featuring Mahmut Ünlü, founder and CEO of ÜNLÜ & Co, Istanbul (41.0° N, 28.9° E)

Mahmut Ünlü is the chairman and CEO of ÜNLÜ & Co, a financial services group in Istanbul and Turkey’s leading provider of investment advisory and asset management products and services. He earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and his MBA from Rice University. He started his career at a merchant bank in corporate finance then moved to Turkey’s first investment bank and set up their corporate finance, research, and international capital market businesses. In 1996, he co-founded Dundas ÜNLÜ and developed it into the leading investment advisory and asset group in Turkey. After forming a strategic partnership with Standard Bank Group London Holdings and later acquiring controlling stakes, he established ÜNLÜ & Co in 2012.

I interviewed Mr. Ünlü at ÜNLÜ & Co headquarters in Maslak, İstanbul.During our conversation, we covered a variety of topics, including his first entrepreneurial endeavor when he was a child, his decision to start a business,and details about ÜNLÜ & Co’s work ethic and culture, as well as its aim to understand upcoming generations and how businesses should adapt for them. We finished the interview with Mr. Ünlü’s advice to students interested in investment banking, including the importance of having interpersonal and analytical skills.

From his early years, Mr. Ünlü’s intention was to be different from the others in his business field; he always looked for new opportunities, tried to increase his knowledge, and learned from his experiences. He told me, “In investment banking, your capital is your brain and your knowledge.” For me,this message has almost universal application beyond investment banking—you could apply it to other businesses or use it just as a motto for life. Even during the crisis and inflation days in Turkey, he saw opportunities and potential for his long-term plans. Even though investment banking was new to Turkey, he became successful in the industry. From his experience, you can clearly see the importance of using your knowledge and reasoning to look for new opportunities.

Creating a strong work ethic and positive company culture is also important to Mr. Ünlü. For him, ÜNLÜ & Co should attract and keep good people (both clients and employees) and keep them happy and motivated, even during disagreements or market fluctuations. In this industry, clients,partners, and employees have to be aggressive to get the best deal, but it is vital to keep a collegiate atmosphere. For me, a key part of Mr. Ünlü’s success in creating this environment is motivating various groups for the same purpose,while emphasizing the importance of understanding ethical aspects. Moreover,his focus on understanding and attracting the upcoming generation shows his value of creating a positive company culture. He emphasized the significance of adapting with different generations in order to improve the quality of business and to reach a better global vision and position in the future.

A final point we discussed was the specific skills a person utilizes in finance field. For Mr. Ünlü, interpersonal and analytical skills are crucial in this industry; the nature of the industry means conflicts can occur daily, and there is consistent competition among the institutions. In his position, for the optimal outcome, he has to make the right decision for any given situation in a short amount of time. He has to consider all the advantages and disadvantages during a negotiation and make a good deal for both sides. For these reasons, you should learn the laws and the tax codes, hone your analytical and interpersonal skills, and develop the ability to negotiate in order to become successful in investment banking.

Highlights from the interview

When did you first envision yourself in the finance field?

I didn’t envision myself anywhere. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I studied engineering because that was the thing to do, but I never wanted to be an engineer. Both of my parents worked in a bank, and I liked banking, so I did my MBA at Rice University to be able to become an investment banker. But actually, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, to start my own business.

My first entrepreneurial endeavor was when I was seven years old. I sold old comic books. It was a very good business. I went on a trip to Tarsus with my family, and I brought along a stack of comic books. When I was there, I saw that people were selling comics in front of the mosque, so I said, oh good, they are making money; I should make some money as well. I started selling my books. People started buying. I was getting cash for it, but then I realized my books were going so I wouldn’t have any books to read, so I decided, instead of selling, I said you can buy it for 1 lira, or you can read it for 25 kurus. Everyone started reading, because it is cheaper. Once you read it you don’t have to own it. So, I started accumulating capital. Eventually, after a month I had acquired everyone’s books, and everyone was reading my books. I made 20 liras, and I came back with twenty times as many books that I brought along on the trip. That was my first entrepreneurial experience. It showed me that if I can find a way to do things differently than others then I could make myself a good business. Ever since that day, I studied what my parents told me, but I always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

What led you to your current position and what does this position entail?

I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but it is difficult to be an entrepreneur in banking without capital. Banking is about money and you are supposed to have money to do banking. But the good thing about investment banking is that for some parts of it, your capital is your brain and your knowledge. I met another investment banker when I was working at Yatırım bank in 1994, and we worked together for couple of years in the bank. Then we decided that there is an opportunity in the Turkish market for advising people in mergers and acquisitions. Those were days of crisis and boom and bust cycles, high inflation, high devaluation. Even today we have high inflation but in those days, it was hundred and twenty percent. It was very difficult days, but we still felt that Turkey had potential that should attract capital. So, together we left the bank, in December 1995 and January 1996 we started our business. We decided that investment banking had a future. We first started with mergers and acquisitions advisory, because, as I said it required less capital but throughout the years we have grown our business to what it is today, which is a full investment banking and asset management business. We are still very active on the investment side. We are number one in mergers and acquisitions advisory in Turkey. We are number one in equity capital markets. We are one of the top five places in debt capital market business. We are one of the top players in terms of brokering international institutional clients investing in Turkish stock exchange. We have a wealth management business, which is growing very rapidly. On the asset management side we have mutual funds, private equity funds, distress debt funds, as well as a venture capital fund that invest in early tech companies. We started with four people and no capital, now we have close to four hundred people in all the businesses that I described to you, and we have capital now.

