Tag: Women directors

Bedriye Hulya of Turkey Named Social Entrepreneur of the Year

by Gulay Ozkan, February 20, 2013

Entrepreneurship in Turkey is being celebrated on the global stage once again, as the World Economic Forum’s Schwab Foundation has just awarded Bedriye Hulya an award for Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Hulya, who the founder of Turkey’s first chain of women-only gyms, as was the only woman selected from the Middle East and North Africa and Turkey in 2013.

Hulya began her b-fit gym franchise in February 2006 in a middle-class neighborhood of Izmir, one of Turkey’s major cities. Since then, b-fit has enabled hundreds of women to become entrepreneurs in their own right. As of today, there are 160,000 gym members at 220 gyms around the country, staffed by over 500 women employees and 250 women franchisee in 47 cities in Turkey and Cyprus.

One of Hulya’s strategic approaches is to make the gym a platform for the empowerment of women through exercise, education and entrepreneurship.

“Receiving awards like Schwab motivates us in our challenging emerging-market conditions. Although b-fit is sometimes considered discriminative because of its women-only model, we believe that in order to close the huge gender gap in countries like Turkey, where there are neither quotas nor positive discrimination policies for women, we have to provide specific tools focusing on women’s development,” Hulya told me in a recent conversation in her home city of Istanbul. “I’m always looking for women partners in the Middle East and North Africa to bring our services to more women in the region.”

Klaus Schwab, a German economist, and founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, established the Schwab Foundation in 1998, along with his wife Hilde, to promote social entrepreneurs.

Each year, the foundation acknowledges and supports 24 social entrepreneurs for their innovative approaches and potential for global impact. Hulya now joins the foundation’s community of 234 other social entrepreneurs from 59 countries and will be an attendee at the World Economic Forum 2014.

This is not her first international recognition either. She is also an Endeavor Entrepreneur, a member of KADIGER, the Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, and was honoured as a 2012 fellow by Ashoka Turkey, a U.S.-based non-profit supporting social entrepreneurs.

Hulya’s success stands as a strong model for women across the region, showing that there is no limit to our ability to create global successes. I look forward to following her and other women entrepreneurs as they continue to build social enterprises across the region.

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Gulay Ozkan has more than 12 years of experience in the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Turkey. She was one of the key figures behind Turkey’s first technology incubation center, launched by Ericsson in 2000, where she worked with leading telecoms operators from China to South America. In 2007, Gulay founded GEDS Business, a tech startup and innovation consultancy company focused on Europe and the Middle East. She is also the founding president of a Turkish project-management NGO called PMI TR, and she holds a BSc and an MSc in electrical engineering from ITU in Turkey and UNL-Lincoln in the U.S. She can be found on her website or on Twitter at @GulayOzkan.

via Bedriye Hulya of Turkey Named Social Entrepreneur of the Year | Wamda.com.

February 21, 2013
Turkish businesswomen make a difference

Turkey’s largest companies are increasingly assigning women to key positions and corporate boards. Of the top executives in these companies, 26 percent are women – well above the EU average.

Just last week, Siemens, the German engineering giant, elected renowned Turkish business women Güler Sabanci to its supervisory board. She is a member of the Sabanci family, one of the wealthiest in Turkey, but it is her individual efforts and achievements as the head of the family conglomerate which have earned her international acclaim. She was named by Forbes in 2012 to its list of the world’s most powerful 100 women.

The selection of Sabanci, however, came as a surprise to many in Europe. Turkey is more famous in Western media for unpleasant headlines, such as the rise of political Islam, the headscarf debate, violence against women, or her comments on extrajudicial killings.

But now, Sabanci has prompted fresh interest in the West on the role of women in Turkey’s business world.

While the European Union is busy discussing ways to increase the number of women in top position with a gender quota, Turkey’s largest companies have already set the pace with an impressive number of successful women executives in top corporations.

Measures decrease gender gap

The high number of female executives in Turkey is astonishing, explained Sabanci

Lale Saral Develioglu, Deputy General Manager and Chief International Business Officer of Turkey’s communication and technology giant, Turkcell, is one of those female executives. She is in charge of the group’s subsidiaries in eight countries, including Turkcell Europe, overseeing billions of euros in business operations.

“The high number of female executives in Turkey often astonishes our counterparts in Germany and in other European countries. We are very proud of that,” she told Deutsche Welle.

Women face more challenges in business life and in their careers, according to Develioglu, but drawing up rules on gender equality and closely following their implementation in the company are key to decreasing the gender gap.

Today, around 35 percent of the business executives in Develioglu’s company are female. The rate of overall female personnel is nearly 50 percent.

“We pay special attention to gender equality. Equal pay for equal work has long been an established rule in our company, and it is also a norm in almost all Turkish companies,” Develioglu said, adding how the ongoing problem in Europe in terms of equal pay has been puzzling for many Turkish professionals. “We have introduced measures to prevent gender discrimination in recruitment and promotions, we are trying to provide utmost care for a balance between personal and business life. And we are also closely following the implementation of these rules,” she stressed.

Special health insurance for the mothers and their children, support for baby nurseries, or private rooms in company buildings for breastfeeding mother are among the measures offering a better work environment for women, which, according to Develioglu, are helping to close the gender gap at work and enhance career opportunities of women.

The other side of the coin

We pay special attention to gender equality, says Lale Develioglu

Despite these positive figures, however, Turkey ranks at the bottom in Europe in overall female participation in the workplace. Discrimination and violence against women are still among the most pressing problems in the country.

The female share on the executive boards of Turkish companies throughout is not more than 10 percent, says Murat Yeşildere, Turkish managing partner of international human resources firm Egon Zehnder. The rate would be even lower if family businesses, where female members may have a say in management, are excluded.

