İşadamı Hüsnü Özyeğin'den başarı sırları - Hafta Sonu 28 Mayıs 2017 Pazar

Good afternoon.

Mr. Rıdvan is not only a very good writer but also a very patient person. He worked with me for 9 years to realize this book.

He worked for 9 years, but of course, it happened intermittently. Frankly, the book was also longer, and we said a book this long wouldn't be read, so we shortened it. Then there was another issue. There were many names in the book, then we decided not to include too many names. The content of the book changed regarding issues encountered in business life.

Exactly, it happened just as you said. Yes.

Absolutely. Also, when you mention a person in a book, they don't have the right to respond within the same document, unlike on television, where you can connect by phone. When a name is mentioned, I believed it would be unfair to them. Maintaining good relationships with people is a very important part of my life. I think one of the important reasons I've reached this point is that.

Yes. Yes. How you want to be treated, you must treat others that way. When you do that, everything goes well.

I started banking at the age of 29 as a board member. That's not very common in Turkey or the world, starting banking at the board level. At 32, I was appointed General Manager at Pamukbank. Pamukbank was the first bank I worked at professionally.

We became the first bank in Turkey to emphasize advertising. There was a very successful advertising agency called Ada Ajans, the father of the advertising world... Their campaigns for Gil stockings, 'Beer is under this cap,' were fantastic. We started working with them. We had some slogans, like 'Deposit your money in Pamukbank, double it in 4 years.' When interest rates were liberalized during the Özal period, Pamukbank entered a very rapid growth phase, moving from 16th to 5th place among private banks.

I left Pamukbank in 1984, but I shouldn't say 'left' because I became the General Manager and Vice Chairman of the Board of Yapı Kredi Bank, which belonged to the same group, at a very young age. I was 39. Then, at 42, I founded Finansbank. That was the brand I created in banking. The first was Finansbank. The second was after we sold Finansbank to the Greeks. Since we retained the banks abroad, there was a branding period. According to our agreement, the name 'Finansbank' could not be used abroad, neither by them nor by me. Actually, they could use it, it wouldn't cause a problem from my side, but we had to re-brand our foreign operations.

It is used for our banking operations abroad. Because Credit Europe Bank, the name of the European Central Bank, is 'European Credit Bank.' Ours is 'Credit Europe Bank.' So we found a name that truly represents a very large institution. We also gave a very interesting name to our credit card. We called it the 'Credit Europe Credit Card.' That was accepted. We use this name in Russia and Romania.

We have branches in 8 countries outside of Turkey. But abroad, we are almost the only Turkish bank doing retail banking. There is one more bank doing this in Romania. In our operations in Russia, we have 1000 ATMs.

Exactly. And we have given credit to around 5 million Russian customers.

We didn't experience any problems at all.

I attribute it to the specifics of my business line. Also, of course, the Russians have banking activities in Turkey. Reciprocity is important. I'm sure they thought about that too.

Absolutely, I definitely see it that way. Because banking is a sector where there are always figures to compare the health of banks in Turkey with banks in other countries. The capital adequacy ratio, which is the capital strength of Turkish banks, is much higher compared to other countries, around 16-17%. In other countries, it's at 10-11%. In some countries like Italy, it's at 5-6%, and they are trying to raise it with state aid.

America restructured its banks very rapidly. But Europe was very late on this. Now in America, no major bank has significant problems, especially the big ones. But banks in Europe are still struggling with many capital and profitability issues.

It has a very small share, yes. These are interesting notes.

It's not an easy thing, generally. But selling Finansbank to Greece's largest bank, which, despite being publicly traded, could be considered a state bank because it had around 25% market share in Greece... Of course, very interesting things happened. Before the Greeks made an offer for Finansbank, they came and conducted very serious public opinion research here.

Yes, perception. Like 'What would happen if a Greek company comes?' They researched how the depositors and credit customers in that bank would react. The results were very positive, so they proceeded with the deal.

They have largely succeeded, really. The Turkish and Greek people are incredibly close. We eat the same food, we like the same type of music. Zülfü Livaneli is the best example of this.

