Dato' Sri Ang Tjoen Ming (born 26 March 1952), commonly known as Tahir, is an Indonesian billionaire, and a banking and property magnate. He is the founder of the

Mayapada Group The Mayapada Group is an Indonesian-based conglomerate founded by Dato Sri Tahir in 1986. Tahir started this with a garment and textile manufacturing business, and four years later, he founded Bank Mayapada . The garment business no longer exis ...

. On 13 December 2019, President

Joko Widodo Joko Widodo (; born 21 June 1961), popularly known as Jokowi, is an Indonesian politician and businessman who is the 7th and current president of Indonesia. Elected in July 2014, he was the first Indonesian president not to come from an elite ...

appointed Tahir to the Presidential Advisory Council.

Early life and education

Tahir was born in

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...

East Java East Java ( id, Jawa Timur) is a Provinces of Indonesia, province of Indonesia located in the easternmost hemisphere of Java island. It has a land border only with the province of Central Java to the west; the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean bord ...

, in 1952, in a slum area. He was raised by his parents who made a living by constructing pedicabs, known as '' becak''. In 1971, he graduated from Petra Kalianyar Christian High School in Surabaya. Tahir wanted to be a medical doctor, but when his father fell sick and could not afford his medical school tuition, Tahir dropped out of college to focus on helping with his father's business. He received a scholarship from Nanyang Technological Institute (now

Nanyang Technological University The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a national research university in Singapore. It is the second oldest autonomous university in the country and is considered as one of the most prestigious universities in the world by various inte ...

) in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, earning a Bachelor of Arts/Science. At the age of 35, he went to

Golden Gate University Golden Gate University (GGU or Golden Gate) is a private university in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1901, GGU specializes in educating professionals through its schools of law, business, taxation, and accounting. The university offers s ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and completed his Master's degree in financial education.

Business career

During his studies in Singapore, Tahir started small trade business, buying merchandise from Singapore and selling it in Surabaya when he went home for vacation. This business was his introduction to import trading. In 1986, he established The

and expanded the business to many sectors including garments, finance, automobiles, health and media. During the 1997-98 Asian monetary crisis, Mayapada Bank survived even though many other banking corporations collapsed, because bank was not taking credit from international sources.

Philanthropy

In 2013, Tahir contributed more than US$100 million to the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was l ...

, an organization that provides funding for efforts to fight major diseases such as

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

Tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

polio Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...

and

malaria Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that affects humans and other animals. Malaria causes symptoms that typically include fever, tiredness, vomiting, and headaches. In severe cases, it can cause jaundice, seizures, coma, or death. S ...

References

External links

Tahir Foundation
Living people 1952 births Giving Pledgers 21st-century philanthropists Indonesian businesspeople Indonesian billionaires Indonesian Christians Indonesian philanthropists Indonesian people of Chinese descent Mayapada People from Surabaya {{indonesia-business-bio-stub