Chairman of the Board of Directors, Fibabanka A.Ş.
Hüsnü Özyeğin, 31 Ocak 2017 Patronlar Okulu İnteraktif sohbetinden derleme..
Patronlar Okulu basına ve genel katılıma kapalı bir gruptur. Gerçekleşen etkinliklerin tamamından sadece Patronlar Okulu üyeleri faydalanmaktadır. Aramızda konuşulan sırlar, özel bilgiler bize kalsın, herkesle paylaşabileceğimiz deneyime istinaden edinilen önemli derslerin, nasihatlerin, öngörülerin bir kısmını kanalımızda yayınlayalım istedik. Daha çok kitleye ulaşıp, birçok kişinin faydalanabileceğine inanarak paylaşıyoruz.
Videoda adı geçen herkese selam olsun. Nusr-ET’i telefonla arayan, sesini duyacağınız kişi kıymetli üyelerimizden Sayın Mustafa Taviloğlu. Videoda imzalanan paranın şan...
About Hüsnü Özyeğin
Hüsnü Özyeğin, chairman of the board of directors at Fibabanka AŞ, participated in a program on Dünya WEB TV on August 13, 2021, moderated by Hakan Güldağ, where he spoke with graduates of Özyeğin University. During the event, Özyeğin stated that he had not imagined Özyeğin University would become the top-ranked university in Turkey in student satisfaction surveys within such a short time. He described founding the university as the most significant venture of his life, emphasizing that investing in young people yields returns many times over. In a December 28, 2011 interview, Özyeğin assessed the economic outlook for 2012. He argued that the European Union lacks the fiscal policy unity needed to solve its problems, unlike the United States. Regarding Turkey, he stated that the economy was being managed well, with coordination among the Treasury, Ministry of Finance, Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), and the Central Bank. He suggested that the Turkish lira would stabilize if the current account deficit remained at $50–60 billion annually, and that further monetary tightening might be necessary if inflation was not controlled.
Transcript (38 segments)
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Hüsnü Özyeğin0:00
In 2011, the Bosses' School held its first meeting on January 26th at Çırağan Palace. I had started dreaming about this back in 2019. Today is the day I'm making my dreams come true. The first person I wanted sitting in this chair was someone I chased after for years. Those who attended the energy program on October 4th know this. I said he was the only man I pursued in my life.
[Laughter] For three years I kept looking for him, always saying 'when will you come?' It was always 'not yet.' But then it happened. We did it on October 4th. I opened an account at the bank, deposited money, wore the clothes from the path, and a synergy was created.
A synergy was created between us. It wasn't empty — our feelings were real. If I had known this intensity, this hardworking nature of his, I would have been grateful. We set aside these minutes. I have two principles: first, I do this work without taking any money. I didn't demand anything from you. Before we start talking, I think it's time to make a contract on this matter.
Second, since the tourism crisis began, these meetings have been held at the hotel. We need this seriously. Think of it as friends gathered in a living room. No press is here — nothing will leak out. We don't care about what you did or how you did it. Please share with us your experiences. The experiences you've lived through are invaluable — things money can't buy.
We're here to listen to you with open ears, to be inspired by you, to learn what we've forgotten. We're friends who came to learn from you. There are friends here who don't speak your language, but I prefer this kind of conversation. We'll ask you questions, of course. Friends, please don't leave saying 'I wish I had asked that.' And they will add their own experiences to what I say.
Let me start. In 1987, I was 37 years old. I had previously founded the bank. I was 40 when I founded it. Looking back, achieving this in life is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. All the conditions came together, and I founded that bank however I could. For the first time, a professional manager was given permission to establish a bank from scratch.
You might say I had political connections or something — there was nothing like that. I was given the bank license, and I'm saying this for the first time, so the audience is small and there's no press. The Economy Minister — it's also in his book — I said to him, 'I want a blue bead from you.' He asked, 'What is it?' I said, 'I want a bank license.' He told me exactly this: 'If we don't give it to you, who would we give it to?' Those were his words. That simple. Do you want a bank license? In this informality, this sincerity — yes, we'll give it to you.
Now, those conditions can't be recreated. With 8 million dollars in capital — today that's the price of a villa in Istanbul, not even one overlooking the Bosphorus. I worked at Yapı Kredi for 13 years. But the only thing I had was a network — and that network was the most important thing in business life. The institutional clients I met and supported during my 13 years at Yapı Kredi and Pamukbank.