Do you think there are any misconceptions about your job?

Not as far as I am concerned. I don’t know, I mean, misconceptions from whose perspective is a question I would ask. I think it is very clear that we are trying to build investment banking in Turkey. When we compare it to when we first started twenty two years ago, people understand our business much better now. In those days they didn’t know any investment banks, but now after twenty-two years, and especially since middle of 2000 when Turkey became an attractive market for investments by international companies and institutions. The concept of investment banking has become more clear to the Turks, so there is less misconceptions about what we do today.

What are the skills you find yourself utilizing the most in your position?

Well, it changed from time to time, throughout my career, obviously as you advance to CEO and chairman of the business. Now what I utilize most is my interpersonal skills, diplomacy, still analytical skills obviously, in banking you have to be analytical in your approach to issues and problems, finding solutions. Those are probably the skills that I use the most. Earlier on analytics were more important than diplomacy and interpersonal skills. Now it has been switching in terms of their place as far as what I do today.

What has been your favorite project or your experience so far?

My most favorite project is my company. Starting from a very small team to become Turkey’s leading investment banking and asset management group. I am still very excited. Now our goal is to take it even further to become a regional player, to expand, hopefully once hostilities in our region subside, we want to expand in our region, as well as in major markets, major financial markets. We have an office in New York. We are in the process of opening an office in London, and we have a representative office in Singapore. As a base of business, we are currently only in Turkey, but we want to expand to places like Egypt, other larger countries in our geography.

What do you think that makes your company stand out as a great place to work?

You should ask the people. I think it is our culture. We are success driven but we are not overly aggressive towards each other. We are aggressive outside, you know, getting business and completing successful transactions, but we have—I would like to think that we have—a collegiate atmosphere where people complement each other. We also pay attention, we understand very clearly that our most important asset is our people and we try to take care of our people. So, I think as generations change we do have challenges obviously, in terms of achieving to be a great place to work but we spend a lot of time and energy on that as well. Like we now have Millennials, and we are anxiously waiting for the Z Generation as well. We do spend a lot of time and energy in senior management to understand the new generations that join the work place. We have to adapt ourselves in order to be a long-standing business. Our aim is to be around in hundred years time as well. So, we cannot just focus on what we have done well with this current existing generation; we have to know what the new generation wants.

How are science and technology reshaping the work you do?

Well, it is affecting some parts of our business. On the trading side, it has become very technological. For instance, in our brokerage business a lot of the businesses are coming through now through machine orders, or lots of algo-traders now, trade through algorithms instead of taking advice from brokers, so that is one side. One thing that is approaching, it has started in the U.S. not so much in Turkey yet, is our wealth management business, robo-advisory is becoming more popular. Obviously, it is something we will have to integrate into our business as well. On the investment banking side, still mostly done in the classical ways but now, I briefly mentioned about block-chain technologies, security coins become more commonplace, a way of raising capital. Obviously, that is something we will need to integrate into our service offering on that side. And then all the operational systems obviously, they are all technologically driven and as our business grows more, horizontally getting into different business lines as well as regionally, technological integration is key. Especially on the businesses like the wealth management business we already employ a lot of technology. A lot of our clients now trade through iPads, or mobile phones, all those things. If you can’t adapt to those changes, even if you are best at what you do you may not be able to compete moving forward, so we spend time on where we should be. Obviously, Turkey is a follower for use of technology as far as our business is concerned but it is coming to Turkey, so we need to pick and choose the way we need to enhance our technical capabilities.

What do you think is the biggest issue facing your industry?

There are many issues. Most critical thing any bank faces in our line of business is to attract and keep good people, so that is a challenge that has always been around. Getting the good people, keeping them happy, motivated, retaining them and compensating them properly, so that is one challenge. Two is, what you do in emerging markets where there are macro drivers which affect banking. All these ups and downs in the economy have a major impact on investment banking, because investment banking is a business that actually grows during stable periods of times, so maybe it is not a challenge if you do it in the U.S. There the challenges are more related to changing nature of competition. But in ours, it is mostly the macro factors that affect our business, and when the markets are good you deal with competition, regional and local competition in Turkey.

What advice would you give a student interested in your field?

They first need to decide if they like to do what we do, because it is a very demanding business. Especially when you first start, you spend 18-20 hours a day on the job even at the office or on your own. Especially in the advisory side, the investment banking side, but in return I think you need to enjoy it, to do it. Otherwise, it will be like torture. I loved it and I never complained over working hard for long hours. Because it is also rewarding not from a monetary perspective, but it helps you develop a lot of skills that you will actually use in your life either as an entrepreneur or even as a manager of businesses or CEO. You learn analytics, you learn about laws, you learn tax, you develop your interpersonal skills, you learn how to negotiate. Those are skills that investment banking will give you, but in order to get them you need to put in a lot of hours so if you like it, it is great. If you don’t, keep away from it. Focus on happiness rather than money or what is popular.

(Interview excerpts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability and approved by the interviewee.)