Harsiwi Achmad, programming director of Indonesia's PT Surya Citra Media (the holding company of free TV stations SCTV and Indosiar) is our Woman to Watch today because... she's steering the content course for a decades old media operation in waters churning wildly with the ambitions of every streamer who can spell Asia and has locked onto Indonesia as the land of (potential) subscription milk and honey. And then there's Grab. And YouTube... and, indeed, SCM's own streaming platform, Vidio, which is competing with Disney+, Viu, GoPlay, Netflix, iQiyi, WeTV...  

Covid-19's impact notwithstanding, the free-TV environment, in which Achmad has been involved for almost 25 years, remains a powerful mass-market force in Indonesia, a country of 270+ million people. SCM's TV stations – home of "Indonesia's Got Talent", "Take Me Out Indonesia" –  have a combined audience share of just over 32%, with Indosiar and SCTV in top two spots for all-time and prime time (1H 2020). 

Achmad says she is motivated by the opportunity to inspire the next generation of media executives to become professional, creative and tough; to create valuable and high-quality programming that audiences love; to be trendsetters and pioneers in combining conventional and new media.

And, most importantly, she adds, "to encourage women to break the glass ceiling through my leadership and my work". 

Here's what else she said in answer to the other two questions we've asked women across Asia's content industry: 

What would you like people to say about you when you are not in the room? 
"Basically, I am an open-minded person who always creates an environment where people around me free to say something good or bad about me, both in front of or behind me. So, I hope people will say same thing about me when I am not around."

Are you now where you thought you would be when you were 20?
"Not at all! When I was in my 20s, my ultimate dream was to be an anthropology or sociology professor, doing plentiful research and writing books on social and cultural behavior. After I graduated with a masters degree, I realised that the TV industry was growing in Indonesia and with my research expertise I could contribute a lot to develop TV programming strategy by understanding the social and culture behaviour of Indonesian viewers."

ContentAsia's Women to Watch 2021 series asks women from across the industry to talk about what motivates them, what they would like people to say or think about them when they’re not in the room, and whether (or not) they are now where they thought they would be when they were 20. We'll be bringing you what they said every day throughout March.