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As a student in Ankara in the 1980s, Ilhami Koç was planning a career as a diplomat. A female friend wanted to apply for a job in Isbank’s auditing department, so he accompanied her to the bank’s headquarters to pick up an application form.
“They said: ‘I’m sorry but we don’t hire women as auditors,’” he says. “She got angry and the situation was getting tense, so to calm things down I said I’d take a form.”
As it turned out, the Isbank graduate exams were similar to those for the foreign ministry, so Koç decided to sit them for practice.