Hanzade Doğan Boyner
E-commerce Pioneer & Philanthropist
“It's having the courage to try and having the ability to get up when you fail because you're going to experience failure.”
Summary
Alan and his friend Hanzade Doğan Boyner discuss the qualities of modern business leaders and what it takes to be successful, especially in the mid- and post-pandemic world.
Hanzade left her father’s company after much pushback and started Hepsiburada, which became Turkey’s largest online retailer. After awakening to gender inequity in society and within her own company, Hanzade implemented a program to support women business owners through mentorship and financial incentives.
In this episode, Alan and Hanzade also discuss the demands of modern leaders, especially in the difficult job of juggling a personal life and a career.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Hepsiburada is an e-commerce store offering a wide range of products such as electronics, apparel, stationery, home decor, and groceries
“Dad, Send me to School” is a corporate responsibility project that aims to create equal educational opportunities for young girls across Turkey
Murat Emirdag is the current CEO of Hepsiburada
Aydın Doğan is Hanzade Doğan Boyner’s father
Guest Bio
Hanzade Doğan Boyner, born 1972, is a Turkish businesswoman, philanthropist, entrepreneur and e-commerce pioneer. She is the founding chairwoman of Doğan Online Group Companies, the largest online corporation in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, and is the founder and chairperson of the e-commerce platform Hepsiburada.com, often called the “The Amazon of the East. In July 2019, Forbes called her “one of the most successful women tech entrepreneurs in the world,” and Fortune Turkey has credited her with leading the country’s digital transformation.
Follow Hanzade on LinkedIn.
Clips from this Episode
Episode Transcription
Alan Fleischmann
On today, it's a pleasure to have you on Leadership Matters. You're a champion of women's economic empowerment, girls’ education, you're truly one of the pioneers in e-commerce. And I'm excited to introduce you to our audience today. I know you're welcoming us today. And we're welcoming you from Istanbul, Turkey. And I just want to say, welcome.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Thank you, nice to be here.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, I should tell our listeners that I've been wanting to have you on the show for a long time and that you are reluctant to do this. And I know Forbes did a profile of you last year. And I know others have gotten glimpses of you at Fortune Global conferences, the Fortune magazine, and others. But you've been relatively discreet in your public presence. And if it's not for a purpose, or for a cause, you tend to not want to do it. So I had to lure you in by suggesting that this is a great opportunity for other women executives and men executives who are interested or pursuing great careers in tech to get to know you and get to know how you lead. And it was only with that effort that I think I got you to come today. So I'm very grateful.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yeah, thank you.
Alan Fleischmann
Let's talk a little bit about your family. Because I think we'll start at the beginning. You grew up in a very well-known family, the Doğan family. Your father is one of Turkey’s greatest entrepreneurs. And what most people don't realize is your father actually is self-made. He really came from the countryside, went into the big city, and created a path, and built a family business that was quite extraordinary. But what people may not also know is that, like your father, you being an entrepreneur, you struck it out on your own, you launched your own startup 20 years ago. And that has become a huge success. And you become a self-made entrepreneur yourself at size and scale that frankly, few people can say they are anywhere in the world, let alone in Istanbul. So let's talk about your decision and a little bit about your family. I'd love to hear a little about your father and your mother and your siblings. And then let's talk about that decision that you made, which was quite courageous, 20 some odd years ago, to strike it out on your own.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Thank you. First, I have to tell you, I really get very uncomfortable listening to you because you make it sound as though I've done something incredible. I haven't. When I look at it, I still feel I have a long way to go. And it's just the beginning. And I feel a little bit shy and uncomfortable listening to you. Just to manage the expectations of the audience, it's not close to how you describe it.
