Sedat Yurdakul - Bridge Builder and Translator

In 1971, they came to Germany as guest workers, and a year later Yurdakul was born. Even though he was a planned child, the timing was not perfect. His parents were busy with shift work, and his grandparents were far away in Turkey. It was not an option to send the baby to them, and fulltime kindergarten in Germany was out of the question at that time. Thus the parents decided—as did so many other guest worker families in the same situation—to put little Sedat in foster care for a short while and after a few years take him back to Turkey.

But his parents decided to settle in Germany and remain a family. They not only took Sedat out of foster care, but they also brought his five-year-old brother home from Turkey. The problem: “My brother spoke only Turkish, I, German,” remembered Yurdakul. The family had to pull together. But looking back he wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’m lucky to have two pairs of parents. I had a really international childhood—there was no prejudice at our house, everyone was the same. That influenced me in all areas of my life. Sometimes I dream in Italian, sometimes German, and sometimes even in Turkish.”

This was followed by a four-year education at a vocational school, after which he got his first job in Heidelberg. Yurdakul married and his two sons came into the world. In 2007, he started at Freudenberg in Weinheim in the field of gaskets and vibrations control. “Freudenberg is an international company, which was the determining factor for me,” said Yurdakul. “Because I wanted my own intercultural experiences to translate professionally.” Next he worked for three years at an export sales team for Turkey, Israel and South Africa. At the end of 2010, he was promoted to Sales Director for General Industries in Turkey.

In daily life his multicultural background, especially in communications, is helpful to him. “In the end it’s about building bridges between cultures, and messages ‘translated,’ not linguistically, but in terms of content,” says Yurdakul. “I understand not only the language, but also the culture and business customs.” In Turkey, for example, business dealings are overtly respectful. The age and rank of the business partners play a dominant role. That goes for his own company as well. Strict work rules and regulations as in Germany exist only at big companies in Turkey. “Here an order can come in informally by email.  It would be fatal to insist  on a  work flow  that would be customary in Germany. The deal would probably not happen.”

Businesses that want to successfully operate in the international sphere need employees who combine various cultural identities, he said. “A German who was born and raised in Germany and had his first work experience in Germany would certainly not be bad in my position. But he would fail at the cultural details of everyday life. It would be the same if I were sent to the same position in India, for example.”  His assignment to Istanbul is open-ended, which is good: “At the moment we don’t want to go back to Germany, we feel really good here, we’ve settled down. The only difference between then and now: when we lived in Germany, we vacationed in Turkey; today we go to Germany to visit the family.”