As a follow up to her 2009 interview, Sri Mulyani Indrawati revisits her years as Indonesia’s minister of finance to discuss the challenges of building her economic reform team and institutionalizing performance management at the ministry. She describes how she worked closely with key members of the KPK (Corruption Eradication Commission) to cultivate motivation and teamwork among government employees. With the support of her reform team, she established institutional mechanisms to reduce corruption and raise the credibility of the government. And although Indonesia’s bureaucracy proved to challenge the reform team at times, she explains how performance indicators and standard operating procedures were instrumental to identify and overcome weaknesses in the Ministry of Finance. In conclusion, Sri Mulyani reflects on the more personal attributes required to move sustainable reform forward: a strong vision along with the trust and commitment of her fellow reformers. She describes the practice of public asset disclosure as one of the most sustainable reforms her team implemented at the ministry.
At the time of this interview, Sri Mulyani Indrawati was managing director at the World Bank. She has extensive experience in financial reforms to reduce corruption and strengthen economic growth.