(Zaman Al Wasl)- Before the war, Syrian business leader Faten Aqeel started her career in Marketing in Aleppo. After taking refuge in Turkey, she established a private company called "Moustache", which has become, after a few months, one of the successful and competitive companies there, overcoming all the obstacles in her path.
Aqeel has studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Aleppo and has taught painting for 18 years. After her resignation, she switched to advertising, working for Nissan Advertising Company in the office furniture department. In 2013, after the crisis in Aleppo, she decided to travel to Egypt, but the circumstances had forced her to resort to Turkey, where she is still residing.
When she moved to the Turkish city of Gaziantep, Faten Aqeel was not planning to stay but to return to her hometown Aleppo. However, the war in Syria forced her to stay in Turkey. She has spent about a year and a half at home as an unemployed woman. After the launch of the network "Gherbtna"—a website and an application—she worked in marketing in the cities of Entebbe, Mersin, Istanbul and Bursa. After a period, the businesswoman had the opportunity to establish her own company, which she called Moustache, with a logo of a moustache and a women's hat, indicating the role of both men and women in building societies.
Aqeel states that the biggest issues she has encountered were the financial obstacles and the fear of entering a market full of competitors. However, she has relied on her relations with her previous clients form Aleppo who later moved to Turkey. The challenge, she says, was to gain the confidence of advertisers and investors, as her company was new to the market.
Aqeel added that she is currently organizing the Behance Forum in Istanbul, in cooperation with ITI, a company specialized in organizing festivals and exhibitions. The exhibition will be held in mid-June, while she is currently working on the events that will take place. Another exhibition will be held in the city of Mersin in late April, which is expected to include leading companies and leading women in handwork.
She explains that Moustache, which is based in Ghazi Mukhtar Pasha Alghour Plaza Outlet, includes all advertising, from radio and television to social media, as well as website and application design, and marketing to various channels, radio stations and the media, including Syrian TV, Orient, Radio Rozana and Nasaem.
The director of Moustache has confirmed that her company works with the best designers and media professionals from inside and outside Turkey, who are competent, highly creative and innovative young people. She also deals with Namaa, the software company launched in 2014, to offer its customers the best sites, services and advertising.
Aqeel expressed her ambitions for the company’s growth and success in achieving a presence in advertisement amongst the competitors in the Turkish markets. She notes that language stands as a barrier to the expansion of its activities. As she notes the importance of working with Turks in advertisement services, a step that will be taken into account in the upcoming period, dealing with Turkish customers requires the knowledge of the language in order to convince them to advertise through Moustache.
The Turkish statistics indicate that the number of Syrians in Turkey by June 2018, reached 3 million and 325 thousand people, distributed across the Turkish states. The Syrians ranked first among the Arab countries in terms of the number of companies established in Turkey during the last 6 years, by 7 thousand and 599 companies. The Saudis came in second place with two thousand and 75 companies, followed by the Iraqis with a thousand and 436 companies.
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