Building bridges through education
Turkish businesswoman Canan Severoğlu transformed the challenging experience of arriving in the United States to study, only to find promises such as fully arranged accommodation unfulfilled, into a successful venture.
Global Education Organization (GEO) is dedicated to ensuring talented young individuals have an optimal experience when studying abroad. Canan launched it in 2009, three years after graduating with a Master of Business Science (MBA) degree from Schiller International University in Tampa, Florida.
“I decided to leave the palm trees and the sunshine and start up my own business, to give back to my community in the south-east of Türkiye. Now it's my 17th year in business and I have overseen thousands of students’ successful study trips,” she says.
“Some of those students had never seen an airport in their lives, but they were able to study in the US, the United Kingdom, Canada … Their minds were opened and they became different people. Some of them start giving back to their communities. I believe that givers create givers.”
Giving is what Canan has experienced through the WPO. “It is often very difficult for us, women entrepreneurs, to ask for help, but at the WPO I feel that we park our egos outside the door. Everyone is there as a human being – a supportive, loving, caring human being – that’s why it feels easy to share our experiences,” she says.
That sense of solidarity sprang into action when a massive 7.8-magnitude earthquake struck close to her home city, Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, in February 2023. Several hours later another earthquake, of 7.5 magnitude, hit nearby – more than 50 000 people died.
Canan set up a soup kitchen that was soon providing 90 000 meals a day, from more than 75 locations. “It was kind of a tough thing to do with no sleep and no power, but willpower was there. That was the most helpful thing,” she says.
Canan invests similar energy into GEO, where she personally interviews each of the students she places in high schools and universities across the world.
“When I consult with a student and their family, I am able to quickly assess in which country or in which region that student would be happier and more successful. Too many people only think of the US … They overlook other places, like Spain and South Korea.”
This year, to her surprise, Canan’s business acumen and her humanitarian efforts led to her receiving the Schiller Alumni Educational and Humanitarian Award.
The award “touched my soul because I think when people hear about these kinds of things, it resonates positivity. It shows that everyone can do that,” she says.
Canan, who has traveled to more than 100 of the world’s approximately 200 countries, takes care to keep on pressing up against the edges of her comfort zones. She enjoys activities such as shark diving (many times), fire walking (a few times) and spending time in the Amazon with shamans.
“When I was 12, I made a promise to myself that every year I would set a goal on my birthday to learn something new or to visit somewhere new,” she says.
In addition to GEO, Canan runs the architecture and construction company that her father, Bekir Sıtkı, began 45 years ago. She started working at Severoğlu Construction Industry & Trade as a teenager charged with keeping the bathrooms clean. After school, she studied economics at Türkiye’s Cukurova University and later decided to head for the US to study towards an MBA, which she completed in 2007.
“When I arrived in Florida I found out I had no accommodation. There was nothing arranged, actually. They even gave me a ticket to a city other than the one I was headed to. It was a joke.”
Three years later, this experience led to GEO. “I realized how students who go to study internationally really need support. I'm not talking about a student coming from Paris or the UK, I am speaking about young people from Türkiye or Asia, the Mena (Middle East and North Africa) region.”
Canan says she was surprised to be invited to join WPO, because of her relative youth compared with many of the other women who make up the Istanbul chapter. However, the support she has received is priceless, she says.
“I could see everyone was focused on uplifting each other and trying to show different perspectives. I appreciate the support, and the confidentiality,” she says.
Canan, one of four sisters, truly believes in the power of cultural exchange that underpins GEO.
“Real wealth, to me, is knowing about cultures. It's not money. When you do your business well, money comes by itself. I am more focused on the cultures. When I share experiences with shamans in the Amazon forest, I learn something from them. When I am in Guatemala, I learn something from them. When I'm in Kazakhstan in the mountains, I learn something from them. So it doesn't matter where I am or which country or continent I am on, I try to learn. I try to communicate.”