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Turkey’s ‘Women to Watch’

‘Women to Watch: Women Who Make a Difference’ ceremony was held at Swissotel The Bosphorus, Istanbul.

The greatest luxury in life

A graduate of Boğaziçi University, Ilkay Gürpınar says she was making her way towards the marketing department of a multinational company like her schoolmates when she asked herself what her true passion was – and managed to achieve the greatest luxury in life.

Ilkay Gürpınar, TBWA\ISTANBUL, Chief Creative Officer

Ilkay Gürpınar, TBWA\ISTANBUL, Chief Creative Officer

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the stability TBWA\ISTANBUL achieved in recent years went through the roof last year. Both the new customers that joined the agency’s portfolio and the creativity awards received for executed ideas are proof of this.

One of the key figures behind this performance, Ilkay Gürpınar, experienced similar developments in her career. Originally appointed to the position of chief creative officer, Gürpınar is also a member of the seven-person global creative team of TBWA/Worldwide, called “The Band of Brothers.”

After graduating from Boğaziçi University and completing a Marketing Minor in the U.S., Ilkay Gürpınar was thinking about starting work in the marketing department of a multinational company when she returned to Turkey, much like most of her schoolmates. As she was meeting with agencies to have them review the projects she had created since childhood, she crossed paths with Y&R/Reklamevi and Serdar Erener. After that encounter, she worked at the agency for five years as a copywriter.

Witnessing the foundation of an agency

This is the first turning point in Gürpınar’s career. The second is being one of 14 people contributing to the foundation of Alametifarika. “It’s something else to help founding an agency, to be a part of that excitement. As a very small and very good team, it was a time when we took ownership of and groomed Alametifarika as if it was our own agency.”

In her last year at Alametifarika, she was made creative director responsible for all brands. She moved from Alametifarika, after three years since the foundation of the agency, to TBWA/ISTANBUL as creative director. For over six years, she’s been consistently raising the bar of her creative performance.

Breaking a leg

There’s a third turning point in the career of the accomplished advertiser. The Anadolu Sigorta contest, which resulted in TBWA\ISTANBUL’s victory, is the moment they “broke a leg,” in Gürpınar’s own words.

As for the most critical decision Ilkay Gürpınar made in her career… “The decision I made at the beginning of my career changed many things in my life. As I was going for interviews at companies like P&G and Unilever right after graduation, I decided to veer towards the creative side, where I had no formal training (and where my training in marketing didn’t really make a difference),” Gürpınar says. She made this decision by thinking about what she does at home when left to her own devices and realizing that turning that into her business is the best thing for her to do. “At that moment, I did something right. Doing what you love is the greatest luxury you could have in life.”

Quote

“The decision I made at the beginning of my career changed many things in my life. As I was going for interviews at companies like P&G and Unilever right after graduation, I decided to veer towards the creative side.”

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