Highlighting that leveraging fresh ideas and energetic presence of young talents is crucial in order to play a part in global competition and in the future of business world, Yıldız Holding Chair Ali Ülker stated that investing in people stood out among their investments and, in order to attract more young talents, they had eliminated the prerequisite of having work experience in their recruitment process. 

Emphasizing the significance of equality of opportunity for sustainable growth, Ali Ülker said, “Under the umbrella of Women’s Platform, we are working hard to enhance visibility of women employees at all levels in our companies and provide more opportunities for women employees in manager positions.”

Speaking at the panel “Preparing for the Future: Next Generation Investments, Solutions and Opportunities” at the Uludağ Economy Summit (UEZ) held by Capital, Ekonomist and StartUp magazines, Yıldız Holding Chair Ali Ülker stated that in order for Turkey to play the part that it deserves in global competition, young talents and equal opportunities should be promoted more than ever. Ali Ülker said, “I think, building up “people-centric” organizations can be one of our key features that will enable us to make a difference in the world.  We need to offer more opportunities for people, especially for young talents. We have a relatively young population which consists of smart people who are fast learners and can rapidly adapt to changes. Based on this fact, we have eliminated the prerequisite of having “work experience” in recruitment of young talents in order to attract more of them. Additionally, it is crucial to pave the way for women’s economic participation. For this reason, under the leadership of Yıldız Holding Women’s Platform, we aim to enhance visibility of women employees at all levels in our companies and provide more opportunities for women employees in manager positions.” 

“Yıldız Holding expands its expertise in data science” 

Highlighting that investments made in data science played an important role in shaping the future of organizations, Ali Ülker gave information about Yıldız Holding’s projects developed in data science.  Ali Ülker stated, “Accurate analysis of data becomes increasingly important for companies like Yıldız Holding. As Yıldız Holding, we took significant steps to upskill our employees in data science. We have developed projects where data science professionals worked with our company’s middle level managers expanding in-house expertise in data science. One of our distinguished projects was ‘Global Data Management Governance’. This project will enable us to design the information network and big data of Yıldız Holding’s companies worldwide in such a way that they all can interact with one another. We have created an infrastructure that allows us to closely monitor the performance of Yıldız Holding and its group companies, the behavior of the consumers they have been interacting with, and brand developments. Thus, with the help of comprehensive analyses, we will be in a position to collect and manage healthier data.”  

“We should make science more effective for agriculture” 

Stating that our country should put more emphasis on long term planning and projects to avoid potential global risks in agriculture, Ali Ülker said “The supply chain that was disrupted during the pandemic has not been fixed, yet. The rising geopolitical risks across the world have proved that developing sustainable agricultural production solutions is vital. In this era, the world is more like “communicating vessels”. The negative impact of the war in Ukraine on global supply chains sets a good example to this approach. On the other hand, the negative impacts of global climate change on agricultural production are mounting much faster than scientists predicted. In order to mitigate risks in agriculture, we should make science more effective for agriculture and pursue a more scientific path. Revision of agricultural policies and more investments in agricultural technologies are urgently needed.  

“We focus on R&D projects in development of native seeds”

Stating that they are constantly investing in smart agricultural practices in line with Yıldız Holding’s strategy of focusing on food and retail businesses, Ali Ülker said, “In our era, agricultural technologies are increasingly gaining importance. Among these technologies are use of data mapping to predict harvests, smart irrigation practices, soil monitoring using satellite data, land classification using image processing, utilization of drones. In addition to these agricultural technologies, Yıldız Holding is also involved in executing projects for development of native seeds. In the upcoming period, our Aliağa project will be focusing on R&D studies to develop brand new and high quality wheat seeds.”