Gülcan Yayla, MBA/MSW’17 recently had an interview with Laura Benoist, Director of the McDonnell Academy where she spoke about her experience as a McDonnell Scholar and WashU alum, and shared her insight on how current Scholars can prepare to have impact as global leaders.
Scholar Highlight
Gulcan Yayla receives 2022 Mark S. Wrighton Award for McDonnell Academy Alumni
Gulcan Yayla is co-founder and CEO of Patika, a web platform that addresses the gap between the job market and education of millions of unemployed people around the world.
Read the Mark S. Wrighton Award Winner articleI’ve dedicated myself to solving the large-scale skills gap and unemployment problems affecting millions of people around the world. I’m often amazed to see how some obvious solutions are ignored just because we are so used to the status quo. Changing this is very hard, but with the support of the McDonnell Academy and amazing people around me, I’m confident that we’ll make a permanent dent in this world.
Gulcan Yayla, 2022
Gulcan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Patika and former CEO of Kodluyoruz. Patika and Kodluyoruz are working to make Turkey a worldwide talent hub for the technology sector while addressing the youth unemployment and underemployment problems. Before moving back to Turkey for Kodluyoruz, she worked for Malala Fund and World Bank in Washington, D.C. to support girls’ education and to provide strategic directions to governments on how to adapt education systems to the third industrial revolution. She also worked as a strategic planning and business development consultant for 3 years in Turkey. She enjoys reading, swimming, traveling, and drawing.
Gulcan holds an MBA and MSW Joint Degree from Washington University in St. Louis as a McDonnell International Academy Scholar, along with a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Middle East Technical University.
