Maria Sahara
About Maria Sahara
Maria Sahara serves as the Product Lead for Fintech at Xendit, where she leads a team focused on remittance, escrow, and forex services in Indonesia. With a background in Regional and City Planning from Institut Teknologi Bandung and an MSc in Infrastructure Investment and Finance from UCL, she has extensive experience in product management and development across various financial sectors.
Work at Xendit
Maria Sahara serves as the Product Lead Fintech at Xendit, a position she has held since 2019 in Jakarta. In this role, she leads a team focused on remittance, escrow, and forex services, making it the first initiative of its kind in Indonesia that emphasizes international transactions. Her responsibilities include overseeing product backend system design, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and integrating systems with internal core frameworks. She has also expanded remittance disbursement capabilities to include multiple currencies such as PHP, SGD, VND, JPY, and THB.
Education and Expertise
Maria Sahara completed her undergraduate studies in Regional and City Planning at Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) from 2005 to 2010. She later pursued a Master of Science in Infrastructure Investment and Finance at University College London (UCL) from 2013 to 2014. Her educational background provides her with a strong foundation in planning and finance, which she applies in her current role in fintech. Maria's expertise includes product management, regulatory compliance, and system integration.
Background
Maria Sahara has a diverse professional background that includes various roles in product management and finance. She began her career as an intern at the Ministry of Public Work in 2008. She later worked as a Research Assistant at ITB and held positions at DOKU, PT NUSA SATU INTI ARTHA, and HSBC. Her experience spans multiple sectors, including public works, finance, and e-commerce, which has equipped her with a unique perspective in her current fintech role.
Achievements
Throughout her career, Maria Sahara has contributed to several significant projects. At Xendit, she has been instrumental in creating discrepancy reports to enhance product monitoring and improve reconciliation processes for escrow and P2P products. Her involvement in a greenfield project for forex services in Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Indonesia, highlights her capability to manage complex financial initiatives. She has also successfully expanded remittance services to include various currencies.