Chairul Tanjung

Chairul Tanjung was born in Jakarta to A. G. Tanjung and Halimah. His father, a reporter, had established a magazine company, which was shut down by the Suharto regime, resulting in A.G. Tanjung having to sell the family's large house and cars to cover debt, and the family moved into a small apartment. Chairul graduated from Boedi Oetomo Senior High School in 1981. He obtained a bachelor's degree at the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Indonesia. He was named a "national noble student" in 1984 and 1985. While studying, he and his two friends opened a shop that originally sold books and T-shirts, and expanded to sell medical equipment. In his spare time, Chairul conducted business until graduating from dentistry school, and establishing PT CT Corp with a loan of Rp 150 million from Exim Bank. They produced children's footwear and received an order from Italy for 160 pairs of shoes, but a month later, Chairul split from his two friends because a disagreement over the business. He later became the chairman and founder of CT Corp.

He worked with Hasbi Hafani to establish the business. He bought Bank Karman and changed its name to Bank Mega. He expanded his business interests into insurance and securities. Chairul is now involved in the television business; he founded Trans TV and acquired TV 7 from the Kompas-Gramedia Group. Chairul owns property projects such as Bandung Super Mall, Batam Indah Prospertindo, Para Bali Propertindo, and Mega Indah Propertindo. In 2012, he bought a minority share of Garuda Indonesia. His holding company is CT Corp., formerly Para Group, with 3 sub-holdings:

Mega Corp which oversees Financial Services in 3 main operations:

Financial Services: Bank Mega, Bank Sulut, Bank Sulteng, Allo Bank

Insurance: Mega Jiwa, Mega Insurance, PFI Mega Life (partners with Pramerica (Prudential Financial))

Financing: Mega Auto Finance, Mega Central Finance

Trans Corp which oversees 2 main operations:

Media, which operates television channels of Trans TV, Trans7, CNN Indonesia, CNBC Indonesia, digital media Detik.com, Insertlive.com, Haibunda.com, Female Daily, and Direct broadcast satellite of Transvision.

Retail, which operates Transmart (acquired from Carrefour's Indonesia operation) and Metro department store

Fashion: operates specialty stores of Aigner Munich, Hugo Boss, Canali, Find Kapoor, Furla, Geox, Bimba Y Lola, and previously operated Mango, Hugo Boss, Versace, Armani, Furla, Etienne Aigner, Tod's, Tommy Hilfiger, Valentino, Brioni, Jimmy Choo.

F&B: such as The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Wendy's, Baskin-Robbins

Property, which includes Trans Studio Malls, Trans Park, and hotel chains of Trans Luxury, and licensed hotel chains from Ibis, and FashionTV.

Other Investments, include:

Plantations: which oversees palm oil plantations operations, such as: CT Plantations, CT Agro, CT Global Resources

Transportations: with the investment in Garuda Indonesia, Indonesia's flag-carrier (and its low-cost carrier subsidiary, Citilink)