Tom Lembong served as Indonesia’s Trade Minister and then Chairman of Indonesia’s Investment Coordinating Board (recently renamed Indonesia’s Ministry of Investment) from 2015-2019. During his time as Cabinet Minister, Tom became known as one of Indonesia’s leading internationalist and economic reformists. Prior to serving in President Jokowi’s Cabinet, Tom spent his career in finance, starting with Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank, ahead of co-founding in 2006 Quvat Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on investments in Indonesia. He had a prior stint in government in 1999-2000 as a Senior Vice President at the Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency, a government agency under Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance and Central Bank to recapitalize and restructure Indonesia’s banking sector after the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis. He returned to politics in 2013 as economic advisor and speech-writer to then-Jakarta Governor Jokowi, a role he continued throughout Jokowi’s first term as Indonesia’s President. Tom wrote some of President Jokowi’s most iconic speeches, like his “Game of Thrones” speech at the IMF-World Bank meetings in Bali in 2018, and his “Thanos” speech at the World Economic Forum.
Today Tom serves on the International Advisory Council of the IISS (the Institute for International Strategic Studies) in London, and on the International Advisory Board of Plastic Omnium (an automotive components company in France). In August of 2021, Jakarta Governor Anies appointed Tom as Chairman of the Board of PT Jaya Ancol, the only Provincial Government-owned enterprise in Indonesia listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange.
After leaving Cabinet, Tom set up and officially operates from Consilience Policy Institute in Singapore, a think tank to advocate for internationalist and reformist economic policies in Indonesia. He obtained his Bachelor’s in Urban Architecture from Harvard University in 1994. Tom was selected as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2008. He was also awarded the Asia Society Australia-Victoria Distinguished Fellowship in 2017. In 2020, the South Korean Government awarded Tom the “Gwanghwa Medal, First Order of Merit”, the highest category of medal awarded to non-Korean civilians.