Alan Fleischmann
That's why you're so endearing is that humility that I described is actually genuine, it's not fake, it's real. But tell us a little about where you're from, I'd love to hear from your perspective about your parents also, and where you came from. And then a little bit about the business end.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
As you described, my parents are self-made, it's a quite conservative, typical Turkish family. My mom: maybe my passion in trying to help girls and women around the world comes from my mom because her story is a sad story. At the end, she's very happy and she's an accomplished woman, but she always wanted to be a lawyer and she wanted to go to law school, but my grandmother did not allow her to go to Istanbul, stay in a dorm and finish university. So she kind of had to marry at an early age. It was a semi-arranged marriage. And she always told us, you have to stand on your two feet. You don't rely on your father, you don't rely on your husband. You have to stand on your two feet. She always empowered us and my father was also very encouraging to us. You know, being strong characters and working in her company. She never encouraged us to go on our own. It was always we will be hardworking but for her. For him, sorry. So we are four sisters. All four of us are quite accomplished, I believe. All my sisters do work within the family company, and I've also started working in my father's company. After college, I worked in Goldman for a while. I did my MBA and then I joined my father's company. Which, for all my life, I never thought I would do something by my own. I always thought I will put everything I have to take the Doğan holding further. Things did not turn out like that. In three, four years’ time, we started having arguments. I felt I didn't get the support I wanted. And I was doing a lot of digital investments because it was a traditional media company. And it was very clear to me that we had to turn into a communication platform rather than a traditional media conglomerate. And the tension increased. And if you ask my father, he will tell you, she knew she would do well so she left us. But my story is that I was pushed out of the company. Yeah. And then I got like you and I started my own company. And I've started an internet holding company. I've done small investments. I exited some of my investments. Hepsiburada, as you mentioned, did very well. It's still growing. It's still a hyper-growth company. So it's still very early in the company's life stage, I believe. I have some other businesses, as you know, so it turned out to be good. I am happy.
Alan Fleischmann
One of the things that I'm struck by is that someone referred to you when I first met you years ago, as self-made. And I thought, she can't be self-made, she comes from a very successful family. Your father was very successful and very well known. He was self-made. And then I realized and really looking at your history, you really are self-made. Because when you made that decision—I love how you say you were fired, but I think it was that you were a rebel and they couldn't put up with you anymore. And you decided you couldn't change them, so you might as well do it on your own. But when you went out, from what I understand, there was no bank that was going to finance you because of your family background. And there was nobody who was going to support you. So you actually created this idea that became this great company, the largest independent e-commerce company in the world. Because you had grit and vision and you had support from your sisters, which is wonderful. But it wasn't like you had support from your father because he didn't want you to leave, despite what you just said. And obviously, anybody that would have given you a loan said, why would we give her a loan? So you really did start with ground zero and build up from there.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
I mean, that is correct. Because when you think of self-made entrepreneurs, you always think they come from a background with limited resources. Yes, my father had a huge company and a lot of resources, but he did not finance me. On the opposite, he tried to pull me in, to pull me back. Yeah, it wasn't his ideal world, either. In his ideal world, everybody worked in the family company. You know, I don't like to think, would it be better or easier if I didn't tell my father because I also believe I got tremendous—I respect him, I've learned a lot from him. I've learned a lot working in his company. At a very young age, he gave me big responsibilities. So I don't want to undermine the benefits I got from being his daughter.
Alan Fleischmann
He also was a great role model.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Having said that, I also know that being his daughter brought certain packages that I had to carry, in many ways. And yeah, I would consider myself self-made because he never wrote a big check and told me, go and do it.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, the truth is, I've had conversations with your three sisters and I know how close you guys are. And they'll tell you that you've always been different than the other three because the other three will say that they never thought in a million years, they would leave the family business. Not only did you leave the family business, you were the first charter going overseas to go to school overseas. And you kind of said, that's the way I'm going to do it. And I know that there's one great story of your sister Vuslat, where she tells the story of how you, as children, you sat at the head of the table, often in your father's seat. And that was a very symbolic seat. It was always your father's seat at the table. But you had no shyness at all. And you would stake that territory as your own. And she says, that's the moment that you realized you were going to have your own journey. And you have. So it's a great story.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
My father never let me sit in his seat. I would take the seat, and he would tell me to get up. And I would insist. And I remember one night, he told me, this is it. You're not sitting there. The family is, father sits here, your mom is gonna sit across me and the kids sit in between us. And I cried. He said, No, you get up. So I get up. And I left the house and waited outside the door for I don't know how many hours thinking they're come and pick me. They didn't.
Alan Fleischmann
They decided to let you stay out there and you're outside waiting for them to invite you back.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Exactly.