Overall employment figures are even worse. The president of Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey, Sema Kendirci, says female employment has been falling across Turkey in the last decade. The total female employment rate has dropped from 35 to almost 25 percent in the last 10 years, which is lower than any European country.

Rich potential of women wasted

Yet, female business leaders in Turkey are confident they can change this picture by reaching out to unemployed women through special projects to promote skills and career advancement.

Develioglu, of Turkcell, says there is a need for more progress in the field of gender equality and for using the great potential of women, which is wasted due to their exclusion from the workforce.

According to Develioglu, participation of women to business life, in each and every level of the company, has a positive impact.

‘Snowdrops’ is a project to educate disadvantaged girls

“Today, more than ever before, companies need diversity. They need diversity in order to develop different approaches, to make progress,” said Develioglu, underlining the positive contributions of women in business life.

Turkey’s female business elite are working with NGO’s to develop projects to reach out to women. One of these projects, “Snowdrops,” has been a success story. “Since 2000, the Snowdrops project has reached out to thousands of girls lacking the means to go to school, providing 95,000 scholarships so far for their education,” Develioglu said. “We are now providing 10,000 scholarships annually for girls in order to support equal opportunities in education.”

Another model project, Women Power for the Economy, has provided micro-credits for 55,000 low-income female entrepreneurs and will reach out to an estimated 100,000 more women in the next 4 years.

Leaders of the business community, together with the government, have also launched a new initiative – Equality in the Workplace – signing a declaration to decrease the gender gap in the Turkish economy.

Although Turkey still offers a murky picture in terms of women rights, rising female participation in all levels of business life are providing a new perspective.

As Lale Develioglu stressed, the presence of women business leaders does not only enrich the companies they work for, but also encourages other women to follow in their footsteps.

Selcuk Oktay contributed from Istanbul.

January 30, 2013
Women directors stand their ground in Turkey’s film industry

With more women making movies in Turkey, they’re ruffling feathers – by breaking taboos and broaching tough social issues such as incest and family responsibility.

Turkey's women directors are broaching uncomfortable topics

The Turkish film industry has enjoyed a renaissance over the past decade. Once at a point of virtual extinction, it’s now gaining on France in terms of the number of films currently being produced. And at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival in February, the Golden Bear went to Turkish director Semih Kaplanoglu for his film “Honey.”

Within this revival of Turkish film, there is now a growing number of women directors – and it’s not only their gender that is making them stand out in the industry. It’s also the fearlessness of the subjects they are taking on in their films.

Kaplanoglu’s win in Berlin thrust the Turkish film industry into the limelight

Questioning family ties

Stunningly shot in the foreboding mountains of Turkey’s Black Sea, “Zephyr” tells the story of a single mother who leaves her young daughter with the girl’s grandparents in order to pursue a career overseas. It deals with dark, often unspoken issues like abandonment and mortality within the family, as well as questions surrounding love and motherhood.

“Zephyr” is the first feature film of director Belma Bas, who says that taboos are a burden to men and women alike.

“We really have to break those taboos, to take a step forward to solve really primal problems, which are at the core of very disturbing issues of this country,” Bas told Deutsche Welle. “We have to start from somewhere. Those mother-child and parent-child relationships are at the core of these things.

The film director added that she’s not satisfied with getting a “macro-vision of society,” but that the only way to solve problems is to go deeper and take a closer look.

Criticism from women

The lead female character in “Zephyr” is often portrayed in a less-than-positive light, which Bas says allowed her to avoid a feminist discourse. The grandmother character is a voice of conservatism condemning her daughter, who in turn is defended by her father. It is the nuanced nature of the film that has proved controversial

Bas wants her audience to rethink family relationships

At last month’s film festival in Antalya, the country’s most prestigious film event, “Zephyr” drew condemnation from some female critics for its unsympathetic portrayal of lead female characters.

“Zephyr” was one of two films by women directors to compete in the main competition, a first for the festival and an indication of the growing number of female directors in Turkish film.

Revitalizing a tradition

According to film and media professor Tul Akbal Sualp, women filmmakers are both following a long tradition in Turkish culture, and bringing a new cutting edge to Turkish cinema.

“It is a conservative society, but starting from the late 19th century, if you look at the literature and especially the poetry, we have women characters – strong characters – as often as male ones,” said Sualp.

These 19th-century works were far more political than those of current generation, Sualp said, adding that only recently have the female newcomers to the film scene started approaching social and political problems more so than their predecessors.

Winning acceptance

“Merry-go-around,” the second film by director Ilksen Basarir, deals with a dark taboo: incest. A first for Turkey, the film also participated recently in the Antalya film festival.

It was the sensitive subject matter, not her gender, that made it difficult to get financing, said Basarir, although it has not always been like that.

“In Turkey in the last five years, the women directors have become stronger,” she said. “We want to tell our stories to the people and maybe they will start to accept us in this film industry.”

Early on, she wanted to become a camera assistant, but was told that was out of the question because she would have to carry heavy objects. “But now things are changing: There are [female] lighting assistants, camera assistants, directors – so it’s changed,” said Basarir.

Currently, more than 100 films are in production in Turkey. While the majority of mainstream film directors are still men – as in the rest of the world – that may soon change as well, says Bas.

“Recently, there is no majority of males anymore in documentary- and short-filmmaking in Turkey,” she said. “[Women] are coming forward to make feature length films as well. I just long for the day when there will be no naming of female or male filmmakers.”

Author: Dorian Jones, Istanbul (kjb)

Editor: Jennifer Abramsohn

November 20, 2010