Conversations with Turkey's Career Pioneers – Zafer Akcasu
Tarih: Date
Rönesans Holding Executive Board Member Zafer Akcasu was our guest in Conversations with Turkey’s Pioneers in April. Mr. Akcasu began the conversation he prepared for the students of our English Language School by representing himself. He stressed the importance of English language in the business life and explained that one out of every four people speaks English which sums up to 1,5 million people out of which only 375,000 are native speakers; meaning that 1,125,000 people have learnt it as a second language.
He also mentioned that according to World Bank data, researches carried in 72 countries have shown that the income per capita increases in parallel with proficiency in English. Mr. Akcasu stressed that Kariyer.net researches reveal that %46 of the employers imposes English language proficiency as a prerequisite and that %76 of the jobseekers know English.
He mentioned that the companies prefer to employ professionals who already acquire English knowledge, rather than hiring those who can not speak English and training them afterwards. He also added that basic English knowledge is no more sufficient and that one should master English.
Mr. Akcasu, said that most of the worldwide companies uses English in order to increase in-house communication and performance and eliminate the geographical differences. Mr. Akcasu gave examples from his own company Rönesans with 57.000 employees and mentioned that they do business with international companies where 45 different languages are spoken but that the common language is English for all the meetings and contracts.
Mr. Akcasu, remarked that one can never know what future will bring and recommended the students to be open to surprises regardless of their fields and departments they follow.