Alan Fleischmann
But I think that that is a very important symbol of your fierceness and your defiance, even at a young age. Obviously, not everybody does that. And you do come from a culture—when you think about it, I think of Turkey, I think of entrepreneurialism. I do think of entrepreneurship. It's been ancient. The merchants of Turkey have been the best of the world. But I don't necessarily think of women as being entrepreneurial. And the fact that you’ve become a global role model, especially to women in tech, you really can't think of another person like you worldwide, even in the United States. In fact, I was with you at one point, when I remember one of the editors of a prominent magazine said to you, What is it like to be one of the most prominent women of tech in the east? And all of a sudden, it became clear that we started thinking together, there was no one like you in the West. So clearly, there's this women entrepreneurial energy that has come out of your work. And to your credit, it's not just yours. You’ve shared it with others. But what is influenced you to actually take on—I'm going to go back and forth in your life a little bit. But what is it just you and taking on other women, and really trying to change the way people think of not just Turkey when it comes to women entrepreneurs, but globally? In the world of zoom during the epidemic, you've got two daughters, I have two daughters. And no matter how many times I tell them, I'm doing something, they come downstairs, they walk right by, they make noise again. But it's also endearing, it's nice.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Alan, for me, it's natural. I can't think the other way around. I mean, I'm a woman with resources. I have a privileged place. And it's just I have to help in whatever way I can for other girls and women to have the chance to live their life in the way they want to live. My first initiative was a social mobilization movement called “Dad Send Me to School”, which started 15 years ago.
Alan Fleischmann
The ones where Dad takes you to school?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes, that one. At a time where we had more than half a million girls at the age of school who were not registered to school. And we said this is the most important problem of Turkey. Not unemployment, not inflation. This is the most important problem. And it is probably one of the most successful private-public partnerships in the world because we led the movement. We built girls dormitories, we provided a scholarship. But also, we worked together with the Minister of Education and developed a lot of policies like it was illegal not to send your child to school. But instead of making it a fine, we taught the government to give money to mothers who registered their daughters to school. So with many different initiatives, in 10 years, the number was equal between boys and girls. And now currently, there is no gender gap in school registration in Turkey. Because I think that's very fundamental to have that education. And we with Hepsiburada, it's a big platform, we have 180 million monthly visits, we have 25,000 merchants. It sits at the heart of Turkish commerce, Turkish retail. And I said, let's see what percentage of our GMV comes from merchants, companies who are owned by women. And what percentage of our suppliers and merchants are women, and the number was very insignificant. It was, in terms of our GMV, it was less than 1%.
Alan Fleischmann
So less than 1% of your merchants were women?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Of transactions done on the platform.
Alan Fleischmann
What year was this, that you discovered this?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
It was four years ago.
Alan Fleischmann
Wow. That's a small number And shocking.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
It was very small. Now it's around 8%. We have 8% of the revenue comes from woman-owned merchants. And in terms of the number of merchants, we are more than 10%. So we've done an incredible improvement. And we said like, what can we do? We have all these resources. We have access to consumers. We have marketing power. What can we do? And we launched a program called technology power to women entrepreneurs. We invited women across the country. Anybody who has something to sell, they come to us. We help with product onboarding. We do free photo shooting. We give free shipping. We give free advertising. We prioritize them on our listings, on our search results. And you come in as a woman entrepreneur, once you reach a certain amount of revenue, you graduate and a new woman comes to the platform. And I believe it's impactful. It makes a real impact in a woman's life. We pulled from their hands until they grow. So they can learn. We give trainings, they learn and now they can do their trade independently, which is amazing.
Alan Fleischmann
And I just said you're starting a mentor program now, as well, to link up the women with other women who've been successful on your platform.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes. Women who graduate from the program—graduating means they lose some of the incentives, but they still keep the privilege of being prioritized and taking part of the campaigns and get priority. They’re incentivized by the visibility on the platform, but they don't get the financial incentives, and they become mentors to other newcoming women.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very fantastic. So when you get to a certain point of success, you're still a priority, but you're not going to get the financial incentives, but you are going to be required to give back to the next generation of young women entrepreneurs who want to scale too. But your growth has been it's very impressive in four years.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes. I'm very happy with the results. And there is a funny story. When we were designing the program, we had long discussions because we had to make sure that it's not a social responsibility program. We had to make sure that it solves the problems of women and it is internalized within the company. So it’s run by our Chief Commercial Officer, it's part of us. And while we were having the discussions, I was always pushing for more incentives. And one of our colleagues said, all men are gonna transfer their shares to women to get the benefits and you're gonna go bankrupt. And I wish that were true. That's not gonna happen.
