UN honors Turkish conglomerate for projects supporting women entrepreneurs

By Tuba Ongun

Leading Turkish conglomerate Yildiz Holding has earned global recognition from the UN at a special session that covered barriers against women entrepreneurship.

The company shared its long-term practices with stakeholders, ambitious commitments, and concrete actions with the audience at the UN headquarters in New York, it said in a statement on Monday.

"Thus, the holding’s cooperation with UN Women to support female entrepreneurs has received appreciation on a global scale," read the statement.

Begum Mutus, Women Platform’s ambassador at Yildiz Holding, said the company carries out projects to reveal the potential within the ecosystem of women entrepreneurs.

"We are proud to see that our projects to empower women have been appreciated by the UN. We will continue to work ceaselessly to create a fairer, more inclusive, and more equitable world."

The panel titled Empowering Women Entrepreneurs on a Global Scale was held on Sept. 21 in New York during the UN General Assembly week.

The event gathered numerous opinion leaders and institutions working on equal opportunities on a global level.

Mutus pledged that Yildiz Holding will continue supporting women entrepreneurs within its global value chain.

Founded in 2021, the Women’s Platform carried its practices to the global scale through cooperation with UN Women, she said.

"Within the scope of the Women Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program that we became a part of last year, we made a commitment to support women entrepreneurs within our regional and global value chain and to invest more than $4 million in women entrepreneurs within 3 years."

"By the end of the first year of the Program, we exceeded this three-year target and generated a value of over $5 million."

The company aims to double the number of women suppliers next year, she said.