As a part of global relocation with my wife’s company, we moved from Istanbul, Turkey to Chicago in the U.S. exactly a year ago. During the first few months, I was challenged not only to adapt to a new city and country, but also complete official formalities and paperwork. Once they were completed, I was fortunate to continue my 16-year career building partnerships and delivering for sustainable business and society at Avanade. Currently, I manage Avanade Corporate Citizenship programs to develop social impact projects with our clients and environmental sustainability actions in communities.

Over the last seven months, while learning, experiencing, and adapting to a new corporate culture, I felt lucky to join an organization that matches my personal values and purpose. I am grateful to be able to continue doing what matters. Many times, these strong commitments may be perceived as an exaggerated corporate slogan – I have witnessed that this is not the case for Avanade. It has taken a desperate situation for me to see to what extent.

On Feb. 6, my home country Turkey was hit by multiple earthquakes – two major ones with magnitudes of more than 7.4, which affected more than 15 million people, including 1.5 million Syrian refugees. At the time of writing this blog, more than 35,000 people have lost their lives and over 400,000 people have been impacted, and tragically those numbers are growing daily.

We are in the early aftermath of this devastating event, and recovery will require not only financial aid but also solidarity and unity. Avanade responded in less than 36 hours of the earthquake and launched a donation campaign to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a client in our nonprofit industry portfolio, which responds to the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Donations to IRC will help deliver emergency assistance and long-term aid to vulnerable people and help those people rebuild their lives. So far over 400 Avanade colleagues have contributed, and Avanade has committed to a match campaign. I am very grateful to each one of my colleagues and Avanade for raising these much-needed funds to help. 

Despite the time difference and geography, I have been using my volunteering hours to work to support some of my former colleagues and friends across to globe to start donation campaigns in their respective companies.

I am so proud to work for a company whose purpose is to make a genuine human impact on our people, our clients, and our communities. In dark times, I’ve seen how this company really lives up to what it says. We really do focus on doing what matters.