Founder

Drs. H. Thayeb Mohammad Gobel

Gobel Group Founder

President Soekarno, Indonesia’s first president, once asked him

Why did he choose the transistor radio business ?

and Gobel answered

So that all Indonesians in every corner of the country could hear your speeches.

Hearing his answer, Soekarno tapped him on the shoulder, while giving praise this is how Indonesian young should be.

He was born in Gorontalo, 12 September 1930, passed away in Jakarta, 21 July 1984. He is widely recognized as a pioneer in the electronics industry in Indonesia.

A turning point in Gobel’s entrepreneurial life came in 1957 when he received a Colombo Plan scholarship to study in Japan. During this period, he succeeded in meeting with Mr. Konosuke Matsushita, the founder of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (currently –Panasonic Corporation).

Towards 1980 Gobel formulated the banana tree philosophy as a business philosophy, because of the sacrifices and benefits it provides to living things, especially human life. Banana tree is the most appropriate symbol to describe the role of a company, where like a banana tree, a company must be very beneficial to the community.

In 1981, the Emperor of Japan awarded the Gobel Bintang Third Class Order of the Sacred Heritage (Kun Santo Zuikoscho), for his services in strengthening Indonesian-Japanese relations in the economic field.