The automotive and mobility industries are, despite the best efforts of many, dominated by men.
Pale, male, and stale remains the order of the day in boardrooms around the world and, with that lack of diversity can come a lack of innovation and, almost definitely, a lack of empathy and understanding of the needs of different people.
However, one company with a different makeup and vision is Turkey’s Fark Labs. Auto Futures has been speaking to the company’s leading ladies to find out why the innovation and transformation hub works differently.
Transforming Mobility Startups
Born in Istanbul as the research and development centre of Farplas – a huge automotive manufacturing company with clients including GM, Ford, Renault, and Hyundai – Fark Labs has grown from its Bosphorus base to Paris and Seoul and will soon be in Detroit and Shanghai.
Ahu Serter, Fark Labs’ founder and President
Fark Labs helps startups from around the world, not just from Turkey along every step of their journey – from incubation to investment and beyond. Working across mobility, life sciences, sustainable lifestyle, and emerging technologies, Fark Labs’ work touches some of the most important and current topics.
But, along with its parallel work with the Arya Women Investment Platform, Fark Labs retains a unique outlook, particularly in Turkey. For Ahu Serter, Fark Labs founder, this was all part of the plan.
“After graduating from university in Turkey, I spent 6 years in New York City getting my MBA and working as a hedge fund manager. I knew that eventually, I would take over our family business so I wanted to learn and do things on my own, and these experiences ultimately served me well when I became CFO in 2002 and Chair of the Board in 2012,” she tells Auto Futures.
“My mother was a visionary woman and was a working woman when not many women had professional careers. At the same time, my father always supported having female team members in his company. In many ways, both of them were ahead of their time and have heavily influenced how I operate as a businessperson and how I have built gender-balanced teams and businesses.”
That family business, of course, was Farplas. And, while Serter remains the President of Farplas, it’s clear that both Arya and Fark Labs remain central to her work.
“I have always been a proponent of female founders being one myself, and I saw a need to help female leaders in the corporate world gain more financial acumen and confidence,” she explains.
“Separately, I envisioned Fark Labs to be an innovation hub, first for mobility startups due to our automotive history, but I also thought that there would be a linkage between Fark Labs and Arya in sourcing startups, exchanging ideas, co-investing, etc. And that has actually happened. Now, Arya has an office at Fark Labs and there is a lot of overlap and work that we do together.”
Building Businesses with Difference
Of course, Ahu isn’t alone in her work. “At Fark Labs, four of the five managers are women and we are very proud of it,” says Ilknur Ilkyaz Gul, Managing Director for Turkey.
Iilknur Ilkyaz Gul, Fark Lab’s Managing Director for Turkey
Gul, along with Hahna Kim, MD for Global Initiatives, manage the Fark Labs’ investments and work with startups – whether in the mobility sector or not.
I oversee all of our initiatives and programs in Turkey. Fark Labs was established 3 years ago and I came shortly after to develop our offering in Turkey building on the work I had done at Middle East Technical University’s (METU) Technopark,” says Gul.
“I then introduced Fark Labs and Farplas to the Turkish government’s startup grant program called BIGG. We became the first corporate partner of the BIGG program in 2020. After that, I established a corporate program where we offer our innovation services to Turkish companies.”
Kim, on the other hand, covers the rest of the world.
“I lead all of our global initiatives to create a network in our key geographies that strengthen who Fark Labs is,” she explains.
Hahna Kim, Fark Labs’ Managing Director for Global Initiatives
“This includes helping our startups expand globally; creating partnerships with like-minded institutions; coordinating with our offices in Seoul, Paris, Detroit, and Shanghai; and investing in venture capital funds in our focus areas.”
However, despite the differences in the areas they cover, there are plenty of similarities in the businesses that Kim and Gul work with.
“In Turkey, as it is around the world, there are fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs,” says Gul.
“However, we are excited because just last week, a Turkish startup with a female founder reached unicorn status for the first time. We lack impact investors in Turkey that prioritize investment in women founders. Through Arya, we are proud to be one of the few organizations in Turkey that support women founders. Arya and Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey are the most active parties in the ecosystem by offering training, network, investment and acceleration programs.”
Of course, finding and growing businesses around the world requires a global outlook – something that Kim and Serter have in abundance.
“I am the first non-Turkish person to work at Fark Labs in Istanbul being Korean-American myself and married to a Turk,” says Kim.
“From that perspective, there are cultural differences that I encounter on a daily basis. Yet, at the same time, Ahu and the team are very globally-minded.”
Including Different Perspectives
With Fark Labs possessing so many impressive female leaders, it bears asking the question – what can other companies learn?
“For me, the important thing is not to have a certain number of women in senior positions,” says Serter.
“What is important is to have diversity – diversity in thought, in gender, in perspective. Naturally, that brings more women into the fold and the women who are in leadership positions at Fark Labs today – Ilknur, Hahna, and Elif – have come to be in those positions because of their competencies. That said, we have men in senior positions as well and the gender balance in the team helps create a healthy tension when creating and executing our strategy.”
Gul concurs:
“Challenging gender-related subjects is not new to us. It’s always been part of Fark Holding’s strategy to increase the number of female employees and managers. Ahu is also one of few family business owners in Turkey’s automotive industry too. We believe that the power of women touches every aspect of our work.”
For Elif Okten, Fark Labs’ Marketing Communications Director, the lessons for other businesses – whether they work in the mobility and automotive sectors, or anywhere else.
Elif Okten, Fark Labs’ Marketing Communications Director
“Aside from being a legal and moral requirement, diversity leads to thriving businesses and happy employees and communication plays an important role in this,” she explains.
“The first step in implementing effective diversity, equity, and inclusion methods is a commitment from the leadership team; if they are not dedicated to the necessary cultural shift, it will not happen. Secondly, it’s also critical to properly understand what the term ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ represent in your company, industry and society at large.
“In Turkey’s startup and investment ecosystems, for example, female representation is substantially below average. We have decided to commit to an overarching diversity policy while also taking specific actions to close these gender gaps – we believe in gender equality and encourage female co-founders and investors.
“Thirdly, it is critical to maintain transparency. Open dialogues can take place only when everyone is aware of the company’s position, the expectations placed on them, and the vision. Fourthly, one of the most challenging DEI areas to navigate is promotion and authenticity. A corporate narrative that focuses on employee experiences, impactful, authentic and genuine messaging– rather than policy citing. A truly diverse, equitable, inclusive workplace is always a work in progress, it’s a slow journey and our role as communicators is to give each character a voice and tell the story.”
Building a better world of work for women in the automotive and mobility sectors will not happen overnight and, as Okten makes clear, it is an ongoing process.
However, throughout this International Women’s Week, it’s clear from the female leaders we have spoken to that diversity and inclusion are becoming more of a focus for businesses in the sector – despite the best efforts of the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing supply chain and materials crisis.
Fark Labs’ focus on women driving change in the industry is refreshing to see and, we’re certain that benefits will flow.
Keyword: Building Better Startups – Learning from the Women Leading Turkey’s Fark Labs