Alan Fleischmann
You can think about that. If the incentives are so good for women, all you have to do is make the men transfer to their spouses or somebody else.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
I said it's even better.
Alan Fleischmann
The cultural change would be good, I guess. It is amazing because I don't think in the world of e-commerce anyone's doing what you're doing. I know, that's for sure. But I don't think there are very many companies on the planet, certainly not at your size that are focusing on women entrepreneurs or helping incentivize women leaders and founders like you're doing. So you couldn't have found examples elsewhere, you probably had to create it all internally.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes, Yes, that's true. I hope we'll see more and more come there are companies who, of course, do amazing work for gender equality or for other social problems. But this design, we don't know anybody else. And it's a very powerful program.
Alan Fleischmann
You studied at the London School of Economics, and you got your MBA at Columbia University in New York. Did that change the way—when you came back from there, was that part of your—had you gotten a sense that, I want to start—I know, you obviously had the entrepreneurial spirit, even when you were a kid, based on the stories I've heard. But did you come back to that with more of a global perspective, things you wanted to bring back to Turkey because of that experience? What perspectives did you bring home?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
I mean, I came back after the LSC when I was at Goldman, it was the time where the telecom industry was being privatized. And Yahoo was going public and the AI merger. So it was the internet boom. So a lot was changing.
Alan Fleischmann
The Time Warner-AOL merger was happening.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
A lot was changing. So I was in the center of, even in New York, I was in the middle of the tech revolution. So I went back with all those ideas and determined to take over the traditional media conglomerate and turn it digital and make it something much bigger, much different. So yes, I did come back with more global tech-supported view back to Turkey.
Alan Fleischmann
Is that prayer that I'm hearing right now in the background? What is my hearing? It is. I thought so. You’re in Istanbul, so I figured it must be. But it's interesting because we're going to talk about the pandemic and what you're doing right now in a few minutes. But when I think of your company, and then I realized that when you came back from being at LSE, and then Columbia. You founded your company in 1998. That's a long time ago when you think about it. And it was certainly at the dawn of the internet age. It wasn't like—so you had ideas well before there were smartphones in your pocket or even when most people didn't even have computers, or even internet access. But you knew that something was going to happen. It would be great right now, as I'm thinking about this in my home sheltered in place in Washington, DC, and I'm thinking how dependent we are on e-commerce. How incredibly dependent. We're going to get into that in a minute. But how did you even know that that was going to be the future when you were thinking about the earliest days of your company? Like you knew something was going to happen. Because you didn't get into books, you didn’t do the Amazon way where they started with a Kindle and with the books. You actually got right into creating a marketplace from day one.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
We started as a retail platform. Yeah, so it was just selling goods from our own warehouse and it turned into a marketplace much later in our journey. But Alan, I know, Doğan online, the holding company that owns Hepsiburada, that is the company I can say taught internet to Turkey. I’ve started an online travel site, which I sold later on. I've started an online car site, which I sold later on. I still run the leading online betting platform. I started a portal business similar to Yahoo, which I had to write off. So I don't know, it was very clear to me that the world was changing in the same way that I feel the world is again, changing now.
Alan Fleischmann
Another moment where we’re doing it. Did people get it when you started? Did people actually understand what you were creating? I'm sure there are a lot of people that thought you were, I don't want to say that they thought you were crazy, but they probably thought you were risky when you started the company.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Actually, Alan, in 98 and 99 I was still with my father. So I've started many initiatives within my father's company. But after the 2001 crisis, the view was, the internet is dead. That was the general view. And nobody was thinking that these investments will pay off.
