Güler Sabancı

Güler Sabancı is a Turkish business executive who was chairperson of the family-owned Sabancı Holding, one of Turkey’s largest conglomerates, involved in banking, automobiles, food and tobacco, tourism, and chemicals.

Sabancı was the granddaughter of Hacı Ömer Sabancı (1906–66), who started building what would become the Sabancı Group by investing in a small cotton textile concern in Adana; her father, Ihsan Sabancı (1930–79), was the eldest of Hacı Ömer’s six sons. She showed an early interest in the family enterprise, and, after graduating (1978) with a degree in business administration from Boğaziƈi University, Istanbul, she took a job with the Sabancı Group’s tire-production company, Lassa (later Brisa). Sabancı worked her way up to general manager of Kordsa, the group’s tire-cord-production company (1985), and to president of the group’s tire and reinforcement-materials unit (1997).

She was named chairman and managing director of Sabancı Holding in 2004 after the death of her uncle Sakıp Sabancı, who had been head of the conglomerate since 1967. After taking control, she continued her uncle’s work in expanding the family’s financial and industrial enterprise into a worldwide business empire. She also served as a trustee of Sabancı University and of the Sakıp Sabancı Museum, which was housed in the family’s former summer home near the Bosporus. From 2013 to 2018 Sabancı served on the supervisory board of the German technology giant Siemens AG.

Sabancı also headed the philanthropic Sabancı Foundation, and she supported numerous causes, including the “Girls Not Brides” initiative to end child marriages around the world. In addition, she campaigned for greater educational opportunities for children and for an end to the use of child labourers.