese will say the same towards the expats, ‘why don’t you behave and live and do like we do’. So there’s really no right or wrong, it’s again about the different perception and the different values and the different settings. And we just need to communicate a lot and then we’ll find out that were probably not that different, and we do have the same values. It’s just a matter of how we put them out into reality. And priorities, sometimes expats might expect rules, laws, regulations to change overnight, while Indonesian government has a long-term strategy and thought behind that because there’s so much that they need to take into consideration than just economical growth or foreign direct investment, you know. They have to think of their people, education, health, you know, all kinds of aspects that need to come along with it too.

Achintya Nilsen : I think that’s something that is also really interesting that you guys do, which is that there’s obviously a lot of knowledge and experience between the two of you in this market, but you’re also very open to change and constant improvements and all that.

Andy : Yeah, I think we’re good at that. We’re good at being open to change.  

We do a lot of reading too. We read relevant stuff and we watch relevant stuff. 

We have conversations like this for example, on a regular basis in the office, and we encourage everyone that works around us to participate in that too. To share what we know with each other so that we can grow together.

Terje : I think we’re both, I don’t like the word open-minded, everyone is open-minded, but open to changes, and open to the fact that we might be wrong sometimes (not very often) but every now and then we might be.

And like Andy says we can discuss this in the office and we can discuss this in not so formal environments. Sometimes we even take the conversations to the pub, and they can get a bit heated but that’s a different–you know, you lower your guard a bit and you get different thoughts into it too. 

So I think we  constantly, maybe not deliberately, but we challenge each other a little bit too in mindsets and engagements. Kind of like a game of ping-pong and you know the ball goes back and forth and ‘ah, that’s how you do it’ and then we sort of get into a better clarity on what we’re doing. And it’s been a long process, but again, not so long process when you look at how other brands and how other businesses have evolved too. It doesn’t happen overnight. You have to have clarity in what you’re doing and what you’re putting together and what you want to achieve more than anything. 

Achintya Nilsen : So this being open and approachable allows for, not people to come in just as clients, but also just to have conversations with you perhaps?

Andy : Sure. 

Terje : Absolutely, yeah. 

Achintya Nilsen : How would you– where could people potentially reach you or?

Terje : I think we’re known–They can come to our office obviously. We also tend to host a lot of activities, we’ll do lunches we’ll do gatherings. I think both of us also just go out there and we meet people. 

I’ll go on the bike and I’ll go up to Ubud and I’ll post on Facebook that’s what I’m doing this day, and people will contact us and they want to have a chat. And that’ll happen in their office, or it’ll happen in a pub, or coffee shop or whatever it is. So we reach out to people in different ways so as long as it is within reasonable distance, then we can sometimes they will come to us and we come to them.

And that’s not something we, you know, say ‘oh, you got to pay us an hourly rate’ and so on. We actually have clients who feels bad, because they haven’t given us anything yet and it’s three or four or five meetings, but I’m not worried about that because long-term it becomes something, you know, a stronger relationship that will benefit both parties. 

Achintya Nilsen : So, with all this in mind. Just going back to you were saying your tagline is ‘Partners In Growth’. This might be a little bit weird to say, but as a closer maybe we can just do a quick introduction of how you would introduce yourselves out there, in Bali, in Indonesia as a brand as a company. So Seven Stones Indonesia… We are… 

Andy : Seven Stones Indonesia, we are ambitious. And we are optimistic. And we are focused on helping people’s businesses succeed.

Achintya Nilsen : And people can find you at your website?

Andy : www.sevenstonesindonesia.com 

Achintya Nilsen : Or Instagram (@sevenstonesindonesia) 

Andy : Yes. Or Facebook, or LinkedIn. 

Achintya Nilsen : So you’re kind of all over the place, anyone can reach you from–

Terje : That’s a good word, we’re all over the place. 

Andy : We’re all over the place and not hard to find. 

Terje : I think what’s important is that I sometimes hear people, they don’t want to reach out to us because they think we have a high profile, we’re very knowledgeable and very expensive or kind of not on their level; people just want to talk about a new kennel for dogs or something like that. But we really don’t mind because we believe that all this engagement and all this interaction creates a better Bali, a better business community. 

One client we might not get anything out of other than a cup of coffee and chocolate cake, but they will refer us to someone else, they’ll talk about us and it just starts to crystallize and everything comes together in a very good way. 

Achintya Nilsen : That’s perfect. 

