Athens Day 1

JThis morning we had a 9am gathering time. Our first visit was to Alpha Bank in downtown Athens. What is really fun about being in Athens is that our professor is an Athens native and has no problem interjecting into our tour guide's ongoing narrative. We met with Alpha Bank's chief economist who was significantly more optimistic than you might have expected. Overall, the Greeks seem to be on the upswing, at least in spirit.

Fun facts:

-Alpha Bank is one of the oldest private banks in Greece

-Greece's GDP is down 16% since 2009

-A lot of money was spent getting ready for the 2004 Olympics. There were a lot of short term improvements, but they need to find new uses for some of the sites.  

After Alpha Bank, we got lunch at Titania's Olive Garden, which is the hotel's rooftop restaurant. We had some amazing amazing food. We started with a salad that was mostly tomatoes. I am afraid I am going to burn out on tomatoes, didn't know it was possible. The restaurant had amazing views of the acropolis and we took some pictures.

After lunch, we headed to S&B, a mining company. S&B is in the fortunate position of having most of its customers outside of Greece, so they are mostly isolated from "the crisis". We had a brief tour of the labs, which were significantly less tidy than the labs I am used to. 

Fun facts:

-S&B did €470 million in sales in 2012.

-They are highly diversified. No customer is responsible for more than 5% of their annual revenues. Only 7% of their sales are domestic.

-S&B is family owned (61% of shares)

-Acquired NYCO (of upstate NY) in 2012

This evening, we had a Northeastern Alumni event at Athens College (actually a primary and secondary school). It was really fun and a very different experience from Istanbul.
It's 11 here and we have another early start tomorrow. Will try to elaborate on this post tomorrow!

Friday....

This morning we visited Bilim ilaç, a pharmaceutical company based on the Asian side of Istanbul. (Note: I thought we were staying on the Asian side, but we are staying in Europe.) As you probably already know, I love love love factory tours. The initial presentation was interesting and the General Manager met with us to discuss Bilim's many awards and its company values. They really focus on employee satisfaction and high quality. After the presentation and some tea and pastries, we were on our way.

The GMP manager (good manufacturing practices) was our tour guide. I was immediately excited because I knew he would be able to answer my uber nerd questions. We were first given a tour of the labs. They test stability (shelf life, etc) in one lab and analyze the overall composition in the other. Then it was time to suit up into our clean room suits (hair nets, tyvek suits and booties). I was surprised to see a lack of safety glasses in the factory, but didn't get a chance to ask why. We got to see where powders became pills, capsules were opened to be filled, and several of the packaging steps. I was like a toddler in an aquarium, pressing my face up against the glass looking at anything and everything. I'm a little amazed I didn't get in trouble for getting too close at times. I did get to ask some geeky questions that I'm sure none of you care about, so I will spare you. What is really really cool is that they have a completely automated warehouse. The computer program knows where's everything is and stores/picks using robotics and bar code scanners. Since there are only machines, there is no workplace accidents. After our tour, we were treated to lunch in the cafeteria. The employees are all given lunch everyday, as one of their perks.

Fun facts:
Bilim ilaç was founded in 1953 and is a family business
It is the fastest growing pharmaceutical company. but only the 3rd largest right now in Turkey
7.1% of all prescriptions written in Turkey are filled with Bilim ilaç products

After the site visit, we returned to the old city piece of Istanbul and visited the Grand Bazaar. It was way more of a labyrinth than the spice bazaar but clearly a major tourist destination. I managed to pick up a few gifts and then we were late to meet our group because we got horribly lost.

This evening, we went to the Akbank art and cultural center near Taksim square for a NU alumni reception. It was really interesting to talk to some fellow Huskies. Our professor presented a short PowerPoint about NU's growth in the last few decades. We're a much bigger deal than we were in the 80s. I spoke to some of my fellow engineering alums and I am happy to report that 2/5 were female.

This evening, Jenny and I split a pizza and now are playing in the lobby on our respective devices. Tomorrow is more sight seeing!!

Note: having trouble getting my iPhone and iPad to share pictures. I'm working on it!

