Universitas Gadjah Mada
Faculty of Economics and Business

Online Gathering with Economics (SambangIE) is a seminar series held by the Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Gadjah Mada (FEB UGM) to provide information about alumni of Economics and introduce students to various professions that can be achieved after graduation. SambangIE is held primarily to prepare for careers and skill sets that must be built to prepare for a competitive labor market that requires a qualified skill set. In this second series, SambangIE discussed getting to know the Economics Alumni Profession in the Financial Sector. Therefore, SambangIE on Friday (07/05) raised the theme "Knowing Alumni of Economics # 2: Profession in the Financial Sector", which on this occasion will be spoiled for various insights from the scope of finance, namely from the scope of Banking, Financial Technology(Fintech), and the Capital Market. The moderator who guided the event this time was Esa A. Syahid, Academic Assistant at the UGM Department of Economics. The speakers who will review the seminar topic are Etta Rusdiana (IE 2004) as Senior Business Analyst at Kresna Graha Investama Tbk, Ahmad Ferdian (IE 2005) as VP Trade & Supply Chain Product at Bank BTPN, and Marcella Wijayanti (IE 2006) as VP Business Public Sector Development and Partnerships, Link Aja. The three speakers were Alumni of Economics, FEB UGM.

The first session was an explanation of the banking profession. Ahmad said that the profession of the alumni of Economics in the banking profession that he is currently doing is handling intermediation and facilities for a facility, carrying out product management, and improving products by following current trends and development. He conveyed the skill set needed in his profession.

"In terms of economics, how do we compile the logic from one variable to other variable, and what is equally important is to improve our skills outside of that, do not learn only what is on our part", he said.

He gave an example of his current experience which also needed to learn about accounting and commercial law.

"The skill sets needed in banking are continuous improvement and continuous learning, the biggest investment is our own investment. Develop your personality, how to deal with people, how to handle people, because things are beyond what you are doing now so that later you will learn a lot, ”Ahmad explained.

The second session was the presentation of the fintech profession by Marcella. Marcella shared how she started her career in the startup industry. Marcella said that she as a person with a background in non-profit organizations and government, wanted to move away from jobs in the public sector, to improve skills and have a broader perspective. Finally, Marcella decided to work at Gojek and finally moved to LinkAja.

“I worked at Gojek and made sure that Gojek's business strategy had a social and economic impact. Finally, I am currently at LinkAja because LinkAja was born in a BUMN, so I got the sector of business, and also the public sector, "she said.

In this startup, Marcella plays a role in the Business Teams section, her job is to ensure that the product is accepted by the community and can make money from products designed by the product team and engineering team, the product brings profit to the company and increases the company's value. In addition, there are three other lines, namely Product Teams, Engineering Teams, Business Teams, and Corporate Teams. Product Teams are tasked with designing products, for example on Bill Service products at LinkAja, then designing how the user flows and so on. Engineering teams dealing with coding and technical aspects of applications, while corporate teams dealing with investment, image and company valuation. All four are collaborative products.

Marcella said that if we want to work in the startup industry, background is not the main determining factor related to one's job.

"In the current Job Market, people who have a political science background can be very good people in data analytics, people with literary backgrounds can design specific products for the benefit of users. I believe that what we learn at university is logic, not specific knowledge we studied ", she said.

She advised that it is necessary to have several skill sets. The most needed skill set to maintain and need is collaboration skills. Besides that, it is story telling skills, how to proposing solutions, confusing people, on any topic. Moreover, startup is about ideas and innovation, as well as how to convey ideas well, namely through a lot of reading, listening, and finally you need to make sure that when you express something, the theory of 5W+1H must be always delivered.

“If all three can be done, than our idea is well structured. The problem is research skills, at startup companies, everyone is a scientist, we cannot say that product A will sell well in the market, ”she said.

The last one is the growth mindset, which is the welcome challenge, when there are challenges, because according to her, we will accept and find solutions, not give up when faced with challenges. The second is about learning new things, keep improving. When working, you must not want to know and always want to accept and learn new things. Third, namely I take feedback and improve, technology company innovation. "When it is not correct, it will be given feedback, you need to accept that. When people are given feedback, they will think "is not about you, but is about what the way you do", explained Marcella.

The next session was to get to know the economics profession in securities more closely.

“When I was in college I was interested in financial economics, so from the start I asked for the capital market. Because I believe that to be big requires capital and that is available in the capital market.”, Etta said.

According to Etta, the potential for working in the capital market is very wide, but there are still not many people who are interested in this profession, because the number of investors in Indonesia is quite low. Some of the jobs that can be done in this job include being an analyst, marketing, and other divisions such as stocks and investment banking.

"I was working on the selling side, which is selling products or shares of other companies," explained Etta.

However, Etta has the perspective that with the application of soft skills, we should not forget about hard skills, especially if the work we are in is still using technical matters. In addition, Etta advised that we need to learn to be happy, learn to accept ourselves and make peace with ourselves. Meanwhile, the technical skills referred to by Etta are an understanding of economic logic and how to convey our thoughts to others. Secondly, we must have writing, communication, and selling skills. This is important to convince our clients that the products we offer are good products and can satisfy consumer needs.

Reportage : Sony Budiarso / Kirana Lalita Pristy