***

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Andrzej Barski

Director of Seven Stones Indonesia

Andrzej is Co-owner/ Founder and Director of Seven Stones Indonesia. He was born in the UK to Polish parents and has been living in Indonesia for more than 33-years. He is a skilled writer, trainer and marketer with a deep understanding of Indonesia and its many cultures after spending many years travelling across the archipelago from North Sumatra to Irian Jaya.

His experience covers Marketing, Branding, Advertising, Publishing, Real Estate and Training for 5-Star Hotels and Resorts in Bali and Jakarta, which has given him a passion for the customer experience. He’s a published author and a regular contributor to local and regional publications. His interests include conservation, eco-conscious initiatives, spirituality and motorcycles. Andrzej speaks English and Indonesian.

Terje H. Nilsen

Director of Seven Stones Indonesia

Terje is from Norway and has been living in Indonesia for over 20-years. He first came to Indonesia as a child and after earning his degree in Business Administration from the University of Agder in Norway, he moved to Indonesia in 1993, where he has worked in leading positions in education and the fitness/ wellness industries all over Indonesia including Jakarta, Banjarmasin, Medan and Bali.

He was Co-owner and CEO of the Paradise Property Group for 10-years and led the company to great success. He is now Co-owner/ Founder and Director of Seven Stones Indonesia offering market entry services for foreign investors, legal advice, sourcing of investments and in particular real estate investments. He has a soft spot for eco-friendly and socially sustainable projects and investments, while his personal business strengths are in property law, tourism trends, macroeconomics, Indonesian government and regulations. His personal interests are in sport, adventure, history and spiritual experiences.

Terje’s leadership, drive and knowledge are recognised across many industries and his unrivalled network of high level contacts in government and business spans the globe. He believes you do good and do well but always in that order. Terje speaks English, Indonesian and Norwegian.

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Ridwan Jasin Zachrie

CFO of Seven Stones Indonesia, Jakarta

Ridwan is one of Indonesia’s top executives with a long and illustrious career in the financial world. He holds several professional certifications including being a Certified Business Valuer (CBV) issued by the Australian Academy of Finance and Management; Broker-Dealer Representative (WPPE); and The Directorship Certification for Directors and Commissioners, issued by the Indonesian Institute of Commissioners and Directors.

His experience includes being the Managing Director at one of the top investment banking groups in the region, the Recapital Group, the CFO at State-owned enterprises in fishery industry and the CEO at Tanri Abeng & Son Holding. He’s also been an Independent Commissioner in several Financial Service companies and on the Audit and Risk Committee at Bank BTPN Tbk, Berau Coal Energy Tbk, Aetra Air Jakarta as well as working for Citibank, Bank Mandiri and HSBC. His last position was as CFO at PT Citra Putra Mandiri – OSO Group.

Ridwan has won a number of prestigious awards including the Best CFO Awards 2019 (Institute of Certified Management Accountant Australia-Indonesia); Asia Pacific Young Business Leader awarded by Asia 21 Network New York USA (Tokyo 2008); UK Alumni Business Awards 2008 awarded by the British Council; and The Most Inspiring Human Resources Practitioners’ version of Human Capital Magazine 2010.

He’s a member of the Board of Trustees of the Alumni Association of the Faculty of Law, Trisakti University, Co-Founder of the Paramadina Public Policy Institute and actively writes books, publications and articles in the mass media. He co-authored “Korupsi Mengorupsi Indonesia” in 2009, which helps those with an interest in understanding governance in Indonesia and the critical issue of corruption. Ridwan speaks Indonesian and English.

Per Fredrik Ecker

Managing Director of Seven Stones Indonesia, Jakarta

Per is the Managing Director of the Seven Stones Indonesia (SSI) Jakarta office and has more than 25-years’ experience in Indonesia, China, and Western Europe. He previously worked in senior management positions with Q-Free ASA, Siemens AG, and other companies in the telecom sector. Over the last six years, he has been the Chairman of the Indonesia-Norway Business Council (INBC) and recently become elected to be on the board of EuroCham Indonesia.

His most recent experience is within Intelligent Transport Solutions (ITS), Telecom, and other sectors within the Indonesian market. He is today through his position in SSI and by representing Norway Connect, promoting Nordic and European companies that would like to explore business opportunities in the Indonesian market. He’s also playing an active role to help create the Nordic House concept in Jakarta that will provide an excellent platform for Nordic companies entering Indonesia, where they’ll find a community that can offer support with trusted information and affordable services to enter this market.