Nilhan Onal Gokcetekin (F)
Chief Executive Officer
According to the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, one of the critical drivers of socio-economic development is gender equality. At Hepsiburada we are focused on women’s empowerment – not only because our business was established by a female founder, but because our management believe that long-term, sustainable growth can only be achieved through providing equal opportunities in the workplace, and beyond. This is a particularly acute issue in emerging markets such as Turkey. From a macroeconomic perspective, there is a close correlation between gross domestic product (GDP) levels and women’s access to the labor market. Although each country has its own unique set of economic circumstances, certain aspects of achieving gender equality are globally applicable. We believe in the power and value of being an equal-opportunity business, and we make sure that our human resources practices uphold this belief. This means offering women equal pay for equal work – as of now, the number of our female employees is 1.449 and 37% of our managers are women. We are proud to bring NGOs and foundations together to support and empower female entrepreneurs, and Hepsiburada has implemented several education and development programs to support women in business as well as in Turkish society. As an example, we launched the ‘Technology Empowerment for Women Entrepreneurs’ program in 2017, to support women in establishing and growing their businesses. The Technology Empowerment program leverages our company’s digital and technological expertise to offer the female participants the opportunity to open virtual stores.