Pursuits
Demet Mutlu, Fashion-Forward in Turkey
Her native Turkey had no decent online fashion outlet, so she bid Harvard güle güle to start one
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It doesn’t take expertise to recognize the appeal of flash-sale fashion sites in the Gilt vein—just a taste for clothes and deals. But it may take an expert to create such a site in a new market. After five years in brand management and one at Harvard Business School, Demet Mutlu, 30, dropped out to start Trendyol, a Turkish discount sale site that now boasts more than 4 million members.
Born in New York and raised in Istanbul, London, and Rome, Mutlu graduated first in her class at New York University. In 2008, after working successively at Deloitte & Touche, Altria Group, and Procter & Gamble, she stepped off the corporate track to go to HBS.