Turkish company starts reverse brain drain from Silicon Valley

Doğan Online and Hepsiburada.com chair Doğan Boyner met a number of Turkish entrepreneurs and high technology professionals in a meeting on June 21 on the sidelines of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Silicon Valley. 

Emphasizing the high potentials of Turkey’s e-commerce sector, she invited them to return to Turkey, pushing the button on a reverse brain drain movement. 

“There is a highly valuable Turkish community based in the Silicon Valley. We are here with these friends, who have worked and gained great experiences in big tech… During our meetings, we saw great interest from them about returning to Turkey,” said Doğan Boyner, who was invited by Obama to attend the summit, in a follow-up statement after the meetings. 

“I saw that many attendees got very excited when they heard which technological investments were made by Hepsiburada.com, how high the growth rates in the market are and which opportunities the Turkish market has offered. Some of them came and said that they wanted to meet us, which was great for us, as this was one of the main reasons of my visit to the Silicon Valley, to start a reverse brain drain from the U.S. to Turkey as Hepsiburada.com,” she noted, adding there was a fertile climate in both Turkey and Hepsiburada.com for them to use their know-how and experiences. 


Head hunting for future hiring

“We want to hire some 300 experienced engineers in Hepsiburada.com in the next 12 months. In this vein, I told them: ‘This is the time to return.’ My message was very welcomed,” added Doğan Boyner. 

She also said the company would assess the feedback about the launch of an office in Silicon Valley. 

Saying that the retail sector was expected to reach $350 billion in 2019, Doğan Boyner added: “The share of online penetration in the retail sector is around 1.5 percent now. This figure is expected to increase to 5.7 percent in 2019. As Hepsiburada.com, we will close the year with some 140 percent of growth in our revenue, taking the lead in the market’s growth in Turkey, which has a young population. Almost half of Turkey’s population is under the age of 30. The country’s internet penetration has exceeded 50 percent and mobile penetration over 60 percent. The market is ready for a digital transformation.” 

The Abraaj Group, a leading investor operating in global growth markets, in 2015 acquired a minority stake in Hepsiburada.com, a market leader in Turkey’s online retail sector.