Jakarta - Kevin Aluwi, Gojek co-founder and CEO and GoTo director, is a key figure behind the success of Gojek, the largest on-demand service provider in the country. Gojek joined forces with e-commerce platform Tokopedia in May 2021 to form GoTo, the most comprehensive digital ecosystem in Indonesia and home to GoTo Financial (GTF), a provider of financial technology (fintech) services like GoPay e-wallet.
Kevin Aluwi; Michaelangelo Moran; and Nadiem Makarim, the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Minister, founded Gojek as a call center focused on two-wheeled transportation services. In January 2015 the Gojek app was launched.
Today, Gojek is the leading on-demand platform in Southeast Asia, operating in Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam. As of December 2021, the Gojek app has been downloaded more than 221 million times and is supported by more than 2.5 million driver partners in Southeast Asia and 1 million GoFood business partners throughout Southeast Asia, 99 percent of which are MSMEs.
GoTo successfully went public on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX), becoming Indonesia's first publicly listed decacorn. Decacorn is a term used for startup companies with market valuations above US$10 billion (Rp 145 trillion).
Kevin has announced he will transition from his executive position to strengthen GoTo’s Board of Commissioners. On the GoTo Board of Commissioners Kevin will join William Tanuwijaya, founder of Tokopedia, who has been a Commissioner since 2021. Andre Soelistyo, GoTo Group CEO, will assume Kevin's roles and responsibilities working closely with Gojek's leadership team to execute GoTo's on-demand strategy.
“After almost a decade of leading Gojek, I feel that the time is right for me to move to a less daily role. As a commissioner board member, I will continue to be involved at a strategic level with GoTo management, and also have more time to explore my personal interests within the technology space. I’m a builder at heart and I’m deeply passionate about how technology can be used to move the world to a better place; areas I’m particularly excited to be more involved in are web3, gaming and climate tech,” said Kevin.
Kevin Aluwi pioneered the company’s product and data-science strategy
Prior to co-founding Gojek, Kevin worked as head of business intelligence at Zalora Indonesia (2012-2014); as a business development manager at Merah Putih Inc., an investment company based in Indonesia (2011-2012); and as an investment banking analyst at Salem Partners LLC in 2010.
At Gojek, Kevin has had a wide range of responsibilities as a Gojek co-founder. Kevin has led the direction for all core businesses, product development and operational improvements. Kevin’s background in business intelligence played a critical role in Gojek, pioneering the use of data in decision making across the company.
In the early days, Kevin established the finance and accounting functions as well as the data science and business-intelligence teams and built Gojek’s multidisciplinary product organization. Kevin led Gojek to invest heavily in technology, both in Indonesia and overseas, making Gojek one of the most advanced Indonesian companies in terms of technology and data capabilities. Today, Gojek’s data science and data-engineering teams power everything from customer-driver matchmaking and pricing to fraud detection, promotion spend and more.
A centerpiece of Kevin’s achievements is his work with the engineering team to develop an allocation system for driver partners across Gojek services, the first multi-service on-demand system in the world, launched in 2015.
In April 2016, Kevin led the launch of GoCar in Indonesia, marking Gojek’s entry into the very competitive car ride-hailing business when Gojek was only known for motorcycle-related services. Today, GoCar is the market leader in Indonesia with a fast-growing presence in Singapore and Vietnam and one of the most profitable businesses in the GoTo ecosystem. Gojek’s growth has not been without challenges and Kevin has previously discussed the difficulty they had in fundraising.
“One of the most challenging moments I had running Gojek occurred in 2015. At that time, we almost ran out of money on multiple occasions. It was a particularly difficult time because in addition to the driver partners there were more than 200 Gojek employees who believed in us and we would be letting them down if the company went out of business,” said Kevin.
“Gojek has grown this far because of a number of key factors. We are able to develop distinct business models that really stem from the unique needs of consumers. At the same time, we always seek to increase the welfare of the ‘ojek’ or motorcycle drivers by maximizing their productivity. These driver partners are honest, hardworking, trustworthy people who just need more opportunities.”
Kevin has been recognized for his achievements at Gojek with the 2016 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia award in the Consumer Technology category and the 2022 Fortune 40 Under 40 award by Fortune Indonesia.
