In this new profile feature, we’d like to introduce you to some of the diverse range of people who work with us at ICIEC and take a look at what they do.
Meet Ms Fatma Gamze Sarioglu, ICIEC’s Türkiye Senior Country Manager. Renewal and regeneration is at the heart of her operations in Istanbul, Türkiye. We asked Gamze five questions to get the measure of what makes her tick in her role for ICIEC.
1. What is it you do at ICIEC, and how did you get here?
I joined ICIEC seven years ago after a 20-year career working for foreign and local banks in Türkiye. I opened the office for ICIEC in 2015 and joined as the Türkiye representative. At first, it was just me in the office, but we’ve expanded the team. Now there are three of us – one colleague who is the Lead of Commercial Underwriting Business Unit and two of us ladies in sales. We’re very much in harmony as a team.
2. What does your typical day involve as a team?
Let’s start with Friday. In Türkiye, we work on Fridays when Jeddah is closed for their weekend. That’s our day for a list of ‘to-do’s’ that we discuss the way forward for the following week when the head office in Jeddah is on its weekend. On Monday we get on with those to-do’s.
We have three pillars of our work. The first of those is relationship management. We keep very busy with physical meetings, online, networking and phone calls as it’s really important to be in touch with existent clients and follow up with them. Sometimes they call us too with questions about projects. Remaining in touch with clients is the most important thing to us.
The second pillar is reaching prospective clients. We create new lists every week, following up on items in the press and financial magazines and we also talk to current clients and ask them about their current partners in the projects they are working on, which is an important resourcing channel for us. We report all this to head office and have weekly meetings with our managers in Jeddah.
The third part is following up on deals we are already working on, whether that be in Türkiye or another member country. That’s not only following up on the deal policies we are issuing, but also the proposals that we are working on. Issuing proposals takes time as well and there’s a complex process behind that. You need to follow up the process to find out who is keeping the proposal, in the back office and queries from the head office, from legal and underwriting. A lot of time is dedicated to explaining projects.
3. How does your role empower renewal and regeneration for your clients?
ICIEC is all about renewal and regeneration. We’re relatively new in the market in Türkiye, only starting here seven years ago, and most companies were still unaware about what we do. ICIEC had several successful deals before we had presence here, but now with presence we were able to talk about our priorities and decide where we are going to start in the market.
In terms of our product offering, we have two pillars. One is exports and the other is investments and financing investments. For exports, we work very closely with Turk Eximbank, Türkiye’s Export Credit Agency (ECA) as a reinsurance partner.
We aren’t competing with them, but rather supporting by offering reinsurance capacity and discussing how we can help reach out to international financiers for Turk Eximbank and support financing to ICIEC member countries. Turk Eximbank can provide MLT financing for Turkish EPCs for projects outside the country. We increased the level of support in an accelerated way through reinsurance and supporting Turk Exim’s borrowing from global banks and lending in terms of buyer’s credit loans for sovereigns.
The second pillar is equity investments and financing. There we needed to collaborate mainly with the large Turkish contractors and have successfully completed multiple deals including PPP hospital deals – supporting EPC contractors and covering international banks’ risk.
We have spent a lot of time educating the market on our products and how they can use them. ICIEC has been paving the way for contractors to access international financial markets and showed new ways of securing their investments in terms of mitigating political risks and also being able to reach out to several different kinds of structured financing methods using ICIEC assistance in Türkiye and in other member countries. This was really new to the market.
4. What is the most interesting project you have worked on at ICIEC that has fostered renewal and regeneration?
Most interesting? I’ve got at least two! The first was the Canakkale Bridge in 2018. It was a monumental PPP project – the longest suspension bridge in Europe and it was important as a transportation link. And it was important for ICIEC as we dealt with more than 20 financial institutions involved in the deal and we had several tranches, one of which was specific to ICIEC as the only multilateral institution in the financial structure. We covered ING Bank loans, and the deal won multiple awards.
The second two were in Cameroon and Senegal. Both of these were with Turk Eximbank but they were also supporting ICIEC members. One was the first time the Turkish ECA was using insurance coverage of a multilateral for a loan granted under a buyers’ credit structure to the government of Cameroon in 2016 for a stadium deal (Japoma-Douala Sports Complex). The sports complex was important for Cameroon as it was set to host the Africa Cup of Nations.
And in Senegal, two projects were closed in 2017. One was the Dakar Market of National Interest and the Truck Station and the second was a congress centre, sports complex (Business Hotel of CICAD, Expo Centre of CICAD, Diamniadio Multi-Functional Sports Centre). The Market of National Interest and Truck Station deal was important as it was the first time Senegal was building a central truck station and a technologically-advanced market (for the storage of fresh fruit and vegetables) and the government was helping support the adjacent transportation and distribution of them.
5. Finally, what is your ‘superpower’, or one thing that people might find unusual about you?
I’m a Mum of two, that’s my superpower! Maybe from a work perspective, if a meeting gets too serious, I always try to make people laugh for a while. Not for every serious meeting – I don’t do it every time!
