Hamdi Ulukaya
| Hamdi Ulukaya | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
October 26, 1972 İliç, Erzincan, Turkey |
| Alma mater |
University at Albany Ankara University |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur, businessman |
| Known for | Chobani, Founder & CEO |
| Net worth | US$ 1.92 billion (March 2017) |
Hamdi Ulukaya (born October 26, 1972) is a Turkish-born Kurdish businessman living in the United States. Ulukaya is the owner, founder, Chairman, and CEO of Chobani, the #1-selling strained yogurt (Greek-style) brand in the United States. On April 26, 2016, Ulukaya announced to his employees that he would be giving them 10% of the shares in Chobani.[2]
Originating from a dairy-farming family in a small village in Turkey, Ulukaya came to the U.S. in 1994 to study English and took a few business courses as well. In an interview with CNN Money, Ulukaya explains that he was very serious about Kurdish rights and left Turkey due to the Turkish state's oppression of its Kurdish minority group. He started a modest feta-cheese factory in 2002 on the advice of his father.
His larger success came from taking a major risk: Ulukaya purchased a large, defunct yogurt factory in upstate New York in 2005, in a region that used to be the center of a dairy and cheese industry. With no prior experience in the yogurt business, he has created a yogurt empire, Chobani, with facilities in several states. It was valued at over $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years after launch, becoming the leading yogurt brand in the U.S. by 2011. The popularity of his Greek-style yogurt also sparked the rise in Greek yogurt's market share in the U.S. from less than 1% in 2007 to more than 50% in 2013.Ernst & Young named Ulukaya the World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013. The success of his yogurt empire has made Ulukaya a billionaire and developed new employment in several regions. According to Forbes, his net worth as of 2016 is $1.92 billion. In 2014 a suit was filed by Hamdi Ulukaya's ex-wife claiming that his success was “based upon a recipe he stole from a competitor" and that "Hamdi boasted on occasions that he had obtained the formula for the Chobani brand of yogurt from Fage by bribing a former employee of Fage. He traveled to Europe and bribed this individual with 30,000 euros."
Hamdi Ulukaya was born in 1972 to a Kurdish family in Turkey. His family owned and operated a sheep, goat, and dairy farm near the Euphrates River in İliç, Erzincan Province, where they made cheese and yogurt. The family often led a seasonally semi-nomadic existence tending and herding their flocks. Ulukaya is uncertain of his exact birth date because he was born during one of the family's mountain treks.
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