Ricky Johannes: “I’m not a 9 to 5 Man…”

sumber: status-selebritis.

Music and football. Two things that makes Ricky Johannes being famous in Indonesian public. From singer to entrepreneur. From hobby to professional. He succeed in mixing talent and business.

For soccer freaker, Ricky Jo seems to a familiar name (or even a ‘brand’) in Indonesia. Although he was a member of Emerald Band, but now he is known as a soccer host at one of Indonesian’s television station. Besides that he also a singer who has released album title Ricky Jo Datang Lagi with its hits Lihat Saja Nanti. Otherwise, members of Emerald Band have their own jobs so that the group has been vacuum for a while.

Although beginning his career with singing and composing songs, Ricky Jo is a professional in public speaking world. As a announcer of Lite FM, he also often be asked to be a host or MC in many events, both on-air and off-air. Since 1996, he had hosted Jelita in Indosiar for about 2,5 years. After that he hosted Gebyar BCA for 2 years and then New Pyramida Quiz for 4,5 years.

Actually, his career in host began when University of Indonesia was making Promosia Quiz. Effendy Ghazali, the creator of the program collaborated with Post-Graduate Program UI invite him and Ulfa Dwiyanti to be the hosts. And it was be his first program.

“Mostly I took quizzes for my portofolios,” he said.

In 1998, for the first time Ricky hosted World Cup program in TPI. Then he continued his “new career” in broadcasting when Indosiar asked him to host English League. After that, RCTI choice him to be MC of football events due to his long experiences as public speaking and sport.

For the MU and Barca’s fan, football is not just a sport. It also means entertainment. So he preferred to call it sportainment.   

“There are some interesting facts about football that not related to sport itself. For example, why some player use certain number in his club, it seems to make goal easily. Is it logic or unlogic?” he smiled.

Talking about club, is there any Indonesian club do you like most?

“Nothing. But I love our national team,” he affirmed.

The ‘Artpreneurs’

Having experiences in music makes Ricky Jo has good passion in the industry. He even support new musicians by developing a record label. For the host of Lite After Hour, new groups should be supported by labels in order to finding new talents in Indonesian music industry. And he did it by managing three new bands Quarta, Sovia and Klavia.

“They are new comers in music industry, and they are good talents. I even do not have influenced their songs. An artist or composers have sensitive feeling about their artwork. I just arrange the songs in order to meet the market’s taste. Thank to God, my ‘proteges’ song listed in the Top 3 in some radios.”

Music, in his opinion, is not a math. As same as football, it has its own market. A song just can be enjoyed, not be jugjed.  A good song not necessarily accepted by market, otherwise a marketable song is not necessarily a good song. It talks about taste, not only quality.

‘New World’

Entertainment and sport are two worlds that Ricky Jo has been there. He tried to enter new world that he never active before: politic. In 2009, he was asked to be legislator candidate from a party. Due to his willingness to join in a organization, he accept the invitation. But unfortunately, the party who recommended him as candidate did not pass the electoral threshold. So although people who vote him meet the quota, he can’t go to Senayan.

Do you have a plan to run for 2014?

“We’ll see later….,” he said quoted his hits Lihat Saja Nanti.

For the Law Bachelor, he still keep in music and entertainment world. Composing songs, managing his bands, announcing at radio, and performing at many events. Have any business?

“Well, actually I’ve ever had a footsal school but it not run well. Maybe there were not a person in charge who can manage it daily. I can’t do it by myself because I’m not 9 to 5 man, “ he closed. 

(Soewarna Digest 13th Edition)

Rebecca Reijman: A Star among the Stars

Ten thousand miles ahead

I keep wondering in my head

That I’m crazy ‘bout your love

Keep running around bare feet boy,

Keep chasing birds instead

I’m waiting for your love,

Said I’m waiting for your love

The lyrics of “Get To Know You Better” above is sang by Rebecca Reijman, a famous model who began her career since her teenage days in the Netherlands. With her second album Rock and Soul, Rebecca continuously proved her existence in the Indonesian music industry. The public responds positively to the album and it becomes one of the best selling album in Indonesia.

