I was born in Istanbul. After graduating from Kabataş Boys High School, I have received my higher education in the Department of Marketing in the School of Business Administration at Ege University. While continuing my education, I began working as a government employee at the Institute of Electronic Computation Sciences of the University, and worked as a system operator for three years.
After the university, I returned to Istanbul and worked for one year as a programmer at Sebim Elektronik Bilgi İşlem Merkezi, an affiliate of Silkar Holding. I decided to become an entrepreneur in 1980 and established my first company in the textile sector. That business lasted for 8 years. I founded Exim A.Ş. in 1988 with my former partner.
We have carried out many solutions and applications for the first time in Turkey in the field of Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AI/DC) with Barcode, RF/DC technologies, and created a new market. In 1998, we have united all companies under Teknoloji Holding and became a group offering integrated solutions in payment systems.
With the inclusion of Inteltek A.Ş. or better known as Iddaa and Bilyoner, which were founded with our partnership, into our group in 2002, we had 11 companies and Inteltek and Bilyoner as our subsidiaries under the roof of Teknoloji Holding A.Ş. We have achieved a great success by selling our shares in Iddaa to Intralot in 2006.
In 2006, we (me and my partner) decided to end our partnership and proceed on different paths. According to the agreement we reached at the end of eight long months of negotiations, my former partner kept 7 companies while 4 companies, including Teknoloji Holding, were transferred to me.
We achieved another great success in the sector by selling Planet A.Ş. in 2007 to Ingenico, a company based in France, that is the world leader in electronic payment systems, which we have been the distributor for in Turkey. Again in 2007, we founded Turkey’s first loyalty based online permission marketing platform Napolyon, and kept introducing innovative solutions to Turkey.
I was appointed as the Honorary Consul of the Republic of Indonesia in Istanbul in 2008. After the opening of the Istanbul Consulate in 2013, I have served as the Honorary Consul in Antalya until 2018. In the same period, we have increased our range in entrepreneurship and began investing in new sectors. The technology sector stopped being our main line of business and became one of the sectors that we are investing in this new business model. As a consequence, we established Arena Faktoring in 2009 as our first initiative in the finance sector and gathered all of our companies under the umbrella of Hitay Holdings.
Then in October 2010, we founded Turkey’s first Online Market Research company, DORinsight.
In 2011, we have established 2Nokta in order to provide products and solutions in retail and banking industries.
In addition to its current companies, Hitay Holdings continues to hold various investment positions including 50 percent stake in Bilyoner A.Ş., Turkey’s first online gaming platform.
I was one of the founding members of the Endeavor Turkey, an organization based in USA, that aims at supporting the active entrepreneurs, and was a member of its board of directors during its first 5 years.
I am happy that I have caused the creation and realization of many innovative projects and business ideas, and helped the incorporation of these, during the 36 years of my long entrepreneurship adventure. Entrepreneurship is a lifestyle for me… I like being involved in new businesses, new ventures rather than managing routine business models running in the same system. Therefore, I will be an entrepreneur for life…
Emin Hitay