Ep. 81: Taking Big Chinese Brands Overseas, with Sonat Yalcınkaya, CEO of Soyaka AI

Our guest today is Sonat Yalcinkaya. Sonat has helped multinational companies increase their sales in hundreds of millions or perhaps billion, through his experience with Big Data and now AI. now He takes Big Chinese brands overseas and using Big Data and AI to do that. He is a global eCommerce professional with 7+ years of experience globally, living and working in EU, USA and China. He has worked at two Fortune Global 500 companies; Philips HQ & Midea HQ, crafting global ecommerce strategies, and executed these strategies in 17 of G20 countries. He also has extensive startup and freelancer, agency network. The author of 3-Months Online Store: Build Enterprise Level Online Store Under 3-Months.

Episode Content:

• Having a very successful academic life and showed high intelligence at a very young age, Sonat shares what made him join the industry, quit, and eventually became an entrepreneur.
• How his analytical skills apply to the sales of Philips. Philips people didn’t believe his predictions and suggestions at first. Sonat shares what made them change their mind and realized the power of data
• Question for Sonat: After transferring to China, what brought you to Midea and what did you do there?
• Sonat talks about his first impression of big Chinese corporates and how he made it work there
• Sonat discusses his first endeavour in crafting out the e-commerce strategy for Midea, and what challenges he had to face
• As many traditional mega brands in China were starting to catch up with the e-commerce trend, Sonat shares what he did with Midea where other Chinese companies were still struggling with.
• Sonat talks about the essential elements needed to implement a successful e-commerce strategy for Chinese brands
• Sonat is starting his AI startup at the moment. He shares the story behind it, what his idea is, the startup's stage right now and why he chose China.
• Sonat is known to have a very unusual daily routine to make his work efficient and body strong. He shares what it is and why he does it.
• How people can connect with Sonat

Episode Mentions:

Intro:

• Israel Mobile Summit
• Mike is thinking about making some moves, see here for details, and let us know if you have tips for moving! (Leaving comments or email: hosts@chinabusinesscast.com)
• Shlomo now offers Financial Fitness Call program to help freelancers and solopreneurs to be financially solvent and stress-free, if you are ineterested, add Shlomo via WeChat "shlomof" or email at shlomo@chinabusinesscast.com

Interview:

• Sonat's LinkedIn account
• Sonat's WeChat ID: ertansonat
• Sonat's email address

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A big THANK YOU to our awesome team: Boban, Honey, Grace, Jessa, Verena and all the people who have helped make this happen!