E-commerce solutions company, aCommerce,which bring brands and retailers online in Southeast Asia said that it has has hired two new chief executives (CXOs) to lead its Indonesia arm.
Norwegian international management executive Snorre Larstad will take the lead as aCommerce Indonesia CEO. Larstad previously worked as a chief strategy office for the Morris Group in China.
Meanwhile, the company has also hired Hadi Kuncoro to lead its Indonesian operations for IT and supply chain management. This follows stints by Kuncoro in co-founding an Islamic fashion e-commerce company and a successful founding role at Rocket Internet’s Zalora Indonesia.
Commenting on the leadership appointments, Paul Srivorakul, group CEO of aCommerce, said,“We’ve seen unparallelled growth in Indonesia and it is on track to become our most important strategic market.”
Srivorakul added, “With Snorre’s experience scaling and managing huge and complex international retail businesses and Hadi’s success rate in building massive ecommerce operations in Indonesia we are confident that this pairing will streamline our incredible growth and gear us up for the next phase of our commercial development in Indonesia.”
Indonesia recently became aCommerce’s biggest regional operation, with August seeing it reach a manpower count of 360 staff, surpassing the growth of its operations in Thailand and the Philippines. July 2015 also saw aCommerce Indonesia double its warehouse capacity to 9332 square metre. A new Pondok Ungu fulfilment center of more than 5232 square metres was added to supplement the current 4100 square-metre Halim facility.
aCommerce Indonesia currently powers ecommerce for major brands and retailers such as Matahari Mall, HP and L’Oreal. According to official statements, the demand for aCommerce’s services in Indonesia exceeded forecasts due to the rapidity and growth of heady new entrants to the Indonesian e-commerce space and the growth in major clients signed.
This internal round was targeted at funding the development of further competencies in marketing, technology platforms, expanding warehouse space and recruitment. The addition of Snorre and Kuncoro to the team brings significant knowledge capital to aCommerce as its scales up operations in Indonesia and the region.
In a media release, Snorre stated: “This is an exciting time to be in the ecommerce industry in Indonesia. With ecommerce still accounting for much less than one per cent of retail in Indonesia, I will be continuing the work of positioning aCommerce as the key driver of ecommerce industry development across the archipelago.”
Snorre succeeds previous CEO Hadi Wenas, who has taken up the role of CEO as MatahariMall.com. Previous co-CEO Adrian Suherman has shifted to an executive role within the Lippo Group.
Snorre speaks fluent Chinese and his twenty years in international management have predominantly taken place in Asia, with a career involving roles across the retail, manufacturing, supply chain, shipping, strategy and financial advisory sectors. Snorre had also previously worked for AT Kearney as a strategy consultant, advising CXOs on M&A, supply chain and growth strategies across multiple industries on a global scale.
A member of idEA and deputy chief of the Indonesia Logistics Association, new COO Kuncoro previously served as the COO of First Logistics and as VP and operations director at Zalora Indonesia. Kuncoro brings deep domain experience in retail management, supply chain and domestic and cross-border logistics across consumer goods and retail industries.
Indonesia is slated to become the biggest ecommerce market in Southeast Asia, with a recent AT Kearney report estimating the market to grow to reach $30 billion in value over the next few years, up from the $1.3 billion in 2013.
“In Indonesia, we envision that the industry is about to enter into a rapid growth phase. aCommerce will be at the forefront of providing the solutions for any obstacle in the growth path of the ecommerce industry,” said Snorre.
According to aCommerce, the latest CXO recruitments are in preparation for a Series B round and further scaling of its operations in Indonesia and the region. Earlier this year, it raised a $5 million internal bridging round in preparation for a Series B round of funding.