Interview Summary
Murat Vargı, founder of MV Holdings and of Turkcell (Turkey’s leading mobile phone provider), relates his experiences being an entrepreneur amid the country’s conservative state culture and dominant business groups. Vargı describes the beginnings of his career when Turkey was a closed economy and the efforts under President Turgut Özal to introduce economic liberalism while in office (1989-1993) and of his own work in an export promotion agency and in representing foreign companies seeking to do business in Turkey. Primarily, Vargı describes the complex and risk-taking efforts to bring mobile technologies to Turkey, including his efforts to partner with the Swedish technology giant, Ericsson, and other overseas firms and financial backers.
We were successful because we were more advanced than the manufacturers. In a closed economy, there was no sales policy... no marketing. There was no nothing, because they were like delivery companies.
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Additional Resources
Turkcell [HBS case]
Corporate News: Turkcell Ruling Caps Long Fight,"Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2013
The Battle for Turkcell; Turkish Corporate Governance,"The Economist, April 21, 2012
Nanoident Technologies Gets Investment from MV Holding,"Wireless News, January 22, 2008
Turkcell Enhances Corporate Governance Practices and Adopts Dividend Policy,"PR Newswire, November 25, 2004
Economic Pressures Ring in the Changes," Financial Times, July 13, 2001
Jam Tomorrow, Never Jam Today," Euromoney, November 1999
Turkcell Taps into Turkey's Mobile Passion," Euromoney, February 1998
Bilka Brings Charges against Turkcell Board," Wall Street Journal, October 30, 1998
Turkcell's line goes dead," Euromoney,November 1996
Turkey: A Locomotive For Export Growth," Financial Times,December 16, 1987
Video file of this interview available at Baker Library Historical Collections, histcollref+hbs.edu. Harvard ID holders can access the full-length video above.
Interview Citation Format
"Interview with Murat Vargı, interviewed by Felix Oberholzer-Gee, September 17, 2014, Creating Emerging Markets Project, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, http://www.hbs.edu/creating-emerging-markets/."
