In work and in play, Hendi Widodo – heir of the largest shipping company in Batam, Indonesia; basketball fan and team owner; and streetwear aficionado – keeps his eyes on the prize.
At our photo shoot for this month’s cover, Hendi Widodo poses coolly in a mix of outfits from edgy labels like Chrome Hearts and Enfants Riches Deprimes. Many of these looks include plenty of his own pieces, such as a rare leather jacket by Chrome Hearts, an American streetwear brand, as well as – more unexpectedly – a sweatshirt bearing the logo of American ‘50’s-style diner chain Mel’s Drive-In. The long-time sneakerhead has also brought some of his own footwear along for the shoot, including canary-yellow Nike Air Jordans that were a collaboration with rapper Travis Scott.
Reflecting on his sartorial preferences, Hendi, who is in his 30s, shares, “I’m a fan of subcultures and things that are more OG,” he says, using an acronym that is used to describe something authentic and old-school. “I like things that are rare and difficult to get.”
Gazing intensely at the camera while clad in his offbeat ensembles, Hendi looks every inch the long-time fan of fashion and streetwear that he is. What would be less obvious, however, is that Hendi, an Indonesian who studied in Singapore and is based here, is also a shipping heir with an encyclopaedic knowledge of this specialised industry.
Days ago, speaking to Prestige Singapore in a Zoom interview – which has become his preferred mode of professional communication since the pandemic – Hendi gave me the lowdown on his family’s shipping business back home in Indonesia. His father started the business 46 years ago and today, it is the largest shipping company in Batam, Indonesia.
He then continued with a mind-boggling plethora of statistics pertaining to some of the industry’s most significant shipping vessels, with esoteric names such as Capesize, Panamax and Handymax, all of which the company owns. To further boost the company fleet, he acquired another half-dozen of these bulk carriers between the years 2020 and 2022. Together, the company’s vessels have a cargo capacity of hundreds of thousands of tons.
In May 2022, he set up his own import-export business of food commodities. Since then, he has helped his dad to secure major deals to transport food commodities between Indonesia and countries in South America. With many of his father’s employees having been with the company for a long time, Hendi also decided it was time to modernise operations, hiring the requisite talent to streamline processes and increase efficiency.
Going further, he also founded a subsidiary shipping agency, which is also based in Batam and has a 50-strong team. He explains, “So for example, if a company wants to ship rice to a certain place, we can advise them on how to ship it in the fastest and most cost-effective way, and also handle the paperwork for them.”
While it sounds like he is completely at home in the maritime cargo world, the path to becoming the CEO of the family shipping business did initially have its challenges. What helped him to embrace the then new role, says Hendi, a massive basketball fan, was the late NBA star Kobe Bryant.
With a slight smile, he recalls, “I respect my dad and his staff a lot, but I needed to find my motivation when I first joined the company. It was then when I started to listen to motivational quotes by Kobe every morning. I still do this every day.” What attracts Hendi to the celebrated LA Laker is his well-documented grit, as encapsulated in Bryant’s autobiography, The Mamba Mentality: How I Play. He shares a favourite Bryant quote: “Great things come from hard work and perseverance. No excuses.”
For the past decade, Hendi has sponsored two basketball teams here in Singapore. In 2013, Hendi started the WG Sonics, a team that includes a mix of national players both past and present, as well as expat enthusiasts. The team got its start playing in tournaments organised by the Jammers Basketball League, a local amateur basketball league. In 2014, Hendi also began sponsoring Adroit, a team that is also the defending champion of the National Basketball League – a first-tier league established by the Basketball Association of Singapore (BAS) in 2011.
As an acknowledgement of his decade-long support of the national basketball scene, says Hendi, he has been invited by the BAS to be its guest of honour at the league’s grand finals in September. “I will grace the event even if Adroit doesn’t make it to the finals,” he says, adding, “But I think they will.”
From this year, Hendi will no longer be on his own in his support for the sport. His long-time friend, and COO of D’league, Bryan Tan came onboard this year as co-owner and honorary chairperson of Adroit. “It can be a lonely journey and it was getting quite tiring,” says Hendi, of his previous solo efforts. “Bryan and I have our own strengths. There is good synergy between us.”
Hendi has also enlisted other good friends to come in as sponsors for the team. Taiwanese singer Show Lo, for instance, collaborated with Hendi and Bryan to design the team’s latest official jersey. Beef noodle chain Niu Dian, which is endorsed by Show, along with Paradise Group Holdings and Roxy Hotel, will also be sponsoring Adroit this year. Says Hendi, “The support of my friends is important to me because it shows that they trust my vision.”
With his passion for the sport, I wonder aloud about whether Hendi himself is a force to be reckoned with on the court. Laughing good-naturedly, Hendi, who started playing in secondary school, readily admits, “I have terrible ball sense. I’m a very bad player, but I still enjoy the game. I actually watch basketball every day. Once I was in LA with Bryan, and every morning, I would watch videos of Adroit playing.”
Concentrating on the bigger picture, he sees it as his personal mission to raise the profile of basketball here. He says earnestly, “I really want to find young and new talents in Singapore. I hope to convince parents of children to believe in the game of basketball, and bring more attention to the sport. I don’t just want Adroit to win. I want Singapore to win.”
Fashion Direction: JOHNNY KHOO
Art Direction: AUDREY CHAN
Photography: JOEL LOW
Fashion Styling: JACQUIE ANG
Hair: DAVID GAN/PASSION
Make-up: CLARENCE LEE using IT COSMETICS
Photography Assistance: EDDIE TEO
Fashion Assistance: KHONG YAWEN
Deputy Editor, Singapore
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