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4
T
ekfen’s foundations were laid at a time
when new airports, highways, and facili-
ties were being built in Turkey, by three
friends who worked at the Ministry of Public
Works and decided to found their own com-
pany. They implemented their decision under
dire financial circumstances, in a small office.
After that, Tekfen grew confidently to this
day, and its success has been founded on hon-
esty and hard work.
For my beloved husband Necati Akçağlılar,
who died in 2011, work was almost a form of
worship. He used to spend more than six
months a year at construction sites, and when
I complained that I saw too little of him, he
would say, “The workers at the construction
need me to work hard.” Putting on his boots
and going from one site to another fueled him
and gave strength to the workers who toiled
under very difficult conditions.
Today, Tekfen has become a huge family of 15
thousand people, all of them hard-working
and honest. It gives me great pleasure to see
that the company’s corporate culture is alive
and strong today, based on the hard work of
the three founding partners, their desire to do
their work in the best way possible, and the
way they joined forces to reach their aims. I
believe that these qualities, which brought
Tekfen to the present, will be key in the com-
pany’s success in the future.
Time passes and new generations arrive.
Needless to say, Tekfen also changes. When
you see how fast these 60 years have gone by,
it is not that difficult to imagine what will
happen in 100 years.
What we need to do is to trust our young
friends and support them in their quest to
carry Tekfen, which is one of the most select
companies of Turkey, to an even better future.
Business is becoming ever more competitive,
and I would like our young friends to remem-
ber this little piece of advice that makes Tek-
fen what it is, whenever they feel stumped:
“Enjoy the work you do and do it the best way
possible.”
I congratulate the entire Tekfen family on
their 60th anniversary and wish them contin-
ued success.
CANSEVİL AKÇAĞLILAR
Vice Chairwoman of the Board of
Directors, Executive Director
I
t is undoubtedly important for a company
to have a long past, but even more impor-
tant than that is to “Grow without Getting
Old” as the title of our 50th anniversary book
says, or in other words to have a sustainable
future. In May 2015, when Nihat Gökyiğit,
our previous Chairman, passed the torch to
me, he said, “Now, Tekfen expects to be taken
even further under a new strategy, with re-
newed enthusiasm and effort,” thus laying out
our new road map. We strive to go forward on
this road as fast as possible.
There has been an immense change through-
out the globe since the day our company was
founded. Our agenda is marked by macro
trends such as global warming, concomitant
desertification, water shortage, food safety,
influx of immigrants caused by civil war and
the collapse of states as a result of climatic and
economic reasons, an aging Europe, the shift
of the world’s economic center from the West
to the East, and increasing digitalization. This
wind of change has been blowing even more
strongly for the last decade. During the last
few years, the world, as well as Turkey have
undergone great changes that would have
been imaginable only in decades. The global
economic crisis, the Arab Spring, and the eco-
nomic crisis in Europe are only a few exam-
ples. These changes pose a threat to the viabil-
ity of our activities in Turkey and the region as
well as our sustainable growth.
This is why we are now entering a period
where caution seems advisable. On the other
hand, the destructive competition that now
reigns throughout the world necessitates a
radical change of mentality both in the way we
approach our work and in our methods of do-
ing business. In order for us as Tekfen to at-
tain sustainable growth, we need to be a part
of this change. And even that may not suffice
– we may have to be one of its champions.
Despite these developments in the back-
ground, what will give us competitive edge in
global markets is our “intellectual capital” –
the experience, expertise, and reputation with
which we have been entrusted. Our job in
these new times is to turn this accumulation
into assets on our balance sheet. Within this
framework, we will broaden and develop our
main businesses while also using technologi-
cal advances to a greater extent.
In agri-industry, we will grow both organically
and inorganically. We will consider a wide ar-
MURAT GİGİN
Chairman of the Board of Directors,
CEO
In loving memory.
NECATİ AKÇAĞLILAR
(1924-2011)