I was born in Istanbul in June 1984. After completing the
primary school- which was 5 years in the 90s in and I went to 3 different
schools-I found stability and studied for 8 years in a nun discipline at a
French girls’ high school: I couldn’t break the school with full enjoyment, I
got penalties for missing volleyball trainings and being late for school, I
couldn’t even wear a sweater different from school uniforms, even its colors
were to be the same and, I could not wear jewelry… Don’t pay attention to my
wailing, in this way, I became punctual, responsible and respectful of the
rules. In 2003, I went to Ankara to study Business Administration at Bilkent
University. Yahya Kemal Beyatlı said beautifully: “The most beautiful part of
Ankara is its return to Istanbul”. As an Istanbulite, I went to Istanbul in
every 10 days, justifying him; every time I went back to Ankara, I had a Monday
syndrome.
Although I was an only child, I didn’t get most of the things I wanted in life
easily; I had to make an effort. After spending the first 2 years in the
dormitory, my family asked me to pay the dues; I gave mathematics private
lessons, and when I wanted a car, they said I had to buy one tire myself; I
started my internship and gave French private lessons. So I got my first and
last teacher’s day gift. At that time, of course I could not make sense of
these conditions, but now I am grateful to my parents for raising me like this.
I was introduced to marketing research through an elective course I took while
in college, and since then research has become a passion for me. In 2009, I
learned the basics of the research by doing an internship at GFK Healthcare
department. I started working at Millward Brown in January 2010, where I worked
for 1.5 years in advertising research, and in 2011 I continued my career in the
advertising research department at Ipsos. By applying to the rotation program
at Ipsos, I moved to a department focusing on the Non-FMCG sector. Here, I’ve
done local and global projects for sectors I’ve never heard of before, for
products I did not know about. Maybe I’ll never use it, I have an unnecessary
general culture, but I’ve always been nurtured from “learning”. For the first
time, I learned how to explain the research results in the simplest form, since
I had customers who needed research for the first time. After spending 5 years
with great pleasure and constantly improving myself, I wanted to leave for some
health reasons and take a break from my career.
I can tell by experience that I’m not a housewife at all.
Just 4 months after leaving, I found myself working at Envirosell, a boutique
and shopper company. I learned a lot about retail research by reading the books
of Paco Underhill, who is considered a retail guru, and by applying his
methodologies.
One day in November 2017, I saw that someone was looking at my Linkedin profile
from Sia Insight Human Resources. Although I did not know much about it, Sia
had always had a pleasant, warm and sincere image for me. I wanted to send a
message and say, “If you’re looking for someone, I’m the one”. But I chose the
normal way and sent my CV instead. My feelings did not mislead me; Sia was my
new family.