Interestingly, in 1987 and 1988, I opened branches in İzmir and Eylül. But until 1995, I didn't open a single branch. This was God's help to me. Because if I had opened 30 or 40 branches like some banker friends did, I would have automatically started collecting deposits. And in the 1994 crisis, we would have been destroyed.
I built a young team over those years. Looking back, giving them time to gain experience, to get used to things, to build a common institutional culture — that was actually the right approach. If I could go back, I'd start the same way with you. Interestingly, even though I was General Manager at Yapı Kredi and Pamukbank, I didn't take many people from there.
I took two people — I'll come to that. I wanted to build a team. I wanted people who spoke good English, who had serious education. People like Fevzi Bozer, Özlem Başaran — all from America, young people. Interestingly, of the first 24 people I hired, 15 were different. The team I built with this crew was the one that came to acquire the bank.
When you sell something at a very good price — like I did with Finansbank — this evening, perhaps you all know or don't know, but those of you who haven't experienced it as intensely as I have, when you do something very successful, you get this attitude of 'let it go, I'll be successful.' The moment you fall into that mindset, the problems start. And at that moment, you need to be careful.
You need to be careful not to say 'no' when the business is at its peak. You need to strike while the iron is hot. There's also the other side — if it's not at the right level, you need to close it. I held the first Failure Summit at Özyeğin University. Eşref Sabancı came, Emre Kurttepeli came. Since they're internet people, they make smaller mistakes in the businesses they enter. But when one of them shines, it's good.
When you're very confident in yourself, when you get into this 'I can do anything' mindset, when you enter sectors you don't know — and you don't know them — you can't choose the right partners, you can't choose the right outcome. There's huge potential in healthcare abroad. Acıbadem went to Bulgaria. Healthcare services — Turkey is like 15-20 years ago, slow. The big players haven't entered much. These are businesses we started abroad and closed — businesses we didn't know.
And this confidence comes — humans think 'I can do it.' If there's money and points, we go abroad. You won't believe it, but I've done this a few times. Let me tell you about it. We had an English teacher — we started a business. It looked like a person, but actually we were selling 3-4-5 packages a month. We couldn't make a decision. The money I put in was all gone. The buyer said, 'There's 1,750,000 in this bicycle.' I said I wanted to buy it. We put it in like a TP. We sold the bicycle with money inside.
When you decide to get out of a business, you need to look at the cost. If it's a business your managers don't know, and I don't know either, if I say 'I'll handle it,' it becomes a mistake. You're going your own way, and the people around you want to get involved, but you keep going your own way and you hit a wall. From 136 branches, we went down to 65 branches in two years. From 5,500 employees to 2,850. We believe this message will carry the bank forward.
We'll learn automatic transmission. We had individual credit, all kinds of credit cards — about 1 million credit cards. I'm proud of the bank because abroad, when you add up all the branches — including state banks — we have more branches than them. Now, I did this with overconfidence. I did it in Romania, in Moldova. One of our eyes was on Moldova. The Milliyet newspaper said 'Özyeğin opens a shopping center in Europe's poorest country.' It slowed down but we're very satisfied. It was the only shopping center in all of Moldova — debt-free. It was a shopping center where retailers who wanted to open stores could work.
We have no debt. Let's talk a bit about partners and humanizing them. How do you work with professionals? When it comes to me, they don't interfere. If they wanted to interfere, they would have changed their views. I knew them, they changed a lot. In retail, there are three important factors for success: location, location, location. I say the same thing about business success: three internal factors — human resources, human resources, human resources. Don't see them as employees — see them as capital.
When you look at the village, every year 60-70 management candidates — what do they need? We take fresh graduates from university and we believe in them. We train them in groups of 25, two or three groups. We share the human resources with our managers. 160 people were enough, but I took 122. We train them at Özyeğin University in the summer, staying in dormitories, doing sports, bonding them together, trying to make them a cohesive unit. We pay great attention to this at the start of employment.
When inflation raises wages, we take care of these employees like our own eyes. Six months later, out of the 120 people we hired, we give a 10% additional raise to 12 of them — on top of the inflation raise. They get 89% performance. These kids are brilliant — they cling to it. The 12 people are different from the other 108. Among the 123, we give 5% to 10% of them. We want to show them they're different. The others, we say it's not a problem — they should show that effort, that success, be examples. We want them to stay, we don't want them to leave.
