İş’te Zirve - Ahmet Eren | 23 Kasım 2024

Thank you, thank you, I'm quite well. Are you well too?

The fathers of our time are different from today's fathers. Today's fathers are more tolerant towards their children, but our father was quite authoritarian and strict, and he raised us very disciplined. Bitlis is a city where I was born and raised, a city where my childhood and part of my youth passed. But Bitlis also has a misfortune. It is the third poorest city in Turkey in terms of per capita income. That poverty existed in our time as well. Although we as a family were a bit above average, it's impossible not to remember the deprivations there. For example, in primary and secondary school, we always walked to and from school, and in very harsh winter conditions. At that young age, walking to and from school was quite difficult, but we did it. And if I may say so without boasting, I was a very good student. You will say it yourself if I don't. Actually your entire education life was crowned with first places, always, right? That's correct. From the first grade of primary school to the end of high school, I was always first in my class. Then we came to university. But while studying in primary school, so to speak, I wasn't just a nerd; I also engaged a lot in games and sports. Sports have always been in my life. What sport were you interested in back then? Football was in your life, right? Football was there, but if you saw the field we played football on as children, you would barely walk on it with shoes. Stones, dirt, not like the artificial turf fields you think of. Dirt field. But let me tell you something very interesting. On that dirt field, we had friends who played football barefoot because their shoes were torn. And they played football very well barefoot. I want to emphasize the level of deprivation. Apart from that, skiing – we would carry skis on our backs. Skiing was always in my life. All Bitlis children ski, and later among Turkey's good skiers, there are those from Bitlis. How did you ski? We would carry skis on our backs, go up hills and mountains by walking, and after climbing for half an hour or 45 minutes, I would come down in 3 minutes. You might do it again or not. But that gives both a fighting spirit and strengthens the body. In that respect, I was a good skier. And I owe this to that – I owe it to the sports we did under those conditions, to the skiing sport.

My mother, in my words, was an innocent woman. Truly, she was not strict like my father. She was more affectionate, protective. She would sometimes save us from our father's possible beatings, because when we came home late from skiing or sports, my father would get very angry.

To be honest, I didn't have such a vision. I was just someone who tried to be successful in whatever track I entered. Studying hard, with effort, to be the best. From primary school graduation, high school graduation, then university. I studied at the Faculty of Economics. When did you leave Bitlis, Ahmet Bey? I left at 16. When you came to Istanbul for university, you came to Istanbul University, but my family migrated 8-9 years later. After graduating from the Faculty of Economics, I entered the accounting expertise program. It's not a profession that is easy to get into; the acceptance rate is about 3-2%, a very difficult exam. After passing and entering, you are trained again, and in my opinion it was a very good institution. I learned a lot from there, gained a lot of knowledge, and learned discipline. It was a disciplined institution, unfortunately closed in 2011. Many very high-level managers in both the public and private sectors come from accounting expertise. For example, the CEO of the Koç Group has an accounting expertise background. The Doğuş Group, Ciner, Yaşar Holding, all are accounting experts. People learn a different discipline there. It is an institution that teaches honesty. Therefore, trustworthy accounting experts. Being a member of that institution brought me a lot.

Yes, we learned to swim in the river, and then we came and swam in the Bosphorus. What did that feeling give you? Coming here naturally gives courage. Being raised that way, the person who swims in the river can easily jump into the sea. I think that especially helped me become a good skier. Also, I did my military service in the Mountain and Commando School as a reserve officer. It was during my accounting expertise period, right? Yes, that's when I went to the military. In Eğridir, they give very intense training to reserve officers at the Mountain and Commando School. There I learned skiing very well. In later years, because of this, my wife and children and I skied not in the mountains of Bitlis but in Italy, France, etc. Very well. My children also learned to ski well. But once, to keep up with my son and daughter, I went down a very steep slope, a black slope as it's called. Unfortunately, I couldn't adjust to them, fell badly, and the ski pole pierced my chest. Oh! I pulled it out. Did you develop a fear? Yes, especially in recent years, with the worry that something might happen to me – I might fall and break something – I took a break from skiing. I haven't skied for about 5-6 years now.

Being a moral person, in old terms. Seeing the other person as right as oneself. Being moral is that. Therefore, in our family, the real education about being moral comes from the family. Schools also teach this, but the foundation is the nuclear family. Therefore, in raising children, the most important are mothers, we must accept that. With this effect, we are now, I'm changing the subject suddenly, but in our schools and other places, we give more scholarships to women than men. Really? Yes. In the schools we opened, the university, and the scholarship programs we support, we apply positive discrimination to women. Because it is women who shape the family. They need to be educated. Through their education and economic income, they become more conservative in the family and can allocate more budget to their children. We pay special attention to this especially in Bitlis.

