The strategic advisor with kindness at her core
LOCATIONS: Milan, Italy and London, UK
LANGUAGES SPOKEN: Turkish and English
CURRENT ROLES
Independent Non Executive Director, LOGO Yazılım
Advisory Board Member, Emotion Network
Senior Advisor, iGenius
PREVIOUS LEADERSHIP ROLES
Global Head of Advisory, UniCredit
Head of Technology Investment Banking EMEA, Nomura
Director of TMT Investments Europe, Temasek
BOARDWAVE ROLES: Patron, Mentor and Angel
You don’t hear it as often as you should, but kindness is a value that Nezahat Gultekin holds dear. In fact, it makes up a key part of her personal brand – incidentally something that she thinks everyone should have – along with integrity, grit and perseverance.
The investment banker was given this piece of branding advice during her first job by her then mentor, the first female partner of the investment firm Broadview. “She told me that it’s very important to build your personal brand. It’s a combination of who you are as a person, character-wise, but also a set of business principles and how you carry yourself in the business world,” she says. “I feel that it’s served me well along the way. I pass on that advice to the younger generation. Whether you work for an organisation or for yourself, it is a people business,” she says.
Gultekin, who hails from Turkey and is based in Milan, takes early morning walks in the city to help recalibrate her mind. One of her favourite routes ends at a nearby castle; it is somewhat a pilgrimage for her. She references one of the church’s artworks of Mary and Christ; it’s an unfinished piece by Michelangelo: “It’s really fascinating because it’s unfinished, it’s not perfect.”
Gultekin believes that the same can be said for business. In fact, she thinks that the human element and emotional intelligence are as key as knowing what will sell or working out profit and loss. “The business world is transactional. We either buy or sell products. And investing could be considered in that way too. But people work with you because of who you are. So it should also be about being thoughtful and having integrity and kindness,” she says.
These principles were tested when Gultekin was workingat Lehman Brothers during the 2008 financial crisis. “I was based in London working on an IPO, which was going to be the largest tech IPO in Europe. It was Friday evening and I was invited to a friend’s party. Everyone was asking how Ifelt about what was going on. I said that I didn’t really know because I was concentrating on the IPO. When I woke up on the 15th September 2008, I didn’t have a company to work for.” It was, she says, an “interesting personal and professional experience”. Gultekin chose to carry on working.
“My former boss asked me what I was doing. He said, ‘You need to put your résumé together and start sending it to people’. It just didn’t cross my mind because I had a sense of responsibility to the clients. We were also trying to hold the team together. I was the next most senior person as a VP at the time, so it was also about taking care of other people. We had a couple of people just starting their first day at work who didn’t know what was going on.”
The chaos of that time became an important life lesson to her. “You can see in difficult times what the true colours of people are, as individuals and professionals,” she says. Gultekin stayed at Nomura after it acquired Lehman Brothers EMEA business until 2011, when she became Executive Director of Technology Investment Banking at Credit Suisse.
Woman of the people
During her career, she has always put people first when considering where to invest. “For me, it’s all about the people. The founding team members, the senior executives. That’s what good leadership really is. It is not self-serving. It’s about being able to put the team and the people around you first, and to empower them to do their very best.”
As a woman who studied engineering and later worked in investment banking and investing, Gultekin has always been aware of the gender gap. For instance, she didn’t have many female role models, but she watched how her mentor at Broadview coped with juggling a demanding job and being a single mum to twins. “We would have these Sunday conference calls, and the twins would be crying because the nanny was not working. Of course, the male partners didn’t have that problem,” she says. “What made her successful and someone to look up to was not just about how many deals or how much money she made, it was about how she was perceived as a trusted advisor by the clients.”
Gultekin believes women bring much-needed emotional intelligence to the business world. “It starts simply by listening. Instead of talking at people, it’s about trying to understand what is at the back of their minds,” she says.
Rural roots
Gultekin grew up in Turkey but from a young age she had big ambitions. She taught herself to read, and she always wanted more for herself. “There was an equivalent of Forbes magazine in Turkey called Capital. I thought to myself that one day I wanted to be on the cover of it,” she says.
Gultekin is the first person in her family to venture out of her home country, landing a job in the United States. “I wanted to have a bigger life for myself and my family.” Her route came through academia: Gultekin always loved maths and science, and she attended a science-focused high school in Turkey. Later, she won a scholarship to study for a master’s at Stanford. When she got there, she felt the US was a true meritocracy.
“It really was a breath of fresh air. I was the only non-native speaker in the first firm that I worked in. There were Chinese- Americans and Indian-Americans, but they had grown up in the US. I was still speaking with an accent and I had not been part of the same schooling system. But no one even once asked what my last name meant. It was more about the person. Who you are and supporting each other for success.”
Her parents grew up in rural Turkey and her father, while also gifted at mathematics, wasn’t given the chance to study. Only later did he move to a city to set up his own business.
“I saw my dad working really hard being an entrepreneur on his own and he managed to do it from almost ground zero,” says Gultekin. “When I first arrived at Stanford, it was a totally new environment. One thing I noticed really quickly was how much of a difference having resources can make.”
Two pieces of advice from her father have stuck with her. “He said ‘You really need to like what you’re doing but never trade your integrity or character for money’. That has always been his principle. He also said, ‘Be grateful for everything you have’.” Those words have given Gultekin a strong work ethic. “I remember when my parents came to America for the first time for my graduation ceremony. We didn’t go to dinner after the ceremony because I was already working and I needed to prepare for a presentation.”
Future thinking
Gultekin has an impressive career portfolio. As well as working in investment banking and running her own strategic advisory business, where she combined VC investments with ecosystem building, she has also served on growth-stage, late-stage and listed company boards.
But one thing she is especially proud of is working with theUK government to develop Tech Nation and its Future Fifty programme. “I was working with David Cameron’s team at the time. We used to have workshops at Number 10 and I was pleasantly surprised by how open and easy it was to actuallygo there,” she says. “I liked the idea of bringing a commercial mindset, giving advice to government and actually pushing them for some meaningful actionable items. Some happened, some didn’t. We gave input into the Autumn Statement, for example.”
Gultekin sees Boardwave’s mission as an extension of this work and she is fully on board to help expand the tech ecosystem in Europe. “I really admire what Phill has built at Boardwave. And I think it is important for all of us to collectively put our knowledge, experience, and ideas together to be able to support each other,” she says. “In Europe, we don’t celebrate other people’s success as much as in the US. But I think, collectively, we could be successful and we can make the pie bigger for everyone.”
Tips From The Top
What are your tips for a successful business?
1. Integrity.2. Grit and perseverance.3. Care, compassion and emotional quotient (EQ).
What is the best advice you’ve been given?
Build your personal brand. This includes deciding who you are (and who you want to be) character- wise, plus a set of business principles and how you’d like to carry yourself in the business world.
Can you tell us something surprisingabout yourself?I have various creative interests such as fashion design (I’ve loved this since childhood, and I completed an evening course at Central Saint Martins) and music. I have been in various choirs and I’m recording at a music studio for fun.
If you hadn’t become an investment banker, what career would you have pursued?I would have gone into the fashion industry (which I still consider going into) or even politics to serve my home country.
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