At twenty-two years old and in search of a better life, Hamdi left his poor Middle Eastern village for the rich West. His family had a small sheep and goat farm on the banks of the ancient Euphrates. In search of food, the Ulukaya family led a semi-nomadic lifestyle and it was during one such nomadic trip that Hamdi Ulukaya was born. