Helianti Hilman has over 26 years of experience as a creative based entrepreneur, intellectual property lawyer, as well as multidisciplinary and cross-country consultant for rural development. She has been working on projects run by World Bank, UNDP, UNEP, SECO and many other development agencies. Being inspired by Indonesia’s wealth on food biodiversity, indigenous wisdom and spiritualism as well as driven by her passion in cooking, traveling, gardening and creating social impact, in 2008, Ms. Hilman left her work as a consultant and founded PT Kampung Kearifan Indonesia, known also as JAVARA.
Helianti graduated Cum Laude from Padjadjaran University, Bandung, majoring in International Laws and obtained Master of Laws on Intellectual Property Rights at Kings College, University of London. She also graduated from Harvard Kennedy School – Executive Program.
Through her leadership, Javara builds supply chain, works with smallholder farmers and food producers, nurtures rural entrepreneurs and creates wide range of fine organic food products of rural Indonesia to serve domestic and export market. Calling herself as the “artist” within the company, Helianti has the combination of creativity in developing winning and impactful food products with stories as well as in scouting, nurturing and maintaining in-depth relationship with rural development stakeholders. In addition to her role as Executive Chairperson, she continues serving as the Chief Creative and Community Officer.
As a result of her work, Helianti has received numerous prestigious awards, including EY Indonesia’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2013; Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneur 2015; Forbes Indonesia 2014 The Inspiring Women Honor Roll and Top 10 Asia 2016 Indonesia’s top social enterprise. She is globally recognized as a notable expert and resource person on the area of food biodiversity commercialization and rural entrepreneurship. Her work has been profiled by many media, including Guardian UK (2015), Channel News Asia (2017), The Bangkok Post (2018) and most recently DW TV Germany.