We Conducted an Interview with Ulaş Koç

We conducted an engaging interview with Artemida Petrokimya General Manager Ulaş Koç. Koç discussed the company's vision and objectives.

Could you briefly tell our readers about yourself, your educational background and professional experience?

I was born in Bursa on 22 January 1980. After completing my primary and secondary education there, I graduated from the Business Administration Department at Ege University. Shortly after, I completed a master's degree in Business Management at Yıldız Teknik University. Following my education, I began working at Opet Petrolcülük A.Ş., a Koç Group company, where I held various management positions for a full 17 years. Building on my career within such a serious corporate culture for many years, I have been serving as General Manager at Artemida Petrokimya since June 2022. I am married and enjoy playing golf whenever I have the opportunity.

Could you provide information about the stages Artemida Petrokimya has gone through to date, the investments it has made and its current structure?

As Artemida Petrokimya, we are a very young company established with foreign capital in June 2022, but despite our youth, I believe we have presented a quite skillful image in overcoming the difficulties faced by newly established companies, thanks to our experienced and specialist workforce and strong capital. By combining our supply capability, which is our company's strongest asset, with our financial strength, we initially began operations in the Turkish market, and subsequently we opened ourselves as a seller to the global market through transit trade agreements that we began to establish. In the coming period, we aim to become a company that will be remembered for many years, both by increasing our domestic sales and by pushing up our transit trade and export figures. Our objective when starting out was of course to succeed in commerce and create a structure that would provide added value to our shareholders and our country. I believe achieving this requires establishing a proper corporate structure and creating a company culture. At this stage, the most critical point is creating happy people. The more happy people you can create in working life, the more committed and productive colleagues you will develop, in my view. With this perspective, we continue to add new colleagues to our experienced team every day.

What types of products and services does Artemida Petrokimya primarily supply to which sectors?

Our company primarily supplies many solvent and polymer group products to sectors such as paints and coatings, adhesives, resins, packaging, plastics, inks, disinfectants, polyurethane and industrial oils.

Could you provide information about the characteristics of your products and services? Could you discuss your domestic and foreign sales activities?

Our company primarily provides services from coastal tanks leased in its own name in the Gebze region, in the form of transshipment, blended, cash-and-carry delivery and direct loading from producers, tailored to our customers' requirements. Our export items, which are currently limited to Eastern European countries, will be expanded to a much broader area in the near future. Additionally, we carry out transit trade (cross trade) sales of products we source from foreign refineries to various countries worldwide.

Could you provide information about Artemida Petrokimya's environmental policy and sustainability approach?

As Artemida Petrokimya, we have set ourselves the goal of being one of the leading companies in our sector in environmental sustainability, as in all areas. For our company and the customers we serve, we believe that a successful future depends on the sustainability of the environment in which we operate, societies and economies. As a responsible corporate entity, we bear the responsibility of considering the impacts of our activities, both directly in terms of our own actions and indirectly in how our purchasing decisions and business opportunities we pursue affect the environment. We want our products, services and future investments in the production area to be part of a sustainable society. We are committed to minimizing the impact of our activities on the environment and demonstrating leadership by integrating environmental considerations into all our business practices. We will encourage our product suppliers, our solution partners in logistics and storage, and our customers to adopt the same environmental principles as Artemida; we will make purchasing decisions taking into account the environmental performance of our suppliers and the environmental characteristics of products and services. Our company will increase employee awareness and support employees' creativity and enthusiasm in implementing our environmental policies, directives, programs and initiatives. By continuously promoting environmental awareness, responsibility and practices, we will support our company's environmental sustainability culture through training and internal initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint.

What criteria are prioritized when Artemida Petrokimya develops investment plans? Does Artemida Petrokimya have investment plans for the coming periods, and if so, what are they?

As I mentioned earlier, we are a newly established, young company. After properly structuring our corporate organization, we have various investment plans within our medium-term plans. In this context, I can say that we will prioritize investments that will bring returns to our company and country, and from an import-substitution perspective, aim to reduce the current account deficit. Furthermore, within the scope of our environmental policy and sustainability awareness, when making future planning and investment decisions, we will take a proactive approach by designing products to reduce any negative environmental impacts that may arise in production, and do whatever is necessary to reduce resource consumption, waste and pollution in our activities.