The Hamdi Ulukaya Initiative by Chobani is founded on Hamdi Ulukaya’s vision that businesses have the power to transform societies in a positive way. The Initiative support entrepreneurs who are interested not just in financial success, but also in improving social welfare as a whole.
Participating startups see exponential growth
70+
Number of mentors engaged56
Accelerated Companies Portfolio282
young entrepreneurs supportedHamdi ulukaya Initiative changed my perspective on the world of startups and technology, and I saw that I could do much more with the experience I gained there. Hamdi Ulukaya Initiative has been one of the turning points for me and my company.
Levent Atlas, ForFarming
2019 Participant
Starting a new business, developing your business and setting new goals. Hamdi Ulukaya Initiative helped me build a business model.
Bekir Asker, Güneş
2018 Participant
Hamdi Ulukaya Initiative taught me that as a social entrepreneur, whatever you do, I have to keep going without giving up. One of the biggest contributions is that I have valuable new business contacts.
Sevil İke Sala, Handike
2017 Participant
This is the entrepreneurship support program that enhanced my vision in terms of global business and give back culture.
Onur Tireng, Statis
2018 Participant
Hamdi Ulukaya is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO at Chobani, one of the fastest-growing food companies over the last decade. He is also a pioneer in the natural food movement.
Hamdi Ulukaya was raised in a dairy-farming family in a small village in eastern Turkey. After moving to the United States, he launched Chobani in 2007 with the mission and vision of making good-quality food more accessible. Five years after selling the first cup of yogurt, Chobani was a billion-dollar brand, and today is the #1 selling yogurt brand in the U.S. The company has since expanded to an innovative modern food portfolio, adding dairy and plant-based creamers, oat milk, coffee and probiotic drinks. As a leader in the food manufacturing industry, Ulukaya built Chobani on the foundation that it would do well by doing good. In 2020-2021 alone, the company donated 10.5 million products to fight food insecurity across America, and advocated for policies that work toward ending hunger for 17 million American children.
Ulukaya is well-known for his employee-first policies, including instituting innovative profit-sharing and paid parental leave programs for Chobani’s 2,000-plus employees, and implementing competitive hourly wage increases well above the federal rate. He has also become a leading voice in the movement to hire refugees, having discovered through his own experience hiring them that “the minute a refugee gets a job is the minute they stop being a refugee.”
That inspired him to start the Tent Partnership for Refugees in 2016, a foundation that mobilizes the business community to improve the lives and livelihoods of refugees all over the world. Tent’s 250 members include Amazon, H&M, adidas, Hilton, L'Oréal, and Pfizer. Ulukaya also signed the Giving Pledge, committing the majority of his personal wealth to help bring an end to refugees’ crisis. For those efforts, Ulukaya was named an Eminent Advocate by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and received the United Nations Foundation Global Leadership Award, among other recognitions. He has received the Oslo Business for Peace Award and George H.W Bush Points of Light Award, is a Global Citizen Prize winner, and was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in the World for his work on the refugee crisis and his innovative approach to business.