Nicholas Hilman is the co-founder of Simpan Asset Management, a digitally-enabled Investment Manager helping Indonesians achieve financial well-being through simple, transparent, and accessible investment solutions.

Nicholas was previously at BlackRock, a global investment manager, across its New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore offices.

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👋🏼  How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

We manage money on behalf of our clients, such as family offices, institutions (i.e. pension funds), and individuals.

We help understand their goals, construct a suitable portfolio of public assets like stocks and bonds, as well as private market assets like private equity and private credit, and invest accordingly.  

Along the way, our responsibility is to ensure our clients are looped in on performance, what we got right—and what we got wrong, with the help of our proprietary technology.

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🧐  What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?‍

Growing up I was fond of the arts so I painted a lot and even published a photography coffee-table book on my beloved city, called Moeka Djakarta. Naturally, I thought I was going to pursue a career in the arts, but life had other plans. That said, I still love the arts and hope to collect!

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🏆  What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Being entrusted to manage wealth and deliver investment returns, not because I have a big brand behind me, but because of the differentiated value proposition Simpan offers as a fresh player in an otherwise sleepy asset management industry.

Beyond that, it’s the people I got to meet, learn from, and help along the way—from industry titans, and policymakers, all the way to teachers and firefighters whose retirement depends on pension funds making good on their promised payouts.

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🔍  What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?

The retirement industry—not just today, but for decades to come. Put simply, Indonesia is reaping from a phenomenon called ‘Population Dividend’, where the breakdown of the population consists of younger than older people. 

However, this dynamic will change as the general population gets older and more people enter retirement age. This puts pressure on the retirement system. We are already seeing a retirement crisis play out in Japan, Europe, and the US. As such, there is a huge opportunity to innovate in this space.

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💼  What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry? 

1) Consistently renew your social license to operate—i.e. does your product or business add value for society or are you just reinventing the wheel?

2) Be like water! Whilst critical to stay true to your mission, it’s OK to pivot and be flexible as a means to an end.

3) The journey is long and hard, make sure you’re prepared to hold your breath for a long time.

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🗣  What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours? 

Cars (and maybe food because I love to eat).

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🎥  What's your favorite movie/TV show? 

Succession…shoutout to L to the OG—but closer to Christmas I’d say The Holiday.

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🍨  What's your go-to ice cream flavor?

Baskin Robbins’ Rainbow Sherbet—best flavor of all time or fight me.