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06.09.2006 - LE FIGARO
LE FIGARO Güler Sabancı: The woman who prepares Sabanci to conquer the world
At the age of 51, Güler Sabanci manages the second largest Group of Turkey. Under her impulse, the Holding developed to the international level, and does not intend to stop on such a good way.
BUSINESSWOMAN in a world of men, Güler Sabanci does not throw in the towel. First with her bodyguards, who are requested to remain at a distance while the president of the Sabanci Holding welcomes the international press on the 26th floor of one of the two towers constituting the headquarters of the Group in Istanbul. With heads lowered, the giants obey. They have however all the reasons to be nervous. Ten years ago, her uncle, Özdemir Sabanci, had been killed right here by militants of the extreme left, who had managed to penetrate into her office, being armed with Kalashnikovs. Since then, like all the members of the family, who hold 80% of the Group, Güler Sabanci learned to live with her close guard.
With her short-cut blond hair, her costume neatly adorned with a brooch, a huge signet ring on her left hand, the boss of the Sabanci empire gives a broad smile to her foreign guests. In a rugged and far-reaching voice, she extends welcome to her guests as a hostess would do, talks about her city, Istanbul, and about the weather, inquires after health of some guests, and concerns herself with others. She knows how to ease her interlocutors, like the best negotiators. A tough businesswoman, rightfully appeared, in the 65th position, in the list of the most powerful women worldwide drawn up by Forbes magazine.
Multiplication of alliances
Hardly two years have passed since Güler Sabanci took the reins of the family empire. She was then 49 years old and her uncle Sakip Sabanci had just died, having spent 38 years building one of the largest holdings of Turkey. At that time, the announcement of her appointment had caused a mini earthquake. The businesses circles, and, beyond that, the entire company had been excited seeing a woman preferred to the brothers and the nephews of the founder. “It was not easy at the beginning,” she concedes.
However, if Güler was chosen to manage the second largest group of the country, the reason thereof is above all that she had proved herself. Entered the company in 1978, having just graduated from the Bogazici University, she started working at Sabanci as a trainee at the Lassa tyre factory, before climbing one by one all levels. She ended up as the manager of Lassa before being appointed to the head of Kordsa, the Group member manufacturing tyre reinforcement materials, located at the same Gebze industrial zone, close to the city of Izmit, a hundred kilometres away from Istanbul. These early years marked her career definitely. “Izmit is a place which has a special place in my heart,” she says today. From this difficult occupation, she even managed to extract a fascinating experiment. “I like tyres,” she declared in Forbes magazine in 1999. “They are shoes for cars, and I adore shoes.”
More prosaically, these experiments confronted her in her industrial profession and her will of undertaking, which she exercises in all her activities today. Because Güler started a more important change in the strategy of Sabanci Holding, by multiplying the joint ventures. In Gebze, she initiated thus contracts with the largest global groups who lose thereby a bit of their identity. In order to enter the Turkish market, these have to make alliances with a local partner. With Sabanci, their names change to include the two symbolic letters of the Group, the S and the A, the first two letters of Sakip Sabanci. The joint venture with Bridgestone becomes thus Brisa. That with the American Dupont, Dusa. That with Carrefour, Carrefoursa.
Marketing and communication
Surrounded with a team of young and cosmopolitan managers, she made use of her two years passed at the head of the Group to transform it. “It is my duty to make of Sabanci a more-organised, more professional, and more internationally-oriented group, which is provided with a more balanced business portfolio. When I entered the Holding, we were present in eight fields of activity. This number has already been reduced to six. Thus far, I think, we have done well,” she smiles.
And this is not in vain. Today, all the operations of Sabanci exhibit growth rates that make the leaders of the CAC 40 jealous. From a turnover of 10 billion dollars, the Group expects to reach 15 billion within three years. The energy sector, which the government prepares to privatise, should provide a sufficient source of growth to reach that point. Charm offensive in all directions, with promotion abroad and unbridled communication, the boss of Sabanci, obviously decided to gear up, has accordingly recently recruited a team of junior managers in charge of marketing and communication. In action for barely four months, this has already multiplied initiatives. As if it prepared the ground before Sabanci goes into new markets.
While waiting, confident in the economic potential of Turkey, firm advocate of the accession of her country to the European Union, proud of her partnerships with international companies who are the leaders of their respective sectors, Güler Sabanci does however not want to limit her horizon to figures and to results. “Speaking of my group without mentioning our role in respect of education would be incomplete,” she states. And it is probably that of which she is proudest. The Sabanci University, hosting the prospective elites of Turkey at its campus located 100 kilometres away from Istanbul, is her baby, she having never married. This ultramodern university is as expensive as an American one, but 40% of the students receive a scholarships, and all have the most adequate infrastructure. A way to implement the precepts of her uncle: “It is necessary to return to this soil a part of what it gave to us,” the late head of the family had used to say.
