Hansen Thiono joined the International Business Management program at Petra Christian University in 2002 and now leads finance for Asia Pacific and Latin America at a global sportswear company. At the program's Ice Breaking, he gave students three principles for navigating change.
Hansen Thiono, an alumnus of the International Business Management program at 彼得拉基督大学 in Surabaya, gave students three principles for navigating change on 11 September 2026. He told them to keep learning, to change course when a plan stops working, and to do the right thing even when nobody is watching.
Hansen spoke for an hour to three intakes, batches 2024, 2025 and 2026, at Ice Breaking, the joint event where the newest intake meets the two above it. Ice Breaking took place in the T Building at Petra Christian University. Hansen joined the IBM program in 2002 and graduated four years later. He is now finance director for Asia Pacific and Latin America at a global sportswear company, based in Portland in the United States. He was in Surabaya that week, so the IBM program invited him to give the Alumni Sharing talk.
What can an alumnus from 2002 teach students starting today?
Hansen started his studies 24 years before the newest intake, and he used that gap to frame the whole talk. Study is a journey and so is a career, he said, and at every step the useful question is what that step has taught you. His own career is the kind the IBM program tracks in its career outcomes for graduates.
He was also honest about something students rarely hear. You can work hard, give everything, and still get a result that looks nothing like what you expected. What helps then, in his view, is the willingness to change the plan. A perfect first plan matters less.
What does a growth mindset mean in practice?
Hansen described a growth mindset in three steps: learn, unlearn and relearn.
Learning, he said, is more than attending class. Learning means:
- asking at the end of each day what you learned and how you will use it tomorrow
- connecting subjects that are taught separately
- using the fact that this generation can reach more information than any before it
Unlearning is harder, and he said so. To unlearn is to let go of something you have already mastered. Unlearning also means being willing to say that you do not have the answer today, but you will find it.
Relearning means taking what is still useful and applying it in a new situation. The IBM program’s selective tracks are designed to practise exactly that.
Where you are today does not determine where you can be tomorrow.
When should you change course?
Hansen’s second principle was the pivot: changing your approach to get a better result. He gave a three-part test for it: what to stop, what to start, and what to continue.
Stopping is the hardest, he said. Habits are comfortable and run on their own, and replacing one takes real effort. Continuing is the anchor, because your values should stay the same. He linked those values to reputation: people may know your name, but your actions decide what that name means.
People see this as a sign of failure. It’s not. When you have to reprioritise, you’re dealing with the situation smarter.
What stays fixed when navigating change?
Hansen traced his third principle, integrity, directly back to the International Business Management program. Integrity keeps a person moving in a consistent direction when circumstances are difficult. Integrity also helps a person focus on what they can control. Much of what people try to change is outside their control, he said, but their own response, thinking and actions are always within it.
Hansen uses the same test when he hires. He looks for these values in candidates because, he said, an organisation succeeds as a team or not at all.
The future does not belong only to those who begin with the perfect plan. It belongs to those who are willing to keep growing when the world changes, pivot when the current approach is no longer working, and do the right thing, even when nobody is watching.
Hansen Thiono’s message to first-year students of the International Business Management program at Petra Christian University was simple. Nobody needs to decide their whole future today, and nobody needs a perfect plan, he said. Everybody needs a plan, and the curiosity to keep adjusting it.
About International Business Management UK Petra
International Business Management at Petra Christian University is an English-taught undergraduate degree in Surabaya, Indonesia, running since August 1999. The program is 144 credits across seven semesters, taught entirely in English, and admits international students every semester.
Every student spends at least one semester on the Leadership Enhancement Project, either on exchange abroad or in industry. Students can earn double degrees with Saxion University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, Hochschule Koblenz in Germany, the University of Lincoln in the United Kingdom, or Soongsil University in South Korea.
Graduates of International Business Management work at Google, LinkedIn, McKinsey, Unilever and Deloitte across Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. Alumni include Sherly Tjoanda, Governor of North Maluku.
