Muradiye Kiyak had no professional experience working in the seafood industry when she became CEO of MurFish, a seafood distributor and exporter headquartered in Samsun, Turkey.
Kiyak’s father, Muhammet Kiyak, began working in the seafood industry as a fish cutter at age 14. In 1982, he founded Kiyak Kardesler Company, and grew it to encompass three subsidiaries: MurFish, Samsun Balikcilik, and Black Sea Kiyak Kardesler, which had collective sales of USD 47 million (EUR 43 million) in 2022.
The company, which has 132 employees, has both wild-catch and aquaculture operations, fishing in the Black Sea and growing 5,000 metric tons of sea bass, sea bream, and salmon trout in near-shore net-pens annually. Unusually for a company of its size, it is vertically integrated, with a fishmeal and fish oil production plant, sales and distribution arms, and a local market and restaurant.
Until 2021, Muradiye Kiyak had no involvement in the business. Her passion was literature – she received a master’s degree in English language and literature in 2011, worked as a professor at Ondokuz Mayis University for two years, and received a Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Kent in England.
But she was thrust into the business unexpectedly in April 2021, after her father died suddenly from Covid-19. Four months later, she was running MurFish, while her relatives took over the other two subsidiaries.
”When they called me to let me know he passed away, I left everything in England, went back with only a bag, left my job as a lecturer, and took my father’s position in the company,” Kiyak told SeafoodSource at the 2023 Seafood Expo Global in Barcelona, Spain, where she was representing Kiyak Kardesler Company.
Despite being new to the business and the world of seafood, and relatively young, Muradiye didn’t hesitate to make changes she thought were necessary to improve MurFish’s performance. When she took over, MurFish was exclusively a domestic company, but her first leadership move was to launch an international sales push.
“We were [selling] to other companies [in Turkey], who would then ship and export,” Kiyak said. “When I arrived, I said, ‘I know European countries, let’s do exporting.' So, I did it in a month.”
The move has been a success, with MurFish finding willing buyers for its salmon-trout and sea bass in Russia and the Middle East. Now Kiyak is pushing to initiate sales to North America, as well as expanding MurFish’s presence across Europe.
Kiyak is one of just a handful of female leaders in the Turkish seafood sector, and she said she fights relentlessly to be taken seriously as a woman in a CEO role in the country, and for the industry to appreciate the value and importance of women working in the sector. Kiyak said she is committed to ensuring women are given an equal chance for success at MurFish, and since beginning her role as CEO, Kiyak has hired 44 women with a pitch of promised equality in the workplace, an uncommon practice in Turkey. Today, approximately half of her staff at MurFish are female.
“We taught them how to use a knife, how to cut the fish, spooning, packing, scaling,” Kiyak said.
Kiyak has worked hard to gain the respect of her employees, and during the busiest times of the harvesting season, she takes hands-on shifts cutting fish side-by-side with her employees on the factory floor.
Even with all her new responsibilities, Kiyak remained committed to completing her Ph.D. The University of Kent allowed her to complete her doctoral work remotely.
“It is very hectic,” Kiyak said.
Undaunted by the challenges ahead, Kiyak said she has big plans for MurFish. Within the next year, Kiyak wants to push the company to begin manufacturing and exporting pre-cooked and other value-added products.
“My goal is to keep this business alive for the memory of my father. I think it deserves that,” Kiyak said. “He devoted his life to it.”
Photo by Bhavana Scalia-Bruce/SeafoodSource
