However, I would like to discuss another aspect of the issue today. In this era, women’s social roles are a lot more complex and heavier than before. In addition to becoming a mother, most women are also expected to continue their careers and business responsibilities exactly as they used to do before having a child. I must admit that this is a huge pressure to bear. I sincerely congratulate women who manage to create a balance between these responsibilities despite all the heavy burden.

Yet, apart from appreciation, what do we really do to share these responsibilities, to ease the burden that is suddenly placed onto women? With such a sudden change in daily routine, women may think they need to choose between motherhood and career, thus start asking the question: “Should I drop one out?”

That is why, in addition to thanking women for the value they generate and for their creative efforts, we also need to discuss whether we understand their responsibilities, priorities and the pressure, and what steps we can take to reduce this pressure. Plus, instead of limiting this discussion to a certain period, we need to build a sustainable corporate framework and act on it to ensure progress.

At Siemens, we advocate providing more opportunities for female employees to be able to truly talk about equality. We not only fully support the legal rights of maternity, but also provide the best support we can through some special practices. Since “back to work” period can be difficult, we hold adaptation and parenting trainings to support new mothers. These trainings are not limited to the first months of parenting, they continue in the following years with different scopes. With the kindergarten support for pre-school period, we pay attention to sharing the financial and mental burden of mothers. And we implement those in line with our diversity principles and understanding.

Diversity is not a new concept or movement to us. It has always been one of the fundamental values of our corporate culture. We believe that diverse perspectives, mindsets and cultural values are keys to equality, development and success. That is why we organize gender equality and diversity trainings for all employees, both men and women.

Witnessing many global and regional problems today, I believe that we need to benefit from women’s distinctive perspective and evaluation of incidents and problems. Imagining, designing policies and acting together, women and men can offer solutions that are a lot more efficient and workable than the ones we currently have. Thus, we can build a more peaceful and optimistic future together. We unfortunately observe that men are immensely responsible for social violence of every level (from wars to domestic violence) and many other sorts of disagreements. That is why we gravely and urgently need constructive cooperation between women and men.

Today is March 8^th, International Women’s Day… On this important day, we need to talk about the struggle of all people who defend not only women’s rights, but human rights as a whole, with a strong stand against inequality. I truly wish the 8^thof March were a day celebrated all around the world with a ripple of joy. Nevertheless, I believe it is an important development that recently the world has been keeping the topics of equal opportunity and gender equality on the agenda. Believing that my hopes will raise even more in time, I sincerely celebrate all women’s International Women’s Day.

One of the reasons for being hopeful is the initiatives I’ve seen especially on the social media. For instance, “The future is female” has become one of the most popular mottos lately. This motto often appears in the social media, and fashion and music industries. Some criticize the motto for allegedly being against equality. However, the injustice faced by women almost throughout the world shows that equal opportunity must be strongly supported.

Today, women are obliged to assume very important roles and responsibilities simultaneously in both social and business life. In addition, they need to deal with social obstacles, judgments and taboos, and this not fair at all. Equality, firstly, is a natural right. That’s why I insist on improving diversity and equal opportunity in our company since the first day I started working at Siemens Turkey. At this point, I would like to tell you the story of Javed Mulani’s “Diversity” painting at our Gebze campus.

It is said that, one day in 1961, poet Nazım Hikmet and artist Abidin Dino watch the River Seine in Paris through the window of their hotel room while performing their arts. Nazım Hikmet then takes a look at the painting Abidin Dino is working on and in admiration of his art, Nazım writes the lines: “Could you paint the picture of happiness, Abidin? / But without taking the easy way out…”

I first met Mulani during my years as Siemens India CFO in the 2000s. After I started working at Siemens Turkey, I invited him to Istanbul and, inspired by Nazım Hikmet’s question to Abidin Dino, I asked him if he could “paint the picture of diversity” for us.

Thus, he created this painting that glorifies “the diversity” with each color, each contour, each detail. Whenever I look at this painting, I am impressed by the main figure with ten hands and a different responsibility in each of them. Such power, such resilience, such determination! Mulani once said “I personally see women as the central force of today and the future,” while talking about this figure. I totally agree with him. I think we need women’s problem-solving ability, strength and determination especially in the business world. There are a lot of data supporting my opinion, but I will write about them in another blog post.

Let’s go back to “The future is female” motto. Yes, we have lived in a male-dominant system so far and the result is not much of a relief globally. Isn’t it time to co-build a future in which women and men have equal rights, not only legally, but also actually? Isn’t it time that women shape the future as freely as men do?

Today is March 8th, International Women’s Day.

After taking a look at last year’s blog post on International Women’s Day, I regret to see that the major problems I mentioned a year ago still continue, even in an augmented manner. Although society’s awareness on “violence against women” is increasing, we still have a long way to go. Today, half of our 70-million population are women. Naturally, it is impossible for a society to improve by developing only one half and neglecting the other. Especially if the neglected half is the most important actor in raising the children, i.e. our future, such improvement becomes even harder. Therefore, we need to take steps that truly create value and benefit. And we need to do it not only as individuals, but also as corporations.

Sustainability is a key component that makes Siemens what it is. We attach great importance to benefiting from innovative ideas created through diverse cultures and mindsets in all of our corporate principles and operations. Today, in parallel with the extraordinary increase in the means of communication, we are facing more severe problems that need to be solved. One of the problems to be solved is finding ways to expand and reinforce women representation in the business world. We, as Siemens Turkey, are proud to have an active “Diversity Council” that shares the same goal. We have also been one of the first companies to sign the “Business Against Domestic Violence Policy Development and Implementation Guide” in Turkey. But is that enough? Of course not. We pay attention to every initiative in this regard and we will continue our efforts to create a difference.

On this year’s March 8th we wanted to make an announcement that is really meaningful to us. As a technology and engineering company, we attach great importance to increasing the number of female engineers. Therefore, we are launching a scholarship program with Turkish Education Foundation (TEV), with whom we have cooperated in various projects so far. Within the scope of this program, we make donations to meet year-long educational expenses of young women studying engineering to get a BSc or MSc degree. Success should be supported and we are determined to contribute to increasing the number of successful female engineers.

International Women’s Day is a celebration of women’s labor, freedom, and the value they generate for life itself. We are more than happy to celebrate this day with an announcement that focuses on social contribution. Happy International Women’s Day!

We are, once again, celebrating the International Women’s Day. I think to myself why there is a special day for the women, why such a day was needed, and I want to share my opinions.

We live in a rapidly changing world. We are in time that requires us to go beyond the borders, to work as a world citizen, rather than a citizen of a single country, and to communicate with each other in order to be successful. Talking about a global market, global leadership, and global responsibility, we now know that we cannot avoid globalization. I believe that we must benefit from the big potentials, creative minds and all the strong aspects we have. This is where women have a great role to play.

Women are already very successful in their management roles in family life. We know that now we need to encourage women to carry their experiences to wider horizons. Anyone who has demonstrated success in a field is now ready to set sail for other successes. On the other hand, we see that our problems are becoming increasingly complex. And we need different, creative ideas to solve complex problems. Women have important roles here again, because their problem-solving methods are different and quite creative. We cannot be competitive unless we benefit from them correctly.

Therefore, while celebrating Women’s Day, once again I would like to underline that due to their differences and diversities, we would all benefit greatly from integrating more women into social life and business world. What I mean is not just the women with a career, but all the women.

Taking the opportunity, I sincerely celebrate 8 March International Women’s Day.