A humorous woman with many talents who enjoys living in her new adopted city of Jakarta, she discovers her musical talent when she was 6 years old. On her newest album, she created and did most of the arrangements by herself. She promotes in many on and off air events both on radio and television. Her previous image as a model doesn’t fade away despite her new activities as a singer. She still does shots for commercial advertisement, magazine covers and is an icon to some property’s project.

The beginning of her career as a singer in Indonesia was really unplanned. Initially she just came for a vacation in Indonesia, but her brother suddenly introduced her to 88 Music. DJ Sumantri from the 88 Music Production was interested in her vocal talent and invited her to collaborate and produced her first album entitled Kata Hati (Words from the Heart).

Her first album contains 10 songs and they were about love and life. It includes various genres such as Pop, Jazz, R&B and Rock.

The Talented Ms. Reijman

Rebecca is the second child of three children of couple Robert Reijman (Dutch) and Rinie Soejatie (Indonesian). She was born on February 21^st 1985 in Den Haag, Netherlands. She took her undergraduate study in University of The Hague, majoring in Management and Law.

Rebecca has many talents in art. Not only singing, modeling or acting, but also painting, especially mural painting. Her creativity has only been enjoyed solely by herself. She never sells her artwork for commercial or business sake. For her, art is not for sale. She loves to go gallery hopping when she visited Bali and Europe.

Although she is an artist, she likes sport too. Don’t try to disturb her, because she will kick and punch you in your face. She has trained kick boxing since she was 16 years old and she likes other “male-sports” activities such as football and surfing. She plays football every month with her male friends. So does this mean she likes all kind of sports? “Yeah, any sports. I like golf and tennis too although it is just about hitting the ball,” she laughed.

Music and Movie

Someone can be successful in one field, but only few people can achieve the same success in another one. Despite the fact that music and movie are two worlds that relate to each other, not too many people can succeed in both industries. Rebecca is one of them.

Rebecca is not only a model and musician. She starts picking up acting too. Her first debut was on a horror movie.  She plays a kick boxer girl in her first movie Jinx. Then in her second debut, she plays a tomboy model who is brave and has no fear against anything including ghost. “I will play a movie that match to my own characteristics. In my second debut, I act as Gabriel, a fearless foreign model against something strange in forest., she added. In the movie industry, Rebecca does not only contribute as an actress, but also to the movie soundtrack.. She contributed Salah Sangka as a music soundtrack for Air Terjun Pengantin. Someday, she hopes to contribute more soundtracks to the Indonesian movie.

With her many talents, Rebecca is certainly one of Indonesia’s rising star. Her famous name, music skill, modeling experiences and most importantly good-natured and easy-going character make her standout from the rest of her peers. She is indeed a star among the stars.

(Soewarna Digest 10th Edition)

Risa Suseanty: Queen of Downhill

sumber foto:sportku.com

Successful athletes and top executives have things in common: hard work, persistent, optimist, and focused. We can see those qualities in Risa Suseanty, a downhill champion from Bandung who has earned the nickname Queen of Downhill.

Risa started falling in love with the sport in the third grade. When she first knew about downhill in 1996, she remembered the sport as an unpopular one with small number of athletes because at the time people think of cycling as a fun outdoor activity. “Before downhill, I like cross country. But I have more achievements in downhill.”

When asked about her most memorable competition, she thought immediately about Sea Games.

“Sea Games 2003 was an unforgettable moment for me. The official committee cheated our team. We cannot try and train due to their prohibition to enter the track. They even threatened us by pointing weapon. They had ambition to win Sea Games, by using variety ways including cheating. So, they were the winner.”

She won her first downhill gold medal in Sea Games 1997 in Jakarta. She often represents Indonesia in regional competitions and West Java in National Sports Week (PON). She won gold at Sea Games 2011 in Palembang.

“My first competition in foreign country was in 1994, in Australia,” Risa says recalling that she wanted to go and compete in Europe or America but the need of funding kept her away from her dreams. “It’s not easy to live in the US and Europe for few months without any sponsorship,” she admits, regretting the lack of support from Indonesian government and private institutions to downhill athletes.

