|
Hamdi Ulukaya (born October 26, 1972) is a Kurdish American〔〔http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/opinion/sunday/hamdi-ulukaya.html?_r=0〕 entrepreneur and businessman. He is the owner, founder, chairman, and CEO of Chobani, the number one–selling strained yogurt brand in the United States. Originating from a Kurdish 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. He started a modest feta-cheese factory in 2002 on the advice of his father, but his real success came from taking a major risk: purchasing a large defunct yogurt factory in upstate New York in 2005. With no prior experience in the yogurt business, he created a yogurt empire, Chobani, that went from zero to over $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years, becoming the leading yogurt brand in the U.S. by 2011.〔Winograd, David. ("Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya: Startups Are 'Cool' But Let's Focus On People Who 'Make Things'" ). ''Huffington Post''. June 18, 2013.〕〔("Chobani Takes Top Spot as America's #1 Selling Yogurt Brand" ). ''Reuters''. April 20, 2011.〕〔("Chobani Yogurt CEO: I Had No Business Experience" ). ''Bloomberg TV''. February 12, 2014.〕 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.〔("Hamdi Ulukaya of Chobani named EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year 2013" ). Ernst & Young. June 9, 2013.〕 The success of his yogurt empire made Ulukaya a billionaire, and according to ''Forbes'', his net worth as of 2014 is $1.4 billion.〔(Hamdi Ulukaya ). Profile on ''Forbes''s Billionaires.〕 ==Early life, education, and early career== 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 Ilic, Erzincan Province, making cheese and yogurt.〔Gross, Daniel. ("It's All Greek to Him: Chobani's Unlikely Success Story" ). ''Newsweek''. June 12, 2013.〕〔Weisul, Kimberly. ("How Turkish 'Dairy Boy' Hamdi Ulukaya Started $600 Million Chobani" ). ''Inc.'' October 17, 2012.〕〔Mead, Rebecca. ("Just Add Sugar: How an immigrant from Turkey turned Greek yogurt into an American snack food" ). ''The New Yorker''. November 4, 2013.〕 The family often led a seasonally semi-nomadic existence tending and herding their flocks, and Ulukaya is uncertain of his exact birth date because he was born during one of the family's mountain treks.〔 After studying political science at Ankara University, in 1994 he moved to the United States to study English at Adelphi University on Long Island, New York.〔("Honorary Degree Recipients: Hamdi Ulukaya, Doctor of Humane Letters" ). Colgate University, 2013. ''Colgate.edu''.〕 In 1997 he moved upstate and transferred to the University at Albany, State University of New York where he enrolled in a few business courses.〔〔Prasso, Sheridan. ("Chobani: The unlikely king of yogurt" ). ''Fortune''. December 12, 2011.〕 He ended up taking a job on an upstate farm, and when his father visited him, he managed to convince his son Hamdi to import the family's feta cheese from Turkey after tasting the inferior cheese available locally. When the imported cheese proved popular, Hamdi opened a small wholesale feta cheese plant of his own, called Euphrates, in Johnstown, New York in 2002.〔〔〔Fifield, Anna. ("Founder follows his gut instincts" ). ''Financial Times''. April 9, 2013.〕 The venture was modestly successful but by the two-year mark it had just barely broken even;〔 Ulukaya later recalled, "It was two years of the most challenging days of my life."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hamdi Ulukaya」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|