Mission possible: elevating Turkey’s businesswomen

Riada Ašimović Akyol

Jan 24, 2014

A trader reads a newspaper with the headline that reads "AK Party Term", during the morning session at the Istanbul Stock Exchange June 13, 2011. Turkish stocks rose on Monday after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party won Sunday's parliamentary election to secure a third term of single-party rule. The AK Party won 50 percent of the vote to give Erdogan a third consecutive term. But the AK Party's parliamentary majority slipped, as it won 326 seats, down from 331 in the previous assembly. REUTERS/Murad — A trader reads a newspaper during the morning session at the Istanbul Stock Exchange, June 13, 2011. — REUTERS/Murad Sezer

A couple of days ago, Vodafone Turkey, one of Turkey’s cellular carriers, brought Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of the world’s most popular social networking service, Facebook, to Istanbul to give a speech at a special gathering of CEOs.

Sandberg shared some of the messages from her international best-seller Lean In, which recently came out in Turkish. According to Sandberg, girls should be more represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics; women themselves should be offering more support to each other and rather than being judged or condemned, girls’ leadership skills and aspirations should be nurtured from very early on.