Hello, my name is Murat Yıldız.
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I have spent approximately 17 years in Human Resources. Payroll and personnel affairs were never my strong suit, as they never piqued my interest. Apart from that, I've always been very curious about other aspects. I read, watched, met new people, attended and organized events, and constantly tried to improve myself and put my learning into practice. My goal has always been development, both for myself and my team. I have always found joy in learning, growing, and implementing what I've learned.
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As an HR professional, looking back, one of the things I did well was being deeply involved in the business. I was always in the field with our Regional Managers (when I was an HR person in a sales company, I visited 65 cities). I tried to understand their work, engaged in discussions about their business, and shared their concerns. From my colleagues outside HR, I learned about sales figures, expenses, and targets from salespeople; supplier management, profit margins, and inventory costs from purchasers; budget, EBITDA, cash flow, financial costs, and net working capital from financiers; trial balances, declarations, commercial & official accounting, and independent auditing from accountants; quality, efficiency, and processes from producers; brand houses, brand essence, brand archetypes, ATL and BTL from marketers; customer segmentation, management, big data, data analytics, and campaign structures from commercial marketers; stock and warehouse management, route optimization from warehouse & logistics professionals; ERP systems, conceptual design, process/software development from IT staff... In short, I was always immersed in their work. I made them the protagonist in every HR practice (bonus systems, recruitment, training content development, etc.). I offered ways and facilitated, while they developed practical systems. This approach made our co-developed systems practical and owned. It worked.
Then came the day I returned to consulting post-corporate life, a common path for HR professionals. However, thanks to my experiences, I didn't return to the traditional consulting model. I created a new model of consultancy 😉
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Instead of the old style where the drum is on the employer's back and the drumstick in the consultant's hand, this model involved sharing the burden of the drum, deeply engaging in the employer's business, taking responsibility and initiative in decision-making, and walking alongside the employer through their change and development process, sharing their concerns, and actively taking on the responsibility of solving their problems. And this model worked. More than that, it was embraced.
I call this model Corporate Development Mentorship.
I realized three things made this model work:
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The professional knowledge and experience in HR I passionately learned and practiced during my 17 years in HR;
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The insights gained by immersing myself in the business ('business') from my non-HR colleagues;
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And finally, the way I present my knowledge and experience, my values and work ethics, my art.
Here, I intended to share insights (and how I practice my art) from my journey from Human Resources Partnership to Corporate Development Mentorship. I hope these insights (and my style) will be beneficial both to HR colleagues aspiring in this field and business owners embarking on Corporate Development.
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Best regards,
Murat
If interested, you can explore my detailed resume, information about my approach to life, resources that inspire me, my working style, principles, and blog posts about corporate development.