How does the increase in women leadership in business world and on boards of directors benefit companies?

In the present age, there should be no room for discrimination on issues such as gender, race, language, religion and nationality. In any case, the main thing for us at Yıldız Holding is always merit; Merit brings with it equal opportunity. In other words, every employee with the necessary equipment and skills has equal opportunities regardless of their gender, race, belief or nationality. Undoubtedly, at this point, special attention should be paid to the participation of women in employment under equal conditions. Employment of women, especially their employment in senior positions, is primarily our responsibility towards society. In order to develop sustainable and healthy solutions to global problems, everyone in the society must be represented and all talents must be used. Ensuring equal opportunity and gender diversity within inclusive corporate culture also makes all employees feel safer and work more efficiently.

On the other hand, having more women on the board of directors means strengthening the corporate governance structure. If the customer of business is not represented in the management of that business, there will inevitably be deficiencies in the decision process. Buyers must also have a say in production and sales. In addition to these, increasing the representation of women is very important especially for the new generation workforce. The new generations attach great importance not only to the salary or the quality of the job, but also to the social approaches of the institutions. Therefore, this issue is very critical in terms of being the preferred employer, acquiring new talents and retaining existing talents.

I believe that decision makers in all businesses should give importance to women leaders and women employees for an egalitarian, respected and socially strong brand image in accordance with the requirements of the age.

What kind of activities do you carry out on this subject at Yıldız Holding?

Increasing the representation of women in business life, especially in senior management, is a very important agenda. At Yıldız Holding, we are constantly improving our equal- opportunity-oriented policies in order to fulfill our responsibility. In addition to the participation of women in the workforce, we also attach great importance to ensuring the sustainability of this employment, and we consider these two topics together. For the sustainability of employment, we offer equal and fair rights in areas such as side benefits, promotion, wages, development and workload. We take care to create a work environment where each of us can reveal their potential at the maximum level.

Together, we support this egalitarian and fair approach with our discourses. We take care to use language free from gender forms. Again, in this context, we prepared a Communication Guide and shared it with Holding companies in order to contribute equality in communication in the workplace. All our companies now provide communication language alignment under the umbrella of this directory.

Currently, the rate of total women employees at Yıldız Holding is around 40 percent; Our rate of women employees in senior management positions is over 20 percent. The rate of women among our board members is 12 percent. However, we do not find these rates sufficient, and we are working to increase it even more. We support the participation of our women employees in the Mentoring – Protege Program of the Women's Association in Board of Directors. We will focus on mentoring and women manager development programs in the upcoming period in order to encourage women to take part in leadership positions.

How do you evaluate the activities of Yıldız Holding Women's Platform in terms of equal opportunities?

Yıldız Holding Women's Platform, which we launched last year, has accomplished very important and meaningful activities in very short time. I see successful works such as a comprehensive and versatile manifesto, two separate reports completed in short time and Communication Guide for Equal Opportunity as the harbinger of many other improvements and projects to be made by the Yıldız Holding Women's Platform.

I believe that the Platform will support an important transformation in order to ensure equal opportunity not only in our company but also among our stakeholders in general. In order to realize this comprehensive social transformation, we need; we aim to set an example for society and raise awareness of all our employees and stakeholders with Yıldız Holding Women's Platform.