This human resources planning is very important. Because if you train your own employees correctly, they'll never be like someone you hired from outside. We do hire from outside, of course, but we hire operational people or people with a portfolio. For example, if we're opening a branch in Eskişehir, we need someone known in the market. We hire a successful person from another bank, and they bring someone with them. We give them management trainees so they can grow over the years.
I've also done some unconventional things — most of them turned out very well. For example, the central branch manager — I called him and said, 'You're not coming to the market.' He had a store, and he started licking from there. Everything came to the bank as a sweet. He had three stores. I said, 'I don't know about these things.' But a manager is a manager. I'll give you an example: a general manager named Aybiyem was appointed. He couldn't find a manager from within, so he used a headhunter. He got someone from a company and put him there. The board was skeptical, but he turned out very successful. A good manager is a manager.
I came from America. I had never worked in a Turkish bank. When I graduated, Steven offered me a job. I had a contract at the time. I went to a consulting company and worked there for three years. Then I came to Turkey. Eczacıbaşı was interesting to me. The late Nejat Bey spoke to me three times. He was one of Turkey's 34 industrialists. He offered me a job. I was about to agree. I took a dolmuş from Taksim, got off in Şişli. The building was around 810. The holding was there. I had half an hour more. I thought, let me not think about it.
Mehmet Karanlık was my classmate. I hadn't seen him since I was 16. When I saw him, I wrote a letter — a casual 'hello, how are you, what have you been doing?' He said, 'You can't go anywhere.' He wrote me a letter offering three jobs. He said, 'You'll work here.' That's how dormitory friends are. And can you imagine — I was 29 years old, and he said he was giving me a bank. He didn't even say the name. He said, 'I'm going to take you as a board member. We'll do this and that.' I said, 'I don't know banking.' He said, 'Learn a bit about banking.' I said I didn't even have an account at a Turkish bank. He said, 'That's great — you've come at the right time.'
I came from America 10 years later. I got into this a bit, worked for three years, then kept running around. I said, 'Leave it.' He said, 'No, keep going, we're developing you.' In 1979, Pamukbank — in Istanbul corporate tax, it paid the same tax as Akbank. It had made that much money. The person who brought it to that level — then other things happened. Mehmet's overseas coffee street — the young people know this. Something happened. The camera was very good, I spoke more appropriately.
Hard work, beautiful, very beautiful. Friends, that's how it is. In my life, there's a son — if he hadn't been there, I wouldn't be here. He had drawn his path. I had a debt. I had work. I met him there. Osman Berkin, the assistant — are you saying hello? A pizza place — he was going to recognize someone he'd never seen. God — 'Walk, my servant,' the signatures walked. Yes.
Can we make a Fiat 500? He was sick. He had a face, he had money. Something else. Will it happen? I actually like signing contracts. Two months ago, in Dubai, we went to Nusret. There was no Hüsnü set because he goes on Thursday evening and comes back on Saturday. We went on Sunday evening. It turned out there was a pharmacy bag. There was a kind of opening there. I believe in them. I left the money there. He probably took it. Something like that.
Since I founded it, I've taken 51 people — all university graduates. Finansbank currently has 12,000 people. 18,000 have come and gone. 22,000 people have been hired. Since I started, in Russia I took 500 people. Now 2,600 remain. In Romania, we went out for a beer. Now 899. These are things I cancel. I'm proud that I hired 50,000 university graduates. And another thing I'm proud of: Turkey has brought in 7 billion dollars of foreign capital. I don't think anyone has done it like this. The way 7 billion dollars came is interesting. Turkey didn't give away any franchise like Türk Telekom, or sell any asset like Tüpraş. Everyone says human resources, but there can't be a more striking example than this. This is the value created by human resources — just human resources.
Sivas Insurance — now Sompo Japan — we acted smartly. I allocated 10% of the capital. I said, 'Distribute it as you wish, the capital is yours.' But I didn't like 250,000. I said, 'You choose the whole team as producers.' When Akseki Insurance came, the capital grew — we increased it to 5 million, then 40 million. I didn't threaten anyone. We gave everyone lemonade, thank God. After their capital reached 512-514 million, the company was sold for 5 lira in 2008. After 40 years, I put it up for sale. The buyers paid, the debts were paid. Our bank — later in the season, 45 days remained. They were already talented. They made money for me. It was one of the most beautiful things I did.
