AIA Director Rista Qatrini: Women Have Dual Roles
In the midst of evolving times, the narrative surrounding women’s roles is expanding. This is because, in the present era, many women undertake dual or multiple roles (multi-role).
Rista Qatrini Manurung, Director of Legal and Compliance at AIA, views women as strong figures. How could they not be? Women have the natural role of giving birth to a child while guiding them on the right path. Additionally, women are expected to be good wives, sisters, and daughters.
“That’s all multi-job, right? A multi-role that underscores that women are very strong,” she stated at Top Women Fest 2026, quoted on Thursday (30/4/2026).
Furthermore, Rista explained that, based on her religion, women often serve as helpers. In this context, the helper must be stronger than the one being helped.
From this, Rista emphasised to all women not to belittle themselves or limit themselves. In her view, such a culture should be eradicated, as it does not align with women’s nature.
She assessed that if women continue to feel inferior, they will be haunted by failure and fear of trying new things. Conversely, when women can instil a brave attitude to try and maximise their potential, their self-confidence will certainly increase.
“When we know our weaknesses and provide training to boost self-confidence, that will be an extraordinary way to face our insecurities,” she clarified.
No less important, Rista also highlighted the importance of leading with heart. Considering that leaders will deal with people they lead, not robots. Fundamentally, humans have hearts, feelings, desires, and individual thoughts, so it is important for everyone to lead with heart.
Rista revealed that as a company, AIA always places humans at the centre of everything. Relating to the insurance industry, at AIA there are employees, marketing agents, and most importantly, consumers. It is crucial for an insurance service provider like AIA to instil an attitude of leading with heart. Especially since one of the functions of insurance is to provide protection during times of grief.
“Grief is something emotional, right? So it must be handled with heart. With the right heart, with the right empathy, to enable the insurance company to gain trust quickly from consumers, and besides that, these are the principles we apply at AIA insurance company; we have three things known as CCH (Clarity, Courage, and Humanity). So, AIA in 18 markets has the same principles,” she explained.
Rista continued that the aspect of humanity is important in running a company. For example, year-end employee performance evaluations should not solely be based on target achievements, but also on the process of meeting those performance targets. For Rista, the way someone works and their empathetic attitude when facing issues also factor into performance assessments.
“That becomes part of and is assessed as good performance if we apply empathetic or humanity values,” she explained.
Further, Rista stressed the importance for everyone to uphold good values in their work. For instance, workers can promote ethical values. Because ethics hold a much higher value than merely complying with rules or regulations. Thus, she urged all women and men to be workers who prioritise ethical values.
It is known that Rista’s career journey in the corporate world has been quite long. Rista joined PT AIA FINANCIAL in 2015 as Director of Legal and Compliance, and in 2017 was given the opportunity to expand her role to oversee the Risk function. Rista has worked in the insurance industry for more than 9 years.
The woman who graduated from Universitas Indonesia and Boston University is also a registered Capital Market Consultant with the Financial Services Authority. Rista holds an Indonesian advocate licence and is a member of the Indonesian Advocates Association (PERADI).
On the other hand, Rista serves as Head of the Best Practices Department of the Indonesian Life Insurance Association (AAJI), where previously she served as Head of the Compliance and Membership Department of AAJI from 2011 to December 2017. Thanks to her consistent leadership of the company, AIA’s Director of Legal and Compliance, Rista Qatrini Manurung, successfully received the Top Women in Financial Protection award at the Top Women Fest 2026 organised by CNBC Indonesia.