Sporty at School

Unfortunately for her, school and sport didn’t go well together. During her first years as athlete, she had to be absent frequently, making it hard to graduate. She passed exams with minimum marks. So, she enrolled at Ragunan High School, in which the school has a special program that caters to teen athletes.  She can balance the sports and formal study at that school. Aside from having a regular training, Risa had the flexibility to take school exam adjustable to her presence at any sports events. “Sometimes my examination was in Subang, and occassionally in Malang.”  

Sport has always been in her life. Prior to embarking on downhill, young Risa took private courses in badminton. She always thought she’d focus on badminton and be a national athlete. Being born into a sport-enthusiast family has its own downside. Despite having discipline and focus taught at a young age, Risa admits she had little time to hang out with her peers.

“Whenever my friends asked me to play, I was still skipping, sitting up or doing some exercises. Sport was my life. My brothers love sports. Their hobbies include badminton, roller blade and doing other sports. I chose badminton,” she recalls.

Compared to her friends, Risa always had good marks in PE.  Her schedule consists of playing badminton on weekdays and cycling on weekends. Although she loves badminton, she’s more interested in cycling, especially in cross country. Eventually, Risa decided to focus on downhill and let her badminton career go.

Social Biking

For Risa, biking is not only a sport, but also a social life. The sport brings together people from different backgrounds, education levels, professions, organizations and social statuses. They can make friends each other regardless who or what they are, thanks to biking which act as a communication device for them.

“Sport, especially biking, is part of my life. I want to have second career that also relates to biking. Currently, I’m actively involved in social biking. I ‘m often invited by companies to be speaker on their talk shows.”

Risa wants to create riding trips. It means people can travel to any places by biking. She also does coaching clinics. In Europe, for example, some companies encourage their staff to bike to work by giving incentives. In her opinion, it is an effective way to socialize biking.

“Besides motivating people to bike, social biking can create a fun trip for travelers,” she suggests.

Risa is pure sport lover. Besides ‘land sport’ such as badminton and biking, she also loves a ‘marine sport’. “I like diving. I often dive in Raja Ampat.”  Perhaps she should try skydiving next.

(Soewarna Digest 18th)

Iwan Setiawan: Hobbies and Attitudes

Physical and mental fitness is essential for Iwan Setiawan.  In both ways, he must have been in his prime shape dealing with the stress of leading two outstanding companies, PT. Rintis Sejahtera dan PT. Primacom Interbuana. As President Director of a company that manages thousand automatic teller machines (ATM) in Indonesia, Iwan believes that a good leader is created by a good mindset. And a good mindset is produced by equally good health.

“A leader should have a strong attitude, so he or she can face any challenges and problems without fear and worry,” he suggested.

PT. Primacom Interbuana is a company that develops Prima ATM Networks and has 50 banks as partners, while PT. Rintis Sejahtera serves banks with payment gateway, ATM outsourcing and chip card implementation. With 20.000 ATMs and 230.000 EDCs (electronic data capture), on average projections for 2011 were about six million transaction per month. Mobile and internet banking are the part of Prima’s services.

“Infrastructures for mobile banking, e-money and internet banking are more effective than ATM investment. But it must be communicated as an alternative, easy, secure and comfortable payment method for clients.”

According to him, Prima is still focusing on switching transaction e-channel processing for banks and their clients. E-channel means m-banking, internet banking and ATM. Interconnection among ATM Prima’s network can bring more ease to their clients in making any transaction.

Prior to setting up his companies, Iwan had a good career at BCA. He has even worked as an internal auditor, a general manager and a senior general manager. He has a strong determination to reach his goals. That undying and tenacious spirit for excellence is reflected by his long time and equally obstinate hobby: karate.

“Karate is similar to business. It has its ethics code and culture of what we must do first when begin, during and after each training. Opening ceremonial means we must respect our seniors, then warming up and main training. After that, the training is closed. So, it is a routine activity when we train in karate,” he explained.

For the Dan V holder, karate makes him accustomed to predict someone’s characteristics. It also develops self-confidence and fair attitude. So karate values are applicable for business activities.