Well, if we go back to the beginning of our business life and talk partly, we started with textiles. We would wake up at 7 in the morning and go to work, come back at 9-10 at night. As I said, my wife carried all the family burden. But we worked tirelessly to do bigger and more successful jobs. After textiles, we entered the paper industry. When we entered the paper industry, we became partners with the late Abdülhakim Bilgili, Serdar Bilgili's father. We learned a lot from Abdülhakim abi. We called him Reis. He had a very interesting advice for me. He said, 'Ahmet, don't bring the sisters-in-law together as much as possible. Don't even let them live in the same neighborhood, let alone the same apartment.' I took that as an important piece of advice. And truly, all siblings are partners in all companies, in joint management and private life, we have never had any separation, discord, or resentment. It's interesting. In that respect, I think we can be an exemplary family. We can count ourselves as an exemplary family, a family business that didn't experience internal problems despite growth.

Of course, of course. Actually, before America, there is an interesting thing as an international experience: Poland. Yes, Poland. Actually, I went after returning from America. Let's go in order. I will talk about America. I went to America for postgraduate education. I was in Texas, at Texas Christian University. The Americans tried hard but couldn't make me Christian. Instead, do you get stronger? Maybe you become more connected to your own religion, language, essence. I was also active at the university, I was president of the foreign students union. You feel the need to become president of any association you see? Maybe that's what they deemed me suitable for. That was a conscious choice, wasn't it? Going abroad to complete a master's degree. Language was very important for me. Actually, I went with a scholarship, a scholarship from the American government called AI. I was an accounting expert, and they send accounting experts too. But I went ahead of time by winning that scholarship. To win that scholarship, I needed to know English. You can't learn English in Bitlis High School or in the faculty. In our Faculty of Economics, I studied on my own. We are graduates of the same school, by the way. Let's send our regards from here. As I said, you are a child next to me. Let's not say that, don't reveal our ages. I passed the English exam by teaching myself. I went to America. I traveled around America a lot. I had a car, a Chevrolet I bought for some dollars. I traveled around with my friends. A friend I made there, Siracettin Bey, is now an industrialist. We traveled all over America with another accounting expert friend. It was a very good experience. My language improved. After returning, I resigned and joined my family's business. As soon as I joined, we focused on exports. We started exporting on a large scale. We were selling to America. Textile. When you were studying there, did you see a business opportunity? Actually, my family was already producing Eros underwear. Everyone knows. The famous slogan at that time: 'Jealous ladies, don't dress your husband in Eros.' Very good slogan, right? Yes. We exported those t-shirts to America. Then America imposed quotas on exports from Turkey. To bypass this quota, we went and established a factory in Poland. So now we come to the Poland story. Yes, we set up a factory in Poland. At that time, Poland had the communist Jaruzelski as president. We partnered with a state company and set up a company in Poland. We also appointed a Turkish manager because they didn't know anything. Poland had good infrastructure, electricity, water, roads, railways, factories, but almost no consumer goods industry. We set up the factory there to export to America. Even the boxes went from Turkey, tapes, etc. One thing that impressed me there: we were in a village. For our manager, a room in a house was rented. We went. Manager Serhat Toptu, I remember his name. He rented a house. We entered and saw the house was fully furnished. I said, 'Serhat, did you rent such a house?' He said, 'Yes, Ahmet Bey, it was like this.' I saw that the front of the house had beautiful flowers, and inside the furniture was very clean, and there was a piano. In a village. Then I understood the cultural difference between Turkey and there. After returning, I immediately bought a piano for my daughter. Seeing something like that is precious, and when you see it, you want to apply it to your life. But unfortunately, our adventure ended badly in Poland. I will cut you off briefly. You will tell the end of that adventure, of course, but we are going to a short break. After the commercials, our conversation with Mr. Ahmet Eren will continue.

Poland: it started very well, but the end was not good. Because the security guards at the factory there, they drink heavily. The Polish drink well. They got very drunk, and the security guards opened the factory doors and told people to come and take things. It was a looting. We couldn't do anything legally, but the two guards were imprisoned. That's how the story ended sadly. So when investing in foreign countries, now those conditions don't exist, but it is still beneficial to be careful. Especially in democratic foreign countries with good legal order. But this story also shows that you can never be sure; unexpected things can happen.

