Alp Ogucu, who is one of the youngest 40 CEO’s of Turkey, is one of the young executives to keep the life-business balance. Meanwhile, Ogucu is addicted to sports…
We had a pleasant conversation with Alp Ogucu, CEO of Lila Group; we met on a calm Bodrum morning.
When did you discover Bodrum?
I first came to Bodrum when I was seven years old. It was so silent and it particularly had some bays to be discovered. On the other side of the peninsula, in Turkbuku, there was a house and a very old hotel. There were two or three fishers in Gumusluk. We used to spend time there and in those days it was very quiet. It was a great pleasure to explore and look around.. It is still possible to explore today but you can try to do it within the crowdedness. To be honest, it used to be a reason of choice but now it is a custom.
Now we enjoy spending our holidays in the site, which my wife’s grandfather built. He is the former governor of Mugla, Ozer Turk. He is the promoter who inspired holiday's sites to be built in Bodrum, Kusadasi and Datça and even more the airport.
As a result of the research conducted to encourage young leaders, you ranked 9th in the list of 40 companies of different sectors and sizes. What is the secret behind this success?
If we are talking about the success of a company, a team, it is a collective success. I believe that the name of all labourers who add value to the company should be remembered, not only one person selected from a whole team.
We are a family company and we see everyone who works in our organisation as a part of the family. We do work hard. There are 5 basic values we have: family, development, trust, responsibility and quality. When we bring them together, we believe that we will always be on the right course and therefore we take actions accordingly.
Established with 100 percent domestic capital, our company is one of the most rooted family companies of our country, in the production of hygienic cleaning paper which started in 2007, it has found its place in the top 3 among the strongest competitors. It is an invaluable happiness for us to see our company in such a proud place with the power we receive from the experiences of our esteemed family elders.
We would like to hear about the social responsibility projects you support?
With the idea of establishing a strong link between our brands and customers, we decided to collect social responsibility projects that we supported as an institution in 2010 under a single roof and we made a decision on two main fields. The first one is education and the other is environment due to our field of activity… In this process, we met with the Turkish Education Volunteers Foundation (TEGV). With the motto, “Sometimes the most solid bridges are made of paper!” we have used the emblem of the foundation on our brand. We donate a significant portion of the revenue generated from the sales of the products to the TEGV in order to contribute to the quality of our children’s education.
In addition, we have decided to implement the “Learning Units” project, which TEGV conducted for primary and secondary school students, in Trakya. This is an alternative programme of the Turkish Education Volunteers Foundation to streets. In these units, children are taught by volunteers out of school hours in five main areas: mathematics, science, art, literacy and informatics. In particular, the programme aims to create equal opportunities for children in lower-income neighbourhoods.
In the framework of our cooperation with the TEGV, we have contributed to more than 20,000 children’s education since 2010. The authorities of Fibria, one of our business partners since 2008 and one of the leading forestry companies in Brazil stated that they were watching our social responsibility projects, which were generated by Lila Group, with interest and they wanted to support them as they implemented similar projects in their countries. In order to provide added value to the education of our children in Tekirdag, the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey, Fibria Education Unit officially opened its doors on November 20th. The World Children's Rights Day. We believe that this precious project, which is the first social responsibility project of Fibria outside of Brazil, and includes the firsts such as receiving donations for the TEGV from abroad for the first time, will shed light on the future of our country; we are proud to bring our two valued business partners who have devoted themselves to goodness together. As the second phase of our project; we continue our work to open a learning unit in Corlu, where our production activities have been continuing recently.
When it comes to environmental perspective, with our slogan “Sofia does not destroy forests!” We only produce 100% natural products using cellulose from industrial trees. We are also sponsoring an initiative for plantation of industrial trees.
What are your passions in life that you cannot give up?
I can say that I am a sports enthusiast. Jogging, hiking, football, basketball, skiing and tennis are the sports I usually do. I move away from stress while doing sports and I often come up with new ideas and discover different perspectives. Sport is indispensible in order to get away from stress and calm down in busy and fast-paced business life. From ice skating to hockey, as a family, we are sporty. When we come together, we definitely participate in an activity that we usually try to plan our holidays accordingly. Even for business travels, I take my walking shoes with me for sports; I find the opportunity to observe the environment.
As much as I can, I work more at work less at home. I almost never log on the social media as I try to evaluate my spare time by reading a book or a magazine.
You set up a radical advertising campaign with Huysuz Virjin when the advertisement world was getting unproductive. Could you explain this process briefly?
Seyfi Dursunoglu (aka Huysuz Virjin) was the first person to come to our minds about the scenario prepared for our brand. We visited him, who is also a supporter of the TEGV, with our advertising agency president. We talked about our story and the cooperation of our brand with the Turkish Education Volunteers Foundation. “I have played in a lot of different TV commercials and programmes but will be playing in a toilet paper commercial for the first time in my life. It is a very weird thing, but I think, I had better say yes”, he said. He wrote the commercial and played. He completed the shooting programme in five hours although the agency estimated two days for it. As an artist, his knowledge, creativity and ability of implementation are high. I must say that it was very enjoyable work for us.