The Honorary Consul of Finland in Kayseri, Mr. Murat Sert: "Finland is full of lovely people!"

This is the last part of our series introducing all Honorary Consuls of Finland in Türkiye. Murat Sert is the Honorary Consul in Kayseri and he has served as Honorary Consul since May 2022.

 

Mr. Murat Sert, has been the Honorary Consul of Finland in Kayseri since May 2022. He describes Kayseri as a fascinating place with a rich history and many cultural activities, but also as a place with a great business environment. There are plenty of things to do throughout the year: skiing at Mount Erciyes; visiting many historical places, including Cappadocia; horse riding in Sultan Sazlığı National Park; trekking along numerous forest routes; paragliding at Mount Ali; and rafting in the River Zamantı. He assures readers that there is no way to get bored in his home city. 

Murat Sert is an electrical and electronics engineer by profession, but during his career, he switched more to the advanced materials and finished several master’s degrees in chemistry and materials sciences. For the last 20 years of his career, he has been more concentrated on the defense industry, where he has established and led several companies in Türkiye. For example, he is one of the founders and shareholders of KIM Technologies, located in Kayseri. He also works as a general manager for the aforementioned company.

The honorary consul of Kayseri finds Finland amazing, and he says that it is really one of the most fascinating countries in the world. He belongs to the generation that grew up with the book "The Country of White Lilies", which had a great impact on the Turkish view of idealizing a nation. Finnish has a similar structure as Turkish, and he prefers to believe that it results in similar "mechanics" in thinking.

Mr. Sert has done business with Finland since the late 1990s, but due to the duties of the honorary consul, he nowadays visits Finland more frequently, where he has many friends and business associates. His company is even planning to invest this year in a new production site in Finland as part of our international expansion plan.

Since business and technology are his strongest points, he aspires to promote business between the two countries. He sees great opportunities, in which Turkish companies and industries can easily work with their Finnish counterparts. He praises Team Finland as a perfect match for this purpose, with very powerful tools and great concepts to offer. Therefore, with the close cooperation of Team Finland, he plans to have a series of activities to promote the business effectively in Anatolia.

During the interview, Murat Sert repeated several times, that Finland is full of lovely people. Hereby, his best memories are related to the people that he encountered in Finland. As an anecdote, he tells about his visit to Helsinki. Like every visitor, he wanted to buy some souvenirs, and his aim was to obtain some handmade scarfs for his wife. He entered a shop, which was run by a very sweet old lady. Mr. Sert had difficulties in selecting, so the lady insisted he call the wife, and that was exactly what he did. At a certain point, the lady took over the phone and started chatting on the phone with his wife. Mr. Sert recalls the situation by saying that it was unbelievable, how they had such a nice and long conversation. Suddenly, they both forgot the scarf and the purpose of the call. At the end, the lady became a good friend of my wife, and they are still good friends. The outcome of the shopping still surprises: "Coming to the scarf, it became apparent that I forgot my wallet in my hotel room. So she gave one of her nicest scarfs as a gift and a ride back to the hotel!"