That's correct. That's a first, really. I'm saying you opened it. We have also built schools outside of Bitlis. In September, we built an Anatolian High School in Antakya, Yayladağ, and it started education. But Bitlis is our priority. Because it's a poor city, and we are from there, we want to be useful to it. In Bitlis, we have a university, Bitlis Eren University, which we built and donated to the state. Apart from that, we have 6 schools. But we saw that it is necessary to provide a very different education. The schools we donated to the state are not bad, but we said let's do this ourselves, so we established a private science and technology high school. This high school, as you mentioned, provides education in Chinese and English. And during the summer break, some students go to China, some to England. There is also an exchange program. They increase their knowledge, culture, and language development, and contact people from other cultures and religions. With this vision, we operate this high school. Hopefully, very good graduates will come out. It is a fully boarding high school. Yes, no fees are charged, but it's very high standard. I think it will rank in the top 5 in Turkey. We took students from the top 2% this year, but next year we will only take from the top 1% in the national high school entrance exam because there is great demand. Being boarding and Chinese education is a first. What is the demand like? Sir, our thermal power plant in Zonguldak was built by the Chinese. Our contact with the Chinese started then, and we saw that compared to Germans, French, the Chinese are very successful. They built it in a very short time, they are quite advanced, their work discipline is high, and specialization is very developed. We were influenced by the Chinese in that way. But I also read a lot of international publications. I know where this is going. I understood from my readings that it would be beneficial to have contacts with people who have learned written Chinese. Those who learn today will get ahead soon, will establish better relations with China, and we will be more successful in transferring Chinese technology to Turkey.

I tried but couldn't succeed in America. But maybe because of that, I was very interested in Western music in my youth. We mostly listened to Western music: the Beatles, Tom Jones, etc. We grew up with them. In Turkish music, I preferred Turkish pop more. At one point, I even became a member of the Pop Music Artists Foundation. I hesitate to ask about the foundations you are involved in; the program time might not be enough. Thank you. Music is very important. As Erol Evgin told me, he is a very valuable artist. Did he tell you personally? Of course, he is an old friend of mine. He says that singing relaxes you mentally. That's true. Do you sing at home by yourself? Sometimes I do, but I don't think anyone would want to hear my voice. Do your children play an instrument? Did you try to fulfill your unfulfilled desire through them? Unfortunately, that's one of the things I regret. Neither I nor they could play. I wish they had. Recently, I went to a concert with Erol Evgin. He gave a concert at Bitlis Eren University, especially for the Republic Day on October 29. We went. The spirit of the holiday and Erol Evgin's program about Atatürk, but he also sings his own songs. I was amazed at how the young students at the university accompanied those songs. They are 17-20 years old. They sang along enthusiastically. He was also surprised. At the end, he said, 'Ahmet Eren, come up and say something.' I went up and said, 'Bitlis has never seen an artist like Erol Evgin, and Erol Evgin has never seen an audience like this.' It was true.

Of course. We are a family that admires Atatürk. It's worth noting that my late grandfather was Abdülmecit Eren, who issued a fatwa in favor of the National Forces and was Bitlis's first mufti. Therefore, we have love and admiration for Atatürk in the family. But not only we appreciate Atatürk. An independent American university didn't choose him; they selected Atatürk as the greatest leader of the past century. Atatürk played a very important role in the modernization of Turkey. He didn't just establish the republic. An English writer named Andrew Mango, who wrote a book called Atatürk, said: 'Atatürk didn't just create a state, he created a nation.' That's truly the case. Therefore, our young people must know Atatürk's value very well. But I think they do, so I am at ease. Especially the love they show for Atatürk after so many years is a satisfying result for me.

I will answer with an example from a book I read. There is a Nobel laureate in economics named Daniel Kahneman. He is not actually an economist but a psychologist. By studying the herd psychology in stocks, he wrote a book, conducted research, and won the economics prize. Kahneman says: 'For success, you need talent. For a bit more success, you need both talent and luck. But for extraordinary great success, you only need luck.' I didn't expect that: for that part, only luck. Of course, great success. Do you agree with that statement? So today, let's say Elon Musk, we must admit that luck has an effect. There are others as talented and hardworking as him, just like me, very hardworking and talented, but not at that level. So that's his judgment.

It's a bit hard to remember failure examples. But Poland is one of them. There is also a similar one in Russia. We set up two textile factories in Russia. After the collapse of the communist regime, after Gorbachev, chaos erupted, and those two facilities were seized by the mafia. That was also a failure. Fortunately, these were not significant investments for our holding's financial structure, so they didn't have a negative impact. I can mention these two failures. Actually, it doesn't have to be only from business life; it could be personal. When I read an interview about you, this caught my attention: 'Be very careful in relationships. Do not break anyone's heart. Life is very changeable. Someone may go down today, someone else may rise tomorrow. There's no need to break hearts.' Is this a personal experience or a lesson you derived? Right, right. One should be as objective as possible. If you are objective and put yourself in the other person's shoes, think and speak accordingly, you won't get much harm and you won't fail. That's my view.

I also thank you. You really ask questions in a way that makes me talk, and you act very sympathetically. Thank you for your kind efforts.