Alan Fleischmann
Let's talk about the time right now. We're gonna keep going back and forth a little bit. But I am struck by the fact that e-commerce, honestly, if we had this pandemic, even just a couple of years ago, where the access to Wi-Fi was so limited, and there was no real e-commerce, I don't know how the world could have transitioned the way we have. And I know there are many people that don't have access. But when I think of what you're doing, especially the way you were just describing your work and your incredible incentives for women entrepreneurs. For me personally, for families around the world, e-commerce has become our lifeline to feed our families and supply things we need at home. Businesses have depended on e-commerce to transition to home. And then so many restaurants and so many retailers have struggled. And those who are not fortunate enough to be on a platform like yours have really struggled. But you’re keeping a lot of these companies, these entrepreneurs, not only doing but thriving. And I know when I first asked you to come on the show, you were very hunkered down and focused on the business. What struck me was not only did you feel a certain responsibility to your retailers or your partners that are on the site, on your platform, but I'm very struck by this film that I saw about how much care you're taking with your employees, and that their safety and their security was your number one obsession when I first talked to you right after the pandemic. And you were making sure that you were ready for your customers, but you really were really focused on the employees. Tell us a little bit about that amount of security and safety and the precautions you're taking internally, with your employees. And then let's then talk about a little bit about Lifeline because I think e-commerce is being reimagined right now.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Sure. I don't know how to say this, but we were very early. Like the day that we had the first positive case in Turkey, Murat, our CEO, called me and we discussed and we developed a plan that was very, very detailed, and we took very early precautions. Such as from day one, nobody was allowed to get into fulfillment centers without their masks, without gloves. We hired extra cleaners. We hired special employees to disinfection of the premises every day. Fevers were taken. We've increased the number of service buses. So there were much fewer people in the service buses. We increase the number of shifts in the fulfillment centers, so that if one case is positive, then we can isolate smaller groups rather than the whole premises. Yes, of course, health can never be compared with economic benefits. But we realized that our employees were doing—everybody was shut down in their houses and our employees were doing overtime. So we offered special bonuses for each day they work. We also announced that—in Turkey, everybody has access to health care, National Healthcare works very well. But we realized during the pandemic, the public hospitals might be full. So we told our employees that we will take care of whoever gets sick in any private hospital that is needed. So just giving them the comfort that we are with them. And all these precautions paid off. We haven't had big outbreaks, and it was very well managed. And I'm very proud of my management team actually for being so on top of it and taking decisions so early and implementing it.
Alan Fleischmann
I know that you speak very fondly of the CEO that you brought on to work with you, Murat. I know I hear that a lot. But it is striking to me because there was this film that was made about the sanitation, the taking up temperatures, the gloves and the masks. And what struck me because it was actually at a very early time of the pandemic here. And there was anxiety even here in the United States about whether or not we could trust e-commerce. Whether we could trust having things delivered. So when I saw your film—Now, obviously, I wasn't lucky enough to be a beneficiary of the products that you were getting and selling, but I felt a relief that someone like you was taking the detail. And I saw it was really to protect them as well as to protect the customer. But when I realized you can actually do this, that one can do this with a lot of care, about taking temperatures, about keeping people apart from one another, isolating groups at a time, doing the shuttle. The way you describe it all, it all became clear to me that this is very doable, and actually very scalable. And that is a bit of a relief. Because we were saying earlier, before the before we started the show, living in this one place and not moving because you're respecting, and it's happening in Istanbul, it's happening in capitals all over the world and communities around the world, we're all staying home. And to do that, you need the outside world to be able to still come in. And I think that's where e-commerce is actually reintroducing itself, again. Not as a luxury, but it's something that we depend on. And technology is allowing us to do that. So I probably want to say thank you for doing it, because it actually does give us confidence that we can be safe and protected. And also, I guess, thank you also, because you're respecting your employees. We went into this pandemic talking about unskilled workers, globally. And now we're talking about essential workers. And that mindset change is happening. I know you've been talking about that for a long time. You have enormous respect for those—and you're very grateful for those who work for you. Tell us a little bit about the culture. Because that didn't start with you during the pandemic. You didn't just start these policies at the pandemic, you were already very respectful of your employees before. And why is it so important?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
I get asked these questions why it is so important. And it’s because it comes from within us. It's important because they are important. It's important because that's the right thing to do. And as a company, we've always been about cooperation. We're a tech company but we have never been about disruption. We always said we will anchor and fuel the digitalization of retail, rather than kill retail and disrupt retail. And that's what we've done. That's how we have this relationship with all the big retail brands in Turkey. And when it comes to our employees, the welfare of our employees is just, it's so crucial. Within our means, we've never paid minimum wage. In our fulfillment center, we've always paid slightly more than the minimum wage. We always made sure the service buses the health benefits. It's very important because you—of course, there is still inequality, the inequality is there, it will get better, it's part of life. But within that inequality, you want to make sure, within your means, you do the best you can. And you want to make sure that you have a safe and happy workforce. I think if you don't have that, then the variations and the profit, it doesn't feel good.
