Christian Gunawan, BINUSIAN 2025 and current President Director of a distribution company, has shared about his journey building a business from scratch. He always has a vision to grow strategically; starting from 2020 during his last year in high school, formalizing the company into a CV, and eventually steering it toward a scalable business. His approach combines of being detailed-oriented, always curious, and discipline. For him, success is about understanding every detail of operation, turning challenges into opportunities, and letting results speak louder than the process.

 

 

Covid 19 Outbreak: Opportunity to Start

What seems as a worldwide challenge quickly change into an opportunity to start. During 2020 outbreak, Christian starts his entrepreneurial journey while still being in high school through online platform. He stated, “Covid-19 adalah masa dimana UMKM berkembang lebih cepat.” which symbolize his ambitious to change this situation into opportunity. He started as an individual trader while learning the fundamentals of running a business on his own. As his venture grew, tax regulations required him to formalize operations by first establishing a CV then directly incorporating PT as it grows bigger.

He called these evolutions as “Merangkak dari bawah” or climbing from the early stages; which benefits him into learning the real empirical example of compliance and structure before pursuing aggressive expansion. Till these days, he leads a fully established company that will grow more on the future, but he has not forgotten the lessons learned during those early years.

Juggling 3 Important Points in His Life: Work, Study, Family

For Christian, success did not come overnight. He still has to balance three important instruments in his life; work, college, and family responsibilities simultaneously, a struggle that shaped his resilience. As he put it, “Kerja sambil kuliah dan mengurus keluarga membuat mental (saya) lebih dewasa.” a statement that reflects the mental growth and maturity he gained while navigating these struggles.

He stated several ways to balance out his busy schedules; first, always write every agenda in calendar, focus on your main goals and eliminate things that does not benefit, create a daily and future ‘bucket list’, brainstorm with people surrounded you to eliminate your actions.

Leadership and Operations: Hands-On Approach and Building People

When it comes to directing approach, micromanage is this ultimate key. He ensures that he set up the sytems ealier through a well-designed structure by himself, so his employees can execute with clarity and efficiency. This operational rigor is supported by his continuous self-motivated learning relying on formal and non-formal study through study in International Business Management program of BINUS University, YouTube, online courses, and trial-and-error to refine his skills.

One of Christian’s distinctive strategies in addressing company struggle of human capital is to hiring employees without rigid specialities rather than hiring specialists. Quoted, “Saya gak pernah hire karyawan yang sudah ada bidang yang jago, saya hire yang belum ada spesialitas apa pun.” Symbolizing his ambitions to shaped his employee from zero to hero.

Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs and BINUSIAN

For BINUSIAN hoping to follow his footsteps of success, Christian’s advices are simple yet powerful; Just do what you really like, but make sure to look at the future market of that field. Not only that, he also advice people to let results speak for themselves rather than broadcasting every step of journey. In today’s fast-paced world, working efficiently and staying informed across different sectors are crucial to keeping up with the latest developments.

Christian credits BINUS University for “Memberikan landasan akademik dan pribadi yang kuat untuk mendukung pertumbuhan sebagai seorang pemimpin bisnis.”. With clear vision, strong operational discipline, and commitment to developing people, Christian Gunawan is not just running a company to gain profit, but to also enhance the future of his industry.