Fortune favours the bold With a youthful appearance, people often assume he’s a lot younger than his 51 years.  Don’t be fooled by appearances, though, for soft-spoken, easygoing Hasnul Suhaimi is the mastermind behind an aggressive business strategy currently being rolled out by PT Exelcomindo Pratama (XL) Tbk., the third-largest cellular phone operator in Indonesia, of which he’s president director.     Although it has only been two years since he took the XL helm, the company’s market share has grown from 12 to 18 per cent – a significant jump mainly attributable to Hasnul’s bold leadership and shrewd strategy. Formerly president director of PT Indosat, Hasnul, who previously held director-level posts at cellular competitors PT Telkomsel and PT IM-3, says that the mobile telecommunications industry has become his comfort zone.   The recipient of the Outstanding Entrepreneurship Award 2008, Hasnul explains XL’s success has been achieved through an effective marketing strategy that answers customer demand for cheaper telecommunications. Of course Hasnul’s long-term goal is for XL to become the biggest cellular operator in Indonesia. However, if that sounds rather ambitious for the time being, he adds: “Despite the decreased percentage of the biggest operator and XL’s 50 per cent incremental gain in market share, it’s a long shot for XL to be number one. However, I’m optimistic that the number-two slot is achievable.”

A suitable vocation, Eventually He may be the smallest man in any room, but it’s not easy to intimidate Indian writer Vikram Seth, who was the headline guest at the recent Ubud Writers & Readers Festival in Bali. At just 5’3’’, with a balding patch and deep smile lines revealing the onset of middle-age in an engaging, friendly face, his almost midget-like stature belies a tenacious, self-assured character. Best known for his best-selling novel A Suitable Boy, Seth’s range extends from fiction, non-fiction and poetry to libretti, travel literature and children’s stories – making him something of a marketing challenge for his publisher, who claims he suffers from “brand disintegration”. In his early 30s, he moved back in with his parents in Delhi to write his first fictional novel, A Suitable Boy. What was meant to be a standard-length novel based on a mother’s search for an appropriate suitor to marry her daughter against the backdrop of post-independence, post-Partition India, soon morphed into an epic. Just as well, for at 1,474 pages, A Suitable Boy (1993) holds the record as the world’s longest English-language novel ever published in a single volume.