Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Tokopedia founder Leontinus Alpha Edison has officially become co-captain of the 7 winning National Team Anies Baswedan-Muhaimin Iskandar (AMIN National Team) for the 2024 presidential election.

He became co-captain along with 11 other people in the AMIN National Team. They will assist the work of the Chairman of the AMIN National Team, Vice Marshal TNI (Ret.) Muhammad Syaugi Alaydrus.

In total there are 12 deputy chairmen of the AMIN National Team, filled with businessmen, ulama, cultural figures, and former regional heads.

Leontinus’ name was announced by Anies Baswedan on Jalan Diponegoro Number 10, Menteng, Central Jakarta.

“The determination of the AMIN national team is part of the formalities that we must complete, God willing, the AMIN national team can be won,” said presidential candidate Anies Baswedan, when announcing the AMIN national team, quoted from DetikcomWednesday (15/11/2023).

Leontinus Alpha Edison was the founder of Tokopedia with William Tanuwijaya in 2009. Leontinus’ name is rarely heard because he rarely appears in public, compared to his colleague William.

In an interview, Leontinus once talked about his activities in founding Tokopedia with William.

At that time, he was worried to see that the technological infrastructure in Indonesia was not evenly distributed, which resulted in limited access to the Internet for people who lived far from big cities.

“People who live in small towns and inland areas have to move to big cities to get bigger opportunities and opportunity. Likewise with access to products and services, it is not uncommon for people in small towns to have to pay more than people in big cities,” said Leontinus in electronic mail.

He then had a discussion with William which finally resulted in the idea of ​​building e-commerce that could connect sellers and buyers in all regions in Indonesia. They sought capital from investors and Tokopedia was born.

A graduate of Information Technology from Atma Jaya University, Yogyakarta in 2003, he built his career from the start in the IT world.

He previously worked as a Website Developer at several companies. It was recorded that he had worked at PT. Indocom Mediatama, PT. Sqiva System and PT. Primary Signet.

We Are Not Afraid T-shirt

Tokopedia’s first investor once told a story about his initial meeting with William and Leontinus. “If I’m not mistaken, when Tokopedia was launched on August 17 2009, that’s when I was attracted to the ‘We’re Not Afraid’ t-shirts,” said East Ventures Managing Partner Willson Suhu.

It didn’t stop there, the ‘spirit’ of the words on the t-shirt then inspired the entire Tokopedia branding for the first time. Willson became increasingly interested and sent an email to William.

‘”‘Hey William, how are you? I saw your campaign, can we meet?’ “Then he said, ‘let’s meet!’,” Willson said.

Willson immediately flew to Jakarta and met William. At the meeting, William told the story of how he started Tokopedia. According to Willson, at that time the highest number of transactions on Tokopedia was only around 100 per day, very low, and sometimes almost zero.

“So, we saw William and Leon, right when they described their dreams, what they wanted to do to change commerce, and how they wanted to help small traders, we were kind of blown away,” explained Willson.

Because they were both compatible, Willson didn’t wait long. The process went smoothly and the two parties met again the next day. That same afternoon, they made a deal.

“So, the deal happened in 48 hours, one of the fastest,” he said.

[Gambas:Video CNBC]

(dem/dem)