Monash Master wins
top Indonesian post

A Monash University economics graduate is set to become the vice president of Indonesia.

Dr Boediono is the vice president-elect of Indonesia, after winning the July 2009 presidential election together with incumbent president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

The 66-year-old, who completed his masters in Economics at Monash in 1972, was listed as one of the Wharton Business School's 125 Influential People and Ideas in 2007 and has been dubbed "Indonesia's financial rudder."

He has a strong connection to Australia, spending his student years in Perth, Melbourne and Canberra in the 1960s and 70s, where he gained graduate and postgraduate degrees and also worked as a research assistant.

He completed a doctorate in business at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1979.

Since 2001 Dr Boediono has held several senior political positions including Minister of Finance, Coordinating Minister for the Economy and until the election result, the Governor of Bank Indonesia.

Described by The Jakarta Post as "one of Indonesia's most highly-respected economic policymakers," he is widely credited with steering Indonesia out of the Asian economic crisis of the late 1990s and putting the country back on a strong economic footing.