A career arc that started in agricultural research at a public Indonesian university, took an unexpected detour through a politically-entangled sugarcane startup, and landed in international financial intelligence work.
I started as a research assistant under Prof. Mohammad Rondhi in the Department of Agribusiness at Universitas Jember. Over four years I published my first international journal article from my study program, then ten more across topics in agricultural economics, food systems, and water resources. In 2020 I co-founded CV Performa Cendekia as a research project manager — a private research entity that gave me operational experience running 10+ funded research projects in parallel.
The academic stage taught me to think systematically, methodically, and logically. To this day, I still write project briefs the way a journal article is structured: introduction, methods, expected output, discussion of limitations.
Seven months that I still don't fully know how to describe. I joined a sugarcane commodities startup in Jember. The CEO was the unregistered daughter of a senior Indonesian intelligence official. The local strategic partner was one of the most powerful figures in Indonesian agribusiness — every endorsed presidential candidate in the past two decades has won an election. My first physical task was to measure a 21-hectare estate divided into 23 blocks.
The startup turned out to be — partly — a corporate vehicle around a political and family relationship. The CEO and the partner's son became officially engaged in December 2023. The company ceased operations the following April. I learned more about practical thinking, simple effective solutions, and the interplay between political, business, and family interests in Indonesia in seven months than I had in four years of academic training.
Since March 2023 I've been working with an international financial intelligence team. The work involves enhanced due diligence (EDD) — beneficial ownership tracing, sanctions screening, complex corporate structure analysis, sometimes geopolitical risk profiling. As of August 2024 I had archived 184+ reports. The number is probably closer to 250+ today.
This is the phase that crystalized my self-positioning: I see myself as part academic, part detective, and part criminal investigator. Each report combines the academic rigor of methodology and structured reasoning, the investigator's instinct for inconsistency in records, and the criminologist's framework for assessing harm and intent.
In parallel with the EDD work, I'm building H19 Research Group LLC — a portfolio of data-rich content platforms that apply academic methodology to practical questions consumers and businesses care about. The first product, CostPatch.com, is a US home services cost guide built on 531 pages of state-specific pricing data. Planned products include a national parks editorial network and a hiking trails state-by-state guide. The portfolio is designed to fund itself through display advertising at scale.
I also run HAMPARAN Institute — an Indonesia-focused independent research operation across food policy, energy/minerba, banking, and compliance. The cadence is one Scopus paper per quarter plus regular working papers and op-eds.
Born and based in Jember, East Java, Indonesia. Childhood in Jatimulyo (Jenggawah subdistrict), an agricultural village where my orientation toward agribusiness research probably began. Currently in Tegal Besar (Kaliwates subdistrict, urban). Married since 2017 to a Universitas Jember classmate. Two sons. Most of my working hours overlap with European business hours.
For academic background, my doctoral supervisor and long-time research collaborator is Prof. Mohammad Rondhi, SP., MP., Ph.D., Department of Agribusiness, Universitas Jember ([email protected]).