Besides karate, Iwan also loves Harley Davidson motorcycles since 2000. The ride of choice for Iwan is the Roadking. Sometimes he and the Harley Davidson Club Indonesia held social activities.

“My hobby in Harley [allows me to] make friends and maintain old friends. It makes us closer,” he admitted.

So, Iwan has taught us something important: your hobby creates your attitude.

(Soewarna Digest 19th Edition)

Riyanni Djangkaru: "Diving is Yoga...."

Talking about Indonesia means talking about culture, nature, and adventures. Not all people have a chance to explore Indonesian places. But Riyani Djangkaru fortunately has the opportunities. With hosting Jejak Petualang, Riyani demonstrated her ability to survive in wild nature.

For adventures lovers, especially who always watching an adventure program in television channel, would be familiar with Riyani Djangkaru’s name. She was hosting Jejak Petualang, a high rating of television program, when another televisions broadcasted myth, ghost, or supernatural things. Riyani succed in showing to us that woman can host a ‘masculine program’ without loss of her femininity. Although now she host the program just bimonthly, but her activities still related to ‘adventures’. She more focus on hosting in nautical program nowadays.

Indonesia, in her opinion, has many interesting places to be explored. Riyani met many various foods, cultures, and characteristics of people when she visit some places in Indonesia.

Riyani loved activities in nature since she was a kid. Her grandmother used to bring her out of town to her grandmother’s garden near to her home. Usually her grandmother told a story about forest, river and what kind of species living there after that. Riyani used to watch any program that related to nature such as Flora dan Fauna which broadcasted by TVRI. Maybe those things drove her to interested in nature.

Dream comes True

Travelling to another places were been her dream when she was a child. Being a host of popular TV show makes her dream came true. She could touch snow at Puncak Jaya mountain or dive in the most beautiful sea in Indonesia. For her, exploring Indonesia seems to never been finished.

Many places have been visited by hers, but for Riyani the most memorable places were Flores and Papua. Those were her first trip when she begin to host Jejak Petualang. Travelling makes her point of view changed about what public have judged. For example, many people have their opinion about poverty. For some people, whoever living in hinterland are poverty society. But Riyani does not think so. In her direct observation, in their huts, some women precisely have gold bracelets on their arms.

She also noticed that rural communities begin to aware about their culture identity for the last few years. People who living in East Indonesia have sasi, a traditional prohibition of certain area. Usually sasi ‘law’ enforced in water (sea, river, etc) to protect fish’s spawn location, in order to keep the fish supply. It makes fish population growing rapidly in sasi area and spreading around it, and supply to people’s food daily need .

Although her childhood dream comes true, she must ‘pay’ for consequence of the dream: lost at shooting location, suffered from thyphus, malaria, TBC, fracture, sink, swept away etc.

“But the most ‘dangerours’ suffering is meeting with insolent people,” she laughed.

Loving with Sea

Riyani has many experiences in nature adventure since she hosted Jejak Petualang. But according to her, sea is more friendly for her physical condition due to her seriously knee injury and asthma. She has diving as her hobby.

“When you explore a world under the sea, you will find many wonderful things that you never seen on ground. Species, ecosystem chain, aura underwater, or the way to breath and to move, it feels different. And believe it or not, diving is new yoga for me,” she concluded.

When she was asked about how Indonesian people responsible for keeping nature, she argued that they begin to care about their environment, including sea, forest, river, animals etc. Riyani admitted that she appreciate for the learning and caring process. For a people who had been colonized for more than 350 years, we should grateful to their awareness about natural resources.

“Indonesian people are begin to have inisiative for keeping our nature balance. It is a grateful progress.”

Although loves sea, she tries to keep away from it when she take a vacation. For her, sea is her office. She spends much time in sea. She avoids losing her “feel” when she go to the sea frequently. But off course she has no plan to leave the “sea world”.

“Maybe my clan has a word of “Jangkar” (In engl.anchor)…So, I must back to sea again…Hahaha….,” she laughed.

(Soewarna Digest 16th Edition)