Alan Fleischmann
Is that part of your secret formula? Because when I brought up to you before, what if Amazon challenges you or Alibaba challenges you? They’re so big. You probably won't like me were sharing it, but your response to me was, Bring it on.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
I didn’t say that.
Alan Fleischmann
Something like that. What you said about being disruptive. When I think of the other ones, I do think of them as replacing retail. When I think of you, I think of you as enabling and supporting retail, and is that the big difference?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
That's definitely a big difference in terms of the way we approach, the way we do our business. And nobody takes Amazon lightly. I mean, it's Amazon. But what I always say with our team, is if we give the right service to our customers, if they're happy with our service, if we have the right relationship with our merchants and suppliers, if we enable them and we grow their businesses, and if we have a workforce who is safe and happy to be part of our company, then just throwing money is not going to get your market share. They can come. Alibaba enters the Turkish market through an acquisition. Amazon is present in the Turkish market. But we keep our leadership and we grow our market share because certain things don’t happen overnight with a lot of cash. You need to be on the ground, you need to build your last-mile delivery, you need to continue innovating, understand the market dynamics. So we believe, even them being in the market, they’re gonna grow the market. But as long as we do what we are doing, there is no reason for our customers are not chance to leave our platform.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. So you do the best, and you're the best, then why do you worry, right? But you have to be the best and you keep fighting for that. And I guess what you said earlier in the show, you said, when I introduced you, you said you're still feeling like you're growing and you're still moving forward. So you're not taking this lightly. You're certainly not complacent. And I've been with you at different forums where powerful people come together and talk about important issues. And you're always a little different than anybody else. Maybe because you're very humble. Maybe because you have this attitude that you're best yours are yet to come and that you're not going to be complacent. But I see you in conversations where we've talked about capitalism. And when I think of your company and being the largest independent e-commerce company in the world, and I think if you representing probably the most significant women tech entrepreneur of the world; you don't come in with a hammer. But you come in with a question. When we're talking about capitalism, which is really what merchants are a lot about, you want to reinvent it. You talk about how we have to readdress it. You're very much in favor if I understand. You believe in capitalism, obviously. But you believe in capitalism for good, I'd love you to tell us a little bit about not what we will be like coming out of the pandemic, but maybe a little bit more we should be like, as we're thinking about capitalism, people call it stakeholder capitalism. You clearly think employees first, customer second, I would imagine. Because you can't have good customers happy if you don't have employees happy. So you have employees, customers. You have your merchants that you're very much empowering. How do you define stakeholder capitalism? I know that you're a private company. And you've often said that it's easier. Although I'm not sure that's true. It's easier being a private company than a public one. But what would you say that big companies like yourself and what would you say to people who want to know what you think about capitalism? And what should we do with it? What should we do to make it work?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes, you're right. I had been thinking about this issue for a while now. And for us, it might make a difference to be public and not to have investors on your neck all the time. But for us, we are like this and we live our truth. And during the pandemic, it gave us the chance to show our truth. On a broader level, when I think about what's wrong with capitalism—because of the essence of capitalism is, you work hard and you earn more and it's the merit system and there is no limit. You can change. I do believe in those merits. But at a broader level, I think is the problem maybe is that the power between corporations and labor and government is destructive. Corporations have too much power compared to labor and government. And out of globalization, what came out that the corporations always says, I can go to any market if I don't get these benefits. I can go to cheaper markets. So they always keep the wages low, they keep the taxes low. All this is for more profit and more valuation. And the labor doesn't get the benefits of globalization. On the opposite. Because corporations can go anywhere that is cheaper, everything stays cheap in the market, and the governments don't really fully get the benefit of globalization. So I do believe this power is gonna get more balanced. And when I say balance, I don't mean necessarily more regulations, but it will have to be balanced. And this can either happen, yes, changing the tax system, which I believe there will be changes in terms of the international tax system. This can happen through some kinds of regulations, which, if they're not written correctly, can be a disaster. But it should also change through awareness. Awareness of corporate leaders saying, Okay. Awareness of investors saying, Okay, enough is enough. What are we doing when there is so much poverty next to us, and there's so much gender inequality next to us? What do we do? Let's balance the focus on profit maximization, and social goodness, social wellness, I think that's gonna happen. That should happen.
