Nakiye Boyacıgiller moderates “Women's Leadership in Turkey" panel

Sabancı University School of Management faculty member Nakiye Boyacıgiller moderated a panel discussion titled "Women's Leadership in Turkey" during the 20th International Convention of the Soroptimist International Federation, one of the largest women's civil society organizations in the world. The theme for this year's convention was "Soroptimists Educate to Lead: Fresh Ideas Empowering Women."

Speaking in the panel were TÜSİAD Chair Cansen Başaran Symes, TÜSİAD Gender Equality Working Group Chair and SUTEKS Board of Directors Chair Nur Ger, Vodafone Deputy CEO Hasan Süel, and Intel New Technologies Vice President Ayşegül İldeniz joining via videoconference from the US.

TÜSİAD Chair Cansen Başaran Symes said that they were the only institution in Europe that had three chairwomen in the last 45 years, continuing "Since 2007, three women have chaired TÜSİAD. From this perspective, we can speak of much that has changed in Turkey. But looking at the complete picture as TÜSİAD chair, sometimes I can't help being scared. I think our job is difficult. I recently read OECD 2015 data on skills. It was the result of a survey among individuals between 15 and 29. Unfortunately, Turkey has the highest percentage of people who are neither employed nor in education in this age group: 31 percent. I guess this shows everyone how hard businesses must work to overcome this issue. From women's perspective, this data suggests that 4 million women have no access to work or education."

Vodafone Deputy CEO Hasan Süel and Intel New Technologies Vice President Ayşegül İldeniz discussed the benefits that technology would bring in this area. Ayşegül İldeniz told the story of a meeting she attended in the early 2000s, explaining that women desire to use technology as much as men do. Hasan Süel spoke on the "Red Light" application that won an award in Cannes.

Nur Ger explained the efforts of SUTEKS to ensure gender equality and support women's employment.