Iwan Murty
Mr Iwan Murty graduated from Monash University with a Bachelor of Business in Marketing in 1992. Through Monash he found his passion in marketing; particularly in marketing research and consultancy.
He started his career with an Australian marketing research firm – Frank Small & Associates in 1992. Built his career with the company for 9 years where he learnt both research and running a business. He had the chance to work in Melbourne and Sydney with the company.
His first chance to lead an agency was in 2001 when he was tasked to launch a UK-based global agency – Research International in Indonesia. By the end of five years, the agency had grown into a sizeable and profitable agency of 30 researchers.
In 2006, Iwan opened his own research agency (Central Data) and field operation company (Field Force Indonesia). Field operation company was something of a new concept back then for the Indonesian market. Iwan learnt this opportunity from his tenure in Australia and believed that this model would have great potential in Indonesia.
In 2007, Central Data entered a JV with Ipsos S.A. - a public listed research agency in Paris. He was to launch Ipsos’ new operation in Indonesia. By the end of 2016 when he exited the JV, the agency had grown into the second largest custom research with more than 150 full time staff.
In the same year, Iwan was also able to sell Field Force Indonesia to a global agency.
Iwan’s focus then shifted to the startup industry. He was an angel investor as well as an accelerator for a few companies. Three of his startups include:
- IZY – a property technology platform focussing on hotel, residentials and malls.
- STAR4Hire – a job placement platform with vocational training basis
- Snapcart – a big data and loyalty technology platform
He also set up a few other companies from a vocational training centre to a digital outdoor media agency. Not all of his new ventures were successful, it was then he learnt lessons of failures.
Iwan was back to the research industry in 2019, creating an ecosystem of research-related companies. Currently 5 companies are in his ecosystem: Infinity CXT in quantitative research, Essensight in qualitative research, Epitome in big data, FDI in field operation, and CustomerExcellence for mystery shoppers.
Iwan is currently based in Jakarta, but travels regularly to visit his children in the US and Canada. He continues to look for new opportunities especially from Australia.