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‘We’ve seen the worst-case scenario’: How Indonesia’s Cinema XXI navigated crisis and change
Caution, not aggression, defines how president director Suherman runs South-east Asia’s largest cinema operator by screen count
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Published Tue, Mar 31, 2026 · 11:00 AM
The strategies and stories that shape today’s leaders
[JAKARTA] Suryo Suherman still remembers how quickly optimism evaporated in 1998.
Fresh out of Boston College, he had returned to Jakarta and joined his family’s cinema business at a time when Indonesia’s economy was booming. “From 1994 to 1997, Indonesia was doing quite well,” he recalled.
Then, the Asian financial crisis hit.
