AmCham Türkiye’s new project to bring global Turkish leaders together

GÖKÇE AYTULU - İSTANBUL

AmCham Türkiye has launched a new project that aims to bring together Turkish professionals living internationally.

The Global Turks par Excellence Project, carried out in cooperation with AmCham Türkiye, is implemented under the sponsorship of 20 international companies led by P&G, Meta, Citi, Microsoft, PepsiCo, Borusan CAT and the International Investors Association (YASED).

Ayşegül Dicle Aydın, creator of the Global Turks par Excellence, describes the project with the aim of creating an active and strong network of distinguished Turkish professionals worldwide.

“For the project, we identified 3 thousand Turkish managers working in global units of various companies around the world. We reviewed their CVs then tried to connect with all of them via Linkedin. 1500 people responded to our correspondence,” Aydın told a group of journalists in İstanbul on Feb. 21.

The project team organized a survey involving 1,100 Turkish professionals working in 60 countries, last year. The areas of expertise of those involved in the research include retail, gaming, technology, production, financial services, health, genetics, biotechnology, industrial areas, social impact, entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence.

“The research targets to discover the underlying factors driving global Turkish success and undercover the hidden limitations preventing the Turk from climbing the international corporate leader even higher,” Aydın said.

“This research reveals the talent map. It also shows the skills that need to be developed,” AmCham Türkiye Vice President and Citibank Türkiye CEO Emre Karter said.

According to research, Turkish professionals represent high energy, strong motivation, adaptability and a sense of pride. They appear to be hard-working, dedicated and result oriented. 70 percent of respondents under the age of 45 currently work in regional or global corporate roles, while 26 percent have more than 20 years of work experience worldwide.

“Speed of thought, ability to cope with uncertainty and flexibility make Turks stand out compared to their competitors in other countries. Their openness to learning is a plus in their success criteria,” Aydın said.

“The next step is creating an active and strong network of distinguished Turkish leaders around the world,” she added.

Aydın explains that the project goal is to reveal the strong competencies of Turkish managers and to increase the recognition of Turkish managers who have achieved worldwide success.

"We would like to encourage Turkish managers who hold successful positions abroad to teach emerging Turkish talents how to be leaders, to act as mentors and coaches, and to create ‘mentor-mentee’ programs. Thus, paving the way for Turkish managers by breaking the glass ceiling that has existed for many years," she added.