Turcas, Kebabi and Akbank

I think I overdid it on Turkish tea yesterday because I found myself wide awake at 2am.

I managed to drag myself out of bed in time for a long shower and a non-rushed breakfast. We were then on our way to Turcas Petro. We were greeted by the CFO and a table full of pastries. A few minutes later, the CEO arrived. Batu Aksay is the CEO and it is shocking how young he is, he's in his late 30's if we are doing the math right. Batu presented to us about Turkey's energy market and Turcas Petro's role. He has an electrical and computer engineering degree, but was really impressive from a business strategy standpoint. Turkey is in a very advantageous "geopolitical" position due to their proximity to the Middle Eastern oil producing countries and to the rest of continental Europe. It was really interesting. Turcas is currently a minority member of a joint venture with Shell. The JV was mutually advantageous to both parties, Shell gas can be sold at a premium in Turkey since brand names are valued highly and Turcas had great gas station locations. Turcas is actually Batu's family business, but he replaced a non-family CEO two years ago, so they seem open to non-family management.

A few fun facts:
-In Turkey there are 138 cars per 1000 people. The number is higher in Istanbul, which is obvious after being here for two days. In the US we have 818 per 1000 people.
-95% of oil consumed in Turkey is imported, so they are also focusing on decreasing their dependence on foreign oil. (I keep hearing Sarah Palin saying that in my head, and thinking "does she realize how much oil we use??") Turcas seems to have realistic goals on this, in my opinion.
-70% of all cars sold in Turkey today are diesel.

After Turcas, we had lunch at Kebabi. Meals arranged by the tour company seem to just be a never ending parade of awesome food. We got a chance to roam the Kanyon mall. It was really interesting architecturally, but frustrating for efficient shopping patterns. Ultimately, it was a fancy mall and had fancy mall stores.

We headed to Akbank, which is Turkey's largest bank. This presentation was significantly less interesting to me and the speaker spoke in one of those soft voices that lulls you to sleep. I was cracking up in my head between attempts to stay awake at the photographer that was taking a steady stream of photographs for over a half hour. We were sitting in place and the speaker was standing in place. Wasn't exactly worth the disk space in my opinion. Jenny enjoyed the Akbank speaker much more than I did, but here are a few facts:
-Turkey is currently the 18th largest economy in the world. (I assume they only count countries but wouldn't Wal-mart be in the top 10?)
-50% of all Turks are 29 years old or younger
-one third of Akbank customers don't use ATMs....ever (they can use mobile apps)
-Akbank does not treat all its customers equally and if you are a lowly normal person who walks in, you could expect to wait 30 minutes.
-credit card interest rates here are between 20 and 25%
-Turkey has stricter bankruptcy laws than us and don't allow for chapter 11

After Akbank we got to change for dinner in Kumkapi district. This is the seafood area of the old town and was really interesting. We walked down one street that almost seemed like a giant St. Anthony's feast but subtract the Saint and add fish. It was lined with open air restaurants, some were equipped with Turkish traditional musicians. They were like middle eastern Mariachis. We had another amazing food parade of traditional Turkish dishes. It was harder to eat at dinner because we were just so full and tired. I tried everything but the fava beans, including the sardines. I don't like stuffed grape leaves, I just tried them for the first time tonight for the sake of adventure but they have never appealed to me. After dinner we saw the "ice cream show" where this guy dressed like Abu from Aladdin swings around this giant marshmallow thing that is actually ice cream made from goat's milk. It was really good.

It is now almost 11:30 and I am falling asleep in the lobby trying to be witty for all of you. Hopefully our hotel in Athens has wireless in our rooms and I can blog in my pajamas. Although now that Jenny and I have been to a Turkish bath together, maybe I can blog in my underwear. Will try to post pictures here tomorrow.

Note on my Facebook picture: I keep joking about wanting to take a picture with a statue of Atatürk. I also keep referring to him as "Turkish Jesus" even though he isn't a religious figure, he is EVERYWHERE. Hopefully I can pull off a selfie with Atatürk in sculpture form.

Night night!