SUSE, a global leader in open source solutions, has appointed Isabella Kusumawati as its Vice President and Managing Director for Southeast Asia, a recognition of the region as an important market.

Ms. Kusumawati aims to significantly increase revenue in the region in the next three years by recruiting partners and top talent to reap the benefits of untapped business opportunities in one of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets in the world, despite SUSE acknowledging that Asia Pacific enterprises, large retailers, and brands are lagging in their platform strategies, putting them at a competitive risk.

“Our customers are looking for choice; they demand open technologies that help them drive their business outcomes. We are currently hiring aggressively as we look to expand the team to help our customers, communities and partners leverage open source solutions,” said Ms. Kusumawati.

In Nielsen’s What’s Next in Southeast Asia, the global measurement and data analytics company calls Southeast Asia the next growth frontier. It is an emerging market that is home to the fast-growing population with stable GDP growth and high digital connectivity, which increases the desire for more innovation in the region. 

Digital transformation is crucial for businesses to thrive and open source is playing a major role that delivers a robust foundation in the modern IT landscape, as well as cost efficiencies and innovation.

“The trend of enterprises leveraging open source technology will rise drastically like never before as it allows companies to develop an ecosystem that can advance faster innovation, enabling unprecedented scale, adaptability and additional new features supporting changing trends and customer demands,” added Ms. Kusumawati. 

Ms. Kusumawati is a senior sales leader with 17 years of experience in sales management, including new market and business development for tech companies such as Salesforce, SAP, Oracle and Microsoft. 

Phillip Miltiades, the President of SUSE Asia Pacific and Japan, said: “With the digital economy in Southeast Asia growing at a rapid pace, I am confident under Isabella’s leadership that she will be successful in building the market and growing SUSE’s business.”