Legend:
The appointment of Güler Sabanci had caused a mini earthquake. The businesses circles, and beyond that, the entire company had been excited seeing a woman preferred to the brothers and the nephews of the founder.
BUSINESSWOMAN in a world of men, Güler Sabanci does not throw in the towel. First with her bodyguards, who are requested to remain at a distance while the president of the Sabanci Holding welcomes the international press on the 26th floor of one of the two towers constituting the headquarters of the Group in Istanbul. With heads lowered, the giants obey. They have however all the reasons to be nervous. Ten years ago, her uncle, Özdemir Sabanci, had been killed right here by militants of the extreme left, who had managed to penetrate into her office, being armed with Kalashnikovs. Since then, like all the members of the family, who hold 80% of the Group, Güler Sabanci learned to live with her close guard.
With her short-cut blond hair, her costume neatly adorned with a brooch, a huge signet ring on her left hand, the boss of the Sabanci empire gives a broad smile to her foreign guests. In a rugged and far-reaching voice, she extends welcome to her guests as a hostess would do, talks about her city, Istanbul, and about the weather, inquires after health of some guests, and concerns herself with others. She knows how to ease her interlocutors, like the best negotiators. A tough businesswoman, rightfully appeared, in the 65th position, in the list of the most powerful women worldwide drawn up by Forbes magazine.
Multiplication of alliances
Hardly two years have passed since Güler Sabanci took the reins of the family empire. She was then 49 years old and her uncle Sakip Sabanci had just died, having spent 38 years building one of the largest holdings of Turkey. At that time, the announcement of her appointment had caused a mini earthquake. The businesses circles, and, beyond that, the entire company had been excited seeing a woman preferred to the brothers and the nephews of the founder. “It was not easy at the beginning,” she concedes.
However, if Güler was chosen to manage the second largest group of the country, the reason thereof is above all that she had proved herself. Entered the company in 1978, having just graduated from the Bogazici University, she started working at Sabanci as a trainee at the Lassa tyre factory, before climbing one by one all levels. She ended up as the manager of Lassa before being appointed to the head of Kordsa, the Group member manufacturing tyre reinforcement materials, located at the same Gebze industrial zone, close to the city of Izmit, a hundred kilometres away from Istanbul. These early years marked her career definitely. “Izmit is a place which has a special place in my heart,” she says today. From this difficult occupation, she even managed to extract a fascinating experiment. “I like tyres,” she declared in Forbes magazine in 1999. “They are shoes for cars, and I adore shoes.”
More prosaically, these experiments confronted her in her industrial profession and her will of undertaking, which she exercises in all her activities today. Because Güler started a more important change in the strategy of Sabanci Holding, by multiplying the joint ventures. In Gebze, she initiated thus contracts with the largest global groups who lose thereby a bit of their identity. In order to enter the Turkish market, these have to make alliances with a local partner. With Sabanci, their names change to include the two symbolic letters of the Group, the S and the A, the first two letters of Sakip Sabanci. The joint venture with Bridgestone becomes thus Brisa. That with the American Dupont, Dusa. That with Carrefour, Carrefoursa.
Marketing and communication
Surrounded with a team of young and cosmopolitan managers, she made use of her two years passed at the head of the Group to transform it. “It is my duty to make of Sabanci a more-organised, more professional, and more internationally-oriented group, which is provided with a more balanced business portfolio. When I entered the Holding, we were present in eight fields of activity. This number has already been reduced to six. Thus far, I think, we have done well,” she smiles.
And this is not in vain. Today, all the operations of Sabanci exhibit growth rates that make the leaders of the CAC 40 jealous. From a turnover of 10 billion dollars, the Group expects to reach 15 billion within three years. The energy sector, which the government prepares to privatise, should provide a sufficient source of growth to reach that point. Charm offensive in all directions, with promotion abroad and unbridled communication, the boss of Sabanci, obviously decided to gear up, has accordingly recently recruited a team of junior managers in charge of marketing and communication. In action for barely four months, this has already multiplied initiatives. As if it prepared the ground before Sabanci goes into new markets.
While waiting, confident in the economic potential of Turkey, firm advocate of the accession of her country to the European Union, proud of her partnerships with international companies who are the leaders of their respective sectors, Güler Sabanci does however not want to limit her horizon to figures and to results. “Speaking of my group without mentioning our role in respect of education would be incomplete,” she states. And it is probably that of which she is proudest. The Sabanci University, hosting the prospective elites of Turkey at its campus located 100 kilometres away from Istanbul, is her baby, she having never married. This ultramodern university is as expensive as an American one, but 40% of the students receive a scholarships, and all have the most adequate infrastructure. A way to implement the precepts of her uncle: “It is necessary to return to this soil a part of what it gave to us,” the late head of the family had used to say.
Legend:
The appointment of Güler Sabanci had caused a mini earthquake. The businesses circles, and beyond that, the entire company had been excited seeing a woman preferred to the brothers and the nephews of the founder.
