A Big Welcome & Orientation of CampusWIN Class of 2018

CampusWIN is the leadership program of TurkishWIN & BinYaprak. CampusWINners lead the change they want to see at university campuses for a gender equal future in society and at the workplace. We invest in the education, mentoring and networking for young university women who are invited to this selective sisterhood network. They participate in programs to realize their potential as leaders, impact their campus and collectively work to change the gender ratios in Turkey.

Every year, we kick off the academic year with our Orientation Weekend where we bring together our CampusWINners with empowering role models for two days of inspiration, growth and sisterhood.

A group photo with speaker Zeynep Erkunt Armağan after she inspired us!

On the morning of Saturday September 16th, 80 CampusWINners arrived from 29 universities all over Turkey. After an icebreaker bingo session, our program kicked off with an inspiring welcome from Zeynep Erkunt Armağan, Chairwoman at Erkunt Traktör Sanayii. Zeynep Hanim shared her personal story about founding Erkunt Traktör (the first company in Turkey to design and manufacture its own tractors without the restrictions of being under the license of an international automotive company) along with the difficulties she faced in the process. She revealed tips on how she overcomes her challenges. We were thrilled to hear that she is inspired by young people - starting with her son and daughter. We are forever grateful for her personal support of the CampusWIN program.

The path to self mastery is paved through understanding one’s motivators! Hasan Tahsin Güngör from İş Kavramları, and his team members Zeynep and Gonca Hanim, helped our leaders find their motivators. The journey began with Hasan Bey’s story and took a colorful turn when all of our leaders took a Talent Insights test and were guided to understand the test results in a fun, interactive workshop. We learned about our "colors," created vision boards and presented their newly discovered selves to each other. As Hasan Tahsin Güngör says,  "It is not important what you have; what is important is what you do with it." Unique, colorful and cheerful, we were off to an amazing start! We would like to thank İş Kavramları and TT Talent Insights for supporting us.  

CampusWINners discovering their colors with CampusWIN Program Manager Ebru Cinci.

Later TurkishWIN and BinYaprak teams took the stage to share the vision for upcoming programs and platforms! Our teams were very excited about a new year of building sisterhood with the input, inspiration, and help of our CampusWINners. Following this, we invited CampusWIN Committee Leaders and their committee members to share presentations about their roles for the newest leaders in the group. What energy filled the room!

CampusWINners laugh with one of their speakers.

After a hearty dinner together, we gathered for reflection time with two CampusWIN alumnae: Gizem Biçen, Master's Candidate of Clinical Psychology at Işık University, and Merve Altundağ, Marketing Associate at Google. We were so excited to welcome back our alumnae to further the sisterhood spirit. This was a great opportunity for former CampusWINners to reconnect with current leaders. We finished the day with a fun and colorful pajama party.

Sunday started off strong with a yoga and dance session with Neslihan İşkit, Medical Doctor at Memorial. Dr. İşkit shared breathing techniques with our leaders to use when they need to refresh. We ended the session with some fun dancing to get energized for the day!

Next we were joined by Oya Günay, Executive Coach and Strategy Partner. Oya, a long-time CampusWIN Advisor, introduced different decision models to help our leaders prioritize their decisions. No more analysis paralysis! Watch Oya’s TurkishWIN Talk here.

We learned about the consulting and design service industries from our next speakers: Çiğdem Kurtuluş, Country Human Resources Lead at Accenture, and Gamze Gürbüzatik, Group Director at FJORD. Facilitated by CampusWINner Muge Firsat, Çiğdem and Gamze shared their personal and career stories. Their message and advice to our leaders was sincere and inspiring.

CampusWINners had the opportunity to practice their speed networking skills with E. Gizem Meral, Trade Advisor at the Spanish Economic and Commercial Office. This was a whirldwind session of meeting as many new people as possible while also practicing your elevator pitch! Last but not least, the heated exchange between Özlem Gürses Tatar, author and anchorperson, and Burçun İmir, Head of Communications at Allianz, about success and failure filled us with tears and laughter at the same time. 

"Wait for me, future - I'm here!"

As is our tradition, we ended orientation with storytelling and reflections. We opened up the floor to CampusWINners to share their stories, takeaways, and hopes for the future. This was a powerful and emotional session, learning that our sisterhood is strong enough to bring change to Turkey and globally. This was a spectacular moment for us and a great way to end the weekend.

Simply put, CampusWIN Class of 2018 rocks! You can meet them here and check out all the fun we had at orientation weekend on our Facebook album.

It takes an army to run our CampusWIN program and we are incredibly thankful to the following partners: Maltepe University, Is Kavramlari Danismanlik Hizmetleri, Pepsico, Pernigotti, Umur Kirtasiye, APS Textile, and TEB.

If you are interested in joining the CampusWIN program, follow our Facebook page and check out the program website.