If I were to open my own business, from my own perspective — when you choose the right manager, the right human resources, it shows you can have a place in a certain sector. But I gave a speech at İş Bankası's corporate event 15 days ago. It was at a hotel, a thousand people. I told this story. Recai called me — after the bicycle story, the company appreciated a lot. I was very happy. The camera had grown the company incredibly. I canceled the company. I never regretted it. But many things can happen like this. I always keep in touch with employees and managers.
A year and a half ago, at our hilltop, a night was held at the dollar college. Finansbank — Recep had passed through. 120 fund managers from Turkey, spread across the world — London, Moscow — working at big banks. We had iftar tours. It's a bit different from what we did. Kerim Rota came from Akbank. They said, 'We're Akbank, we have 70.' The White — the general manager is with us. At the Elmadağ branch, we trained many bankers. I'm counting the old ones — İbrahim, Betil, Akın, Öngör. I started with them. They didn't know banking either. They were like me — they didn't know the business. They were scared when entering this sector because I didn't know it either. I said, 'I'll do this, I'll learn.' But I wanted Boğaziçi graduates to enter banking. They said, 'The sugar is here.' I said, 'We need a locomotive.' Because everyone follows the graduates a bit more. It gives a better image. It's not necessary to be in a full sector. If you're a top executive, learn quickly.
The last thing I did — also for the first time in Turkey — I appointed a general manager for Floranka from retirement. It was a very unconventional thing in our sector. He had never done banking. He was trained in operations, then came to retirement. I said, 'Come to retirement.' It was a company we built from scratch four years ago. He promoted it so much — not only managing it, but he also went to Ergo retirement and took another insurance company. Look, from a tiny company, we're doing 5-600 million TL. After that, there's pride — like a political project. I said, 'Let me do it.' Among all the work, I concentrated on setting this up. He volunteered for some group work.
An entrepreneur's son — digital, sees the IP, very smart. We gathered and said, 'Let's do this.' I was trying it. It started 15 days ago. It was one of the unconventional things I did. Since it's very new, I wanted to tell you about it — maybe you don't know. It's fresh news.
My biggest regret is Turkcell. Casper — think about it. Some businesses — maybe because I was 29 when I was at Pamuk, 32 when I was equal, my friend the late Mustafa wasn't there. Then their friends — not Rahmi Bey either — Vehbi Koç. Because he would say, 'Are you free tonight?' He lived in this apartment in Yeniköy. He lived on the fifth floor, I lived on the second floor. Every Saturday, he would call me up. We'd have two whiskeys and chat. A real friendship. A friend — the Family Health Foundation.
It dissolved into the board of directors and became a new thing. What can I say — like a friend. Looking back, in those conversations, I would ask him questions, but he always asked me. It was a mutual exchange. What would he ask? He wanted to learn. At his age, after I left, he always had an assistant — a lady who stayed at home. She would write notes. If there was anything, Pamukbank — I had just come. He would ask about salaries.
'Am I paying too much to a child?' Not like leaving, not like that. He would ask analytically. A person whose name we liked, who had a sense of humor. I called him at 9 AM. He said, 'We're opening.' He came. The news came out — a building, the 6th floor. The bank opening — the branch didn't hold. To avoid costs, it was the ground floor on İnönü Avenue. He came. We did some things. We gave the first financing credit. He was still the chairman of the board. The bank had been open for four years. Coffee — Filiz, our Ankara — I said, 'We need to fight.' And the interest rates — I said a rate that was impossible to open. He said, 'How much should I deposit?' I said, 'I don't want to say too much, as if the bank needs it.' I said, 'It's important for you to fight.' Everyone at the bank would be happy. 'If you open an account of 250 million, I'd be very pleased.' I said, 'I'm looking into it right away.' He said, 'Are you giving interest?' At that time in Turkey, interest rates were high — three percent. I said, 'You opened the bank, the interest rate is the lowest.' The next day, he didn't wait.
A Koç Bank general manager, Tevfik Altıok, called — the former treasury undersecretary. Because of his position, we would go to his door and wait. He said, 'Brother, what did you do?' 'What happened?' I wrote. 'What happened?' he said. 'Thank you.' 'What happened?' I said. 'Tomorrow we have a lot of money,' he said. 'He wants six percent interest now.' Ha — no loan money came to me. Ha — no news.
[Applause] [Music]