Well, Turkey has been trying to do something about catching up in the last few years. One thing is TÜBİTAK is allocating more funds to universities and companies for research. At the same time, they are supporting the salaries of professors doing research abroad to bring them to Turkey. They have started to provide some very valuable support. The collaboration between universities and industry is very important here. Because in universities, of course, professors are also important. In America, all research—well, not all, but most of it—comes from universities. They do billions of dollars of research. Turkey has some successful companies in this regard, I won't name them, but we have very successful companies. I visited such a center 15 days ago in Gebze, and I was really very happy, frankly. Great work is being done, but more needs to be done. Because doing nothing or doing little here means falling behind. When you look, in 1962, Turkey and South Korea had the same per capita income, around 60-something dollars in the 1960s, coincidentally. Now the gap has widened significantly, and their potential is much greater because they have created global brands. They have automotive... We have very few global brands. Yes. So, if you were to give advice or make a call to young people, especially since you have a university, you founded a university, and you love being with young people, you have children. What call would you make? Which business lines should they pursue? How should they manage their time? Time management is probably very important, isn't it? What do you think about this?

Yes, it's very important, of course. First of all, young people must be curious. They must use technology well. And they must orient themselves towards professions with a future. Which ones? For example, the top 10 professions on LinkedIn 10 years ago don't exist anymore; there are now 10 completely new professions. Do you understand? So, universities should also focus on these. So, we need to move towards new professional groups outside of the classical business lines? There are also classical professional groups with employment gaps in Turkey. For example, when we founded the university, we established a pilot school, something we hadn't thought of before. Because Turkey started importing pilots from abroad due to the rapid growth of Turkish Airlines and private airlines. There are about that many foreign pilots in Turkey now. So we started training pilots. There is great interest from young people, including our female students. 25% of my students are female in the piloting department. Yes, in the piloting department. And now, a pilot, when they graduate, starts with a net salary of 15,000 lira per month. I even say this at university promotional meetings: 'In a bank, you won't get such a salary until you become a branch manager.' It's a very good starting salary. Today, the salary of a captain pilot flying a Boeing 777 wide-body aircraft or its Airbus equivalent is about 50,000. Yes, 50,000. It's a good salary, a very good salary. A pilot is hard to train, expensive. Pilot training is very costly. Pilot training costs around $50,000, depending on where it's done. Yes. This is one of the business lines. Do you see a few more similar areas in the new era? Of course, there are. What? Everything related to computers: software engineering, artificial intelligence, and then there are many fields. Of course, in health, studies on genes are very important. You founded a university, Özyeğin University. Many young people work and study there. How many students are there? Approximately 8,000. 8,000 students. 6,000 are undergraduate students, and 2,000 are graduate students, master's and PhD students. What we do there is ensure our students start working actively as soon as possible. For example, our university has a call center where they do credit card collections. Really? Under the dormitory, students go there whenever they have free time and start making calls. Or, 350 students on campus work part-time and get paid. They get paid, of course. Working while studying at university is very important. Most of us started our careers that way. Now, it's very important: you spend the money you earn yourself at a different pace. Ready money is spent at a different pace. When you earn your own money with the sweat of your brow, you spend it at a different pace. You also learn how to spend. When you earn your own income, you personally understand the value of money.

Well, if I were to consider having a lot of money as a calamity, I would be very ungrateful. Of course, having a lot of money has its difficulties. What is the biggest difficulty? The biggest difficulty is that you have to refuse many people. Let's say, you said something very important: refusing is very difficult, very hard to refuse people. You try to touch as many people as possible. For example, as a family, we have touched 1 million people so far. My wife, through the AÇEV Foundation (Mother and Child Education Foundation), has reached a population of 900,000 with pre-school children and their mothers, in 81 provinces, with 100 professionals and around 4,000 volunteers. You said 1 million. So you created jobs, employment, trained people in short-term and long-term programs, girls staying in the dormitories we opened, students studying in the schools we opened—I'm talking about responsibility projects. But in your business areas, in the fields where you created employment, including your banks, how many thousands of people have you employed so far? 50,000. We reached about 50,000. But not all 50,000 work for me now. Yes, but I see the people who worked at Finansbank as having jobs I created, because I am the founder of the bank. You created something. In Russia, we currently have 5,000 people on our payroll. Of these, 3,000 work in the bank, and 2,000 work in our clothing retail stores like Marks & Spencer. Do you manage them there? I don't manage them; I have managers. Of course. So they are among the institutions under you? Yes, yes, yes, yes. We are one of the first groups to expand retail abroad, one of the first, roughly. We have had such activities in Russia for 10-11 years. We also have operations in Ukraine, the Netherlands, Romania—we have a bank there, shopping malls there. Yes, we have a bank. Do you see new business opportunities in Europe or other parts of the world, from your perspective? Is there something you've wanted to enter?

