Rizal Mallarangeng

Rizal Mallarangeng

Rizal Mallarangeng (born October 29, 1964) is a prominent Indonesian politician and strategist. He served as a senior advisor to Indonesia’s Coordinating Economic Minister (2004-2005) and Coordinating Welfare Minister (2005-2008) Aburizal Bakrie. He also served as a member of Golkar Party’s Leadership. He is known for playing a critical role supporting the presidential re-election campaign of Joko Widodo in 2019.

Rizal was born in Makassar, South Sulawesi. Given his passion for athletics, he attended SMAN Ragunan, a sports-focused senior high school in Jakarta. After graduating, he enrolled at Gadjah Mada University, where he studied Political Science. He later received the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to pursue both his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Political Science at the Ohio State University under the supervision of one of the world’s leading experts on Indonesia, Professor William Liddle.

After obtaining his doctorate, he returned to Indonesia and started his career as a political researcher and speechwriter to then Indonesian president Megawati Soekarnoputri, and talk show host for Metro TV. He subsequently joined the Golkar Party and was appointed as the Head of Policy Research under its then Chairman Aburizal Bakrie. Later he was appointed as the acting head of Golkar’s Jakarta Chapter and the Coordinator of Special Fundraising under Airlangga Hartarto, now Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs.

Rizal has a strong commercial bent as well. He has served as a Commissioner of PT Telkom Indonesia since 2020, PT Energi Mega Persada since 2021, and PT Citra Marga Nusaphala Persada from 2024 to 2025.

The Founder and Executive Director of the Freedom Institute, an independent think tank in Indonesia, he is known as an advocate for democratic rights and supporting market-oriented, right-of-centre economic policies.

Throughout his career, Rizal has authored numerous books and essays on politics and economics. These are three of the many books he has written: “Breaking Indonesian Economic Centralism”, “Media of the New Order”, and a 660-page collection of essays about humankind, society, and power, entitled “From Heaven”, featuring an introduction by the acclaimed journalist Goenawan Mohamad.

Rizal is the great-grandson of the last war chief of the ancient Bone kingdom, a powerful Bugis sultanate in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. He now conducts most of his scholarly activities in Jakarta. On weekends, he often ventures to the slopes of Salak Mountain in Bogor, where he farms white oyster mushrooms and raises goats.