Welcome Mr Aki. Thank you for accepting out interview offer. You are doing many successful things in many fields. Can you introduce yourself to The LOOK readers?

I am a person combining various disciplines, trying to add value to life, and my life philosophy is to create value. I care about value not only in my professional life but also in my relationships with my friends and family because the life we are living is short. Therefore, I believe that we must add value to ourselves, our environment, and the existence of the universe.  I try to practice this in my fiction and way of thinking. It is necessary to employ a multidisciplineary approach to achieve this. I have never used one discipline in my life, which is a requsition of my profession. Now I am actively writing about technology, culture and arts, economy, and food and drinks. This manifests itself in my tendency towards other branches. Thus, it is not hard for me to write about all these, but this does not happen in a day. We must live the life like this. I am interested in spiritualism although not many people know this. I have done meditation for years and read many things on meditation. When you see the life as a whole, you learn that you have to make an internal journey. One who does not realise herself or himself cannot achieve success in the outer world or create enough values. As a matter of fact all these words are a result of my efforts to add value to life, mu country, and my family.

 

And what about journalism? How did this adventure begin?

Journalism is an incredible profession for someone like me who strives to add value to life. I got into Faculty of Communications at Istanbul University in 1986 and started to work as a professional journalist in my second year since being a journalist required to be an old hand at it. That’s why; I wanted to begin right away.

 

I started to work as a journalist for Karaca Publishing, which contributed to me greatly. I participated in every stage of printing from film and molding and preparing for publishing. We used to take our news photos because we were asked to know everything those days. In 1993 I made a radio program named “Finance Talks with Volkan Aki.” Later, I worked for Dogan Group for about 13 years. After working as news director and editor in chief, I worked as an editorial director for the journal Capital for five years. Back then older and more experienced people were assigned as editorial directors, which was a kind of rule. I was given that chance by my executives.

 

I believe I have done successful things in terms of content during my career in the journal Capital. We introduced the magazine ‘Digital’ sponsored by Koc System. We also published the first yachting magazine “Capital Yacht”. We approached magazine publishing and media as a business model. I am one of the people who have published first sponsored books and arranged first events. Also, we invited people such as Philip Kotler and Michael Porter to Turkey.

 

There is an incident I still remember.  When we invited Michael Porter, he asked “Where is Turkey?” I continued to work in this direction and made moves. Global trends were developing and we have to keep up with them because finance journals expand through their networks and their own surroundings. After this adventure, I started to work for the newspaper “Aksam”. I made programs on Skyturk and TV8. After working for 3 years for Turkishtime, I started to write in the journal “Para”. Besides, I have been working and topic and concept development for a long time and I develop projects on strategic development.

 

 

I have never betrayed writing

 

How did you get started at the newspaper Dunya?

Initially, I freelance wrote for Dunya for a year and they offered me a position just as I was thinking of quitting journalism and do counselling work. Although I told Didem Demirkent that I was meaning to turn to another field, she did not accept and finally I accepted their offer. I became the publishing coordinator of Dunya Publishing Group and continued to write because writing is my basic principle. I have tried hard not to move away from writing and never betrayed it. Even when I was sick or did not have time, I always allocated time for writing. I find myself in writing. Sometimes, you should support people to improve their vision. I believe that the greatest mission of journalists is to guide.

 

Dunya newspaper is significant for someone who has spent years writing about finance. They have their own traditions and quality audience. I am confident to say that I would do my best for this group to continue even if I opted out of it. Existence of such publishing is important for Turkish economy.

 

We live in a fast-paced world. How is media affected by this?

Journalism and media are changing day by day all around the world. Today, content has become more important. Everything we do has become content and everyone is an individual publisher. Professional journalists should go beyond news and create different values. However, models have not been established yet. I think print media is still active in terms of leading an idea. Internet publishing is not mature enough to survive as an economic model, but the future is in digital platforms. Future models will be shaped according to people's demands. I mean people will be presented with the news they want to read. Journalism is evolving into content creativity. The biggest issue is trust. Mechanisms should be created to build up trust. The current chaotic state of media will soothe thanks to digitalisation.

 

 

Content experts, not journalists!

 

This is a significant issue for students at faculties of communication who take you as their role model. What would you like to say to them?

I see communication as a whole. Therefore, what you do and where you do it does not matter. What matters is content and how you create it. Ones who will create effective and goal-oriented content will win. They have to be content experts and producers rather than journalists. The need for people to manage content will increase. I can tell students to work on this issue and improve themselves.

 

 

We live in an era of paradigm shift

 

You follow technological trends and economic developments closely. How do you think Turkey should shape its financial view in the future?

We live in an era of paradigm shift and a radical and fundamental change. The changes that took place within the last 100 years are taking place at the speed of light for the last 10 years. Turkey has kept up with all industrial revolutions in a way. We could participate in these industrial revolutions thanks to the attainments of the Republic. We could send people overseas to have education. However, in the 4th Industrial Revolution we are going through, I am speaking of a bigger wave together with digital transformation. And this wave is nothing like a train or a railway carriage. This is a spaceship we send to the space.

 

It is hard to be attached to it. We will either be inside or outside the rocket. One thing we should remember is that it is a must to succeed in the field of innovation. We need to make a comprehensive evaluation of educating human resource and developing good strategies. I have always believed in Turkey's power of changing and transforming and its openness to innovations. Turkish economy is among the top 20 great economies and nobody can see this as a failure. Each members of the community including the state, universities, and the public must keep pace with the speed of industrial transformation. If we cannot, Turkey's competitive power might weaken in the following years.

We do not need to be pessimistic, but we need to ac in accordance with new points of view the new world offers.

 

Democracy, law, taxation system, education system, financial thoughts, and international point of view should be in harmony. We should forget all that we know and act by the new paradigm. We must change our way of thinking and doing.

 

 

You travel a lot and follow the tourism sector closely. What are your opinions about tourism?

My travels add me various perspectives. Looking at Turkey from London, Paris, New York, or India and interpreting my own life are important parts of the concept "value." Besides, I gain much experience from doing business processes in congresses I participate in. I can sincerely say that our service speed and quality are unique, but we do not have a holistic strategy to introduce them. A city or a whole country should be open to accommodation. In this sense, Istanbul can compete with Barcelona or London. We must spread our understanding of pricing and quality adopting a holistic strategy to the whole country.

 

Digitalisation is also significant. People have got over this situation digitally. Perception of a country starts when one thinking about visiting that country searches online and continues until the end of the travel. Accommodation sector is also evolving. In my last trip to London I stayed at a hotel which did not have a reception desk. The mission of accommodation is also changing. We must take all these into consideration.