Hamdi Ulukaya Quotes

Hamdi Ulukaya (born 26 October 1972) is a Turkish billionaire businessman, activist, philanthropist of Kurdish ethnicity and based in the United States. Ulukaya is the owner, founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Chobani, the #1-selling strained yogurt brand in the US. He established production facilities first in upstate New York, and since then has expanded. According to Forbes, his net worth as of October 2022 is US$2.1 billion. On 26 April 2016, Ulukaya announced to his employees that he would be giving them 10% of the shares in Chobani.
Ulukaya, a Kurd, has stated his strong commitment to Kurdish rights, citing this as a reason for leaving Turkey due to the Turkish state's oppression of its Kurdish minority. He started a modest feta cheese factory in 2002 on his father's advice. His major success came when he purchased a large, defunct yogurt factory in upstate New York in 2005, located in a region with a rich history in the dairy and cheese industry since the mid-nineteenth century. Chobani achieved over $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years after its launch, becoming the leading yogurt brand in the U.S. by 2011. Ulukaya was named the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur Of The Year in 2013, and Inc. magazine recognized him as one of the most important entrepreneurs of the past decade in 2019. In July 2022, UN Secretary General António Guterres appointed him as an additional advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.