I view it very positively. Because those fortunes are so large, it's impossible for them to be used or spent within the family even in a few generations. 50-60 billion dollars, maybe more. That's why I already founded the Hüsnü Özyeğin Foundation and the university. So you applied a similar model? Yes, of course. I built the university entirely with my own resources; I bought the land myself and donated it. And of course, I continuously support the foundation. The Mother and Child Education Foundation, the Hüsnü Özyeğin Foundation. And I have never accepted any donations from anyone else for the university; it's entirely from my own resources. We have a scholarship called 'Fırsat Eşitliği' (Equal Opportunity). It's a very special scholarship for students who have no financial means but rank in the top 20,000 in Turkey's exams. It's quite a substantial scholarship. The condition is to be in the top 20,000? Yes. And this scholarship is worth 60,000 lira annually. So it can cover the tuition, dormitory fees, meal costs, and we also give about 1,000 lira per month as pocket money. But to connect the university with institutions, we tell institutions: 'You commit to 150,000 lira for 5 years, and we, as the university, will also give 150,000 lira, so we provide this scholarship 50-50. And you choose the student. For example, if you are a construction company, choose an architecture or engineering student. Then take this student as an intern in your company during the summers, get to know them, build a relationship, mentor them.' This is a very multi-purpose way of creating resources.

Now, given my age, I entered the business world at 29. I have been contemporary with a few generations in Turkey and have interacted with several generations. First of all, with the late Vehbi Koç, may God rest his soul. In Yeniköy, I was on the second floor, and he lived on the fourth floor after his wife passed away. We would get together every two Saturdays. Did you learn a lot from Mr. Vehbi? I learned a lot from Mr. Vehbi and Mr. Sakıp. But Mr. Vehbi had a very interesting trait: he would mostly make me talk. For example, he was curious about the salaries we paid at our bank. Then he would call his own HR department to compare, asking 'How are ours?' Really? After I left, it's very interesting. Very interesting. Mr. Sakıp, of course, Mr. Nejat—these are very important doyens in Turkey, another generation. I want to say something. At the end of this book, there is a question: 'How would you like to be remembered?' I wrote: 'As a man who was a real man.' I want that. Actually, our family friend Yaşar Kemal had said this to my wife and me together. He told Ayşen Hanım and me: 'I don't really like banking, but this Hüsnü,' he said, 'is a real man.' I was inspired by that. We had great respect for Yaşar Kemal, may God rest his soul, a great master of Turkish literature and thought.

Well, to tell you about my failures, we would need to do another program with you. Do you have that many failures? Yes, many. From this perspective, I have many. I am a very entrepreneurial person. Like everywhere in the world, when you are an entrepreneur, you also have some quite unsuccessful ventures. But my biggest failure was probably going to Russia and trying to teach English to Russians. We partnered with an organization called Wall Street Institute to teach English. That business didn't work out. We had one-year packages, online education, distance learning. There was Follow Me, etc. Wall Street Institute is successful in Turkey, but we couldn't make it in Russia. Why didn't it work? Are Russians a bit distant when it comes to language? We just couldn't get it right. Maybe our price was wrong. We struggled for 4-5 years and lost quite a bit of money. Eventually, we sold the company in a very interesting way. The buyer said, 'This company will continue to lose money for a few more months, so put that money in now.' So we put an additional $1.75 million into the company, said 'good luck,' and handed it over. Is there a big opportunity you missed in Turkey, something you think 'How did I miss that?' Yes, of course. Turkcell is the biggest one. Yes. My friend from military service, Murat, first offered it to me. I sent it to my former boss. I said, 'I just founded Finansbank and don't want to spread myself too thin, so I'm not considering this for now.' Of course, I didn't research it much, like how much capital was needed. Actually, a significant part of it was financed by the government later, and foreign banks financed the license acquisition phase. But I say everything is fate. Now 5G is coming to Turkey, there may be new developments. Operators are active, doing successful things. Would you consider it again? No, I wouldn't. Because that ship has sailed. Yes, really? Yes.

Well, my wife and children are very understanding. Actually, I was always involved in the important matters of the children. But let's say the children are my wife's product; she was incredibly busy. Even when they were studying in America, my phone was on all night. I would get calls at 3 AM, for example. But I did spend time with the children. However, during more intense periods, we would go on week-long road trips in Europe or America during holidays. But to say I had breakfast with them every morning and made it home for dinner every evening would not be true.

Thank you very much, I thank you too. Take care.