Alan Fleischmann
Is that a conversation you think that's happening globally? Or is it happening only in select areas? How do we make it happen? Do you think the pandemic is going to accelerate that conversation?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
I think it has to because now we gonna go through an economic crisis. But what economic crisis actually means is we're gonna go through suffering. Unemployed people are gonna need food on their table. And we can't just wait for the governments to solve these problems. I think there needs to be definitely—I don't know if these conversations are being—Yes, people do talk about stakeholder capitalism, but not at the intensity or passionately that I would like to hear it.
Alan Fleischmann
It is interesting because I think you said something very important. And I often think of statesmanship that's coming from private industry. Because elected officials, public officials, they can't do it alone anymore. It used to be that you just relied on government, and without partnership, or it certainly even without the prodding of the employers, it doesn't happen so readily. And I think public officials want it. They want that partnership with private industry and certainly with civil society. But this idea of global leaders talking to one another without business isn't happening anymore. A lot of these conversations are happening from people like you, who are speaking to these issues and saying how important it is that we take into account more than a few stakeholders. Ahat we take into account employees and customers and partners, I guess. And investors, obviously. But that it has to be everybody together rather than just doing investor investor investor, which has been the case.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes, exactly.
Alan Fleischmann
And I know that you also feel strongly that—and when we talk about stakeholder capital, we can't forget to talk about the inequalities among gender, and minorities, and others, because if you don't explicitly say it, and you don't explicitly focus on it, it doesn't happen.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes. You’re absolutely right. Yes, women are a part of it. Women is too big to call it a stakeholder, it's part of everything. But gender equality has to be—we can't lose our focus. And we have to also push more. Like we have to be more ambitious and more aggressive pushing for gender equality.
Alan Fleischmann
So you've launched something, you've launched a few things. You've launched HepsiJet, HepsiExpress, HepsiPay. You’ve got a lot of things you're launching. Obviously, tell us a little about those. And also I'd love you to give advice a little bit for someone who is listening to this, and we've got people literally from everywhere listening in the show, what advice would you give them now, if they're interested in being entrepreneurial? Because you started your company right after as an economic crisis as well. So, I'd love to have you tell a little bit about how you're addressing this because I want people to hear it. And then let's go right into the last few minutes. If someone were here asking you, okay, I see you as a role model. Tell me how to do it. Or tell me if I should do it. And whether you would say this is the right time to do it. So tell us about it. Tell us a little bit about some of the innovative stuff.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
I mean, HepsiExpress is our company that does grocery delivery. It's a partnership with Carrefour. And it does grocery delivery in the next hour. So if you order now, it comes within two hours. You can also choose later slots. But mostly the demand is for the next two hours. It has a big selection from fish, meat, to anything you can think of. So it's not just grocery, but it's anything you can find in a big supermarket. HepsiJet is our last-mile delivery solution. It's a tech-enabled last-mile delivery company. Basically, at the moment, we deliver just slightly more than 50% of our orders through HepsiJet. And HepsJet also has the capability to give delivery by appointment. Next day delivery, same-day delivery, which is very important to grow our business. And HepsiPay is a licensed company by the Banking Regulatory Authority, which provides alternative payment methods to our customers. It's like credit card split. In a way, we are a one-click company. So we do our credit card storage, but through HepsiPay, we can do payment installments and alternative payment methods for our customers.
Alan Fleischmann
So you're very enlightened because you do things that, frankly, you don't see on Alibaba or on Amazon's platform. You're not going to say that, but I'll say it for you. You're clearly thinking of things around the corner. You keep growing a company and you're very innovative in how you approach it. So then, if you're somebody who either loves commerce or loves tech, or has a great idea, and not necessarily the courage to say, I should go on their own. Or they have a lot of people who say they shouldn't do it, like you had a lot of people that told you in 2000 2001 you shouldn't do it. What's your message? And is this the right time? What would be your message to it a very thoughtful, the future Hanzade.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
I would say go for it because I went for it. I had a very strong voice telling me not to do it. My father's. It wasn't easy to go while he was saying no. But it's having the courage to try and having the ability to get up when you fail because you're going to experience failure. I mean, My life’s journey is full of failures. I’ve failed, I've tried again. But overall, life is long and in the long term, at least you feel confident that you've tried your best and you’ve given everything you have. And in my case, I was blessed and it turned out well for me. But I think that courage is very instrumental. I had that within me. And I don't know for any specific businesses, there can be different timings. But during a crisis, there's always opportunities as well. There's always more problems to solve. And that's what entrepreneurship is. Finding a problem and solving it.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, I was talking to the editor of Forbes magazine two days ago, and I said to him that I think the future cover stories for him are going to be the billionaires who figured out the technology that allows us to know who's healthy and who's not, or who can be in public space so that we can open up our public spaces again. And these people that are figuring it out right now that are going to be no solutions to our challenges are gonna be the ones who are going to lead the way going forward. But when you think of the industries of the sectors that have become indispensable, certainly science is indispensable. But e-commerce has become indispensable. And I would say that coming out of this pandemic, values-driven companies are indispensable and you have managed to actually become indispensable in two very important areas. It’s how do you build a values-driven company? And then how do you do it where you're building a company that is indispensable? So I guess the issue for the people who are listening who say, okay, figure out the challenge, there's always crisis, but figure out where there's opportunity. I guess your other message I hear you say is also be indispensable. Figure out a way that you can create that glue?
