Sri Mulyani Indrawati: Indonesia’s Iron Lady

Keeping Sri Mulyani Indrawati on as Indonesia's finance minister has steadied the ship after the election of a former military general spooked financial markets

Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Indonesia's finance minister, speaks at the Indonesia Sustainability Forum
(Image credit: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The inauguration last month of former military general Prabowo Subianto as Indonesia’s new leader caps “a remarkable turnaround” in his fortunes, says the Financial Times. An erstwhile commander of the country’s “feared” special forces, Prabowo was “once banned from the US for the alleged kidnapping of democracy activists”, which he denies.

Indeed, his chief leitmotif these days is social liberalism. Prabowo’s “Red and White” cabinet swept to power on a ticket of offering free school lunches, which alone is expected to cost $28 billion. He also aims to raise economic growth to 8% – fuelled by a big rise in debt.

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.