VIVAnews - State electricity company PLN appointed Indonesian media tycoon Dahlan Iskan as its new managing director.
The man was born on August 17, 1951, in Magetan, East Java. He is the CEO of Jawa Pos daily and Jawa Post News Network, headquartered in Surabaya, East Java.
Dahlan Iskan started his career as a journalist in a small newspaper agency in Samarinda, East Kalimantan, in 1975 before finally migrated to a prominent magazine Tempo.
He had a solid career path. In 1982, PT Grafiti Pers, the publisher of Tempo magazine, assigned Dahlan Iskan to helm Jawa Pos, which was only acquired by Tempo.
In 1982, Jawa Pos was falling with daily circulation of only 6,000 copies per day.
Jawa Pos began to show progress after Dahlan Iskan was stationed there. In five years time, Jawa Pos transcended into a promising media with 300,000 copies per day.
Five years later, Dahlan set up Jawa Pos News Network (JPNN), one of the largest newspaper network in Indonesia. JPNN owns more than 130,000 dailies, tabloids and magazines as well as 40 publishing networks in Indonesia.
To support the development of the dailies, Jawa Pos built its own paper factory through PT Adiprima Suraprinta in Gresik, in 1995. Today, the paper company has exported paper to overseas countries.
Dahlan also made way for Jawa Pos to have a local TV station. In 2001, RTV became the first TV station owned by Jawa Pos in Pekanbaru, Riau. Later in 2008, Jawa Pos managed to organize 12 local TV stations across Indonesia.
In the last few years, Jawa Pos also expanded to electricity industry. Its first power plant was run in Gresik, East Java, as an electricity supplier for the company. Jawa Pos has a commercial power plant as well in East Kalimantan: steam-based generator Embalut Kutai Kertanegara.
The generator is organized by PT Cahaya Fajar Kaltim and is the first private-owned power plant outside of Java.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono inaugurated the project on July 5, 2008. The power plant has been included in the Mahakam System since December 2008.
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Translated by: Bonardo Maulana Wahono