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes. Would your customers be sad if you're not providing your service? Or would they say, I don't care? If they say, I don't care, why do you give so much effort? In Hepsiburada, since the beginning, we said, we want our customers to say, I'm so happy, we have Hepsiburada and we want our merchants to say I'm so happy we have Hepsiburada. That's where the real value is, I think.
Alan Fleischmann
So as we're closing here, I'm a father of two daughters. You're the mother of two daughters. It's not easy juggling the kind of career that you have. And you've often talked about that, the expectations for a mother. You're a Titan when it comes to being a business leader. You're a Titan when you're in when in civil society as a community leader globally. How do you manage the personal? Because I know how important it is for you also to be there, be present as a mother.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
You know, it's not easy and I don't like it when we make it look like you can do it all. You can have the kids, have everything, and build a career. Yes, you can. But it's not easy. So we need to also talk our truth. And my advice would be to get a husband who is gonna take off of the whole child's upbringing and all the house sport. And without that, it's very hard. It's the right husband, that's my advice.
Alan Fleischmann
Marry wisely. Maybe the most important decision of all. I know that you've been very open about it. People have written books about Lean In and this, that and other things. You're not critical of them for trying, but you are very clear that you have to be honest, that it's not easy. Because you struggle and you're very open to the fact that if you're struggling, that so many others are struggling even more. It's a very real conversation, actually, that needs to be had. People acknowledge the fact that it's not easy, it's very hard to do it all. And then your point is, you can do it all. But there are moments of sacrifice.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Yes, there is always—sometimes you give up from the potential in your business, sometimes you give up your social life. It's doable, but not easy.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, I hope that your company becomes even more global. I know that you're expanding, I hope that the work that you do around women entrepreneurship in particular becomes an example that other companies will share and learn from you. I love that you're doing this mentoring program now as well. I love what you do with Dad Take Me To School. And that's actually an initiative, frankly, that shouldn't just be in Turkey, it should be elsewhere, not only in Europe but also here. But this idea that we need to make sure that we're empowering all parts of our society, especially women. As a father of daughters, I care about that a lot. But I just want to say thank you. I do think you are amazing. You're very humble. I got you for an hour, which is unheard of. You're very restless and you're busy and you don't necessarily want to talk about yourself. And I hope that the listeners here today on this great show Leadership Matters have enjoyed this as much as I have because you are a role model as the number one woman tech entrepreneur in the world. And that's a title, who runs the largest independent e-commerce side of the world. And you hate when I do this. I see your face. But I will say it's important that people know it can be done.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Thank you. Yeah, I do get uncomfortable with this.
Alan Fleischmann
The listeners should know that while I'm saying these things, you’re waving for me to stop.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
There are many more women who are doing amazing things, much bigger things than I'm doing.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, I don't know. But as the listeners should know, as I'm telling these things about Hanzade, she's waving to me to stop talking. So you should know that she doesn't like this at all. But I would just say on behalf of the listeners of Leadership Matters and all the folks who care about leaders, just thanks for coming on the show. I hope you'll come back again. And thank you for all you're doing in the pandemic also, and certainly what you've been doing before, and the leadership you'll provide as we come out of it, but you are an example, and we're very grateful for the time.
Hanzade Doğan Boyner
Thank you very much. Thank you.
Alan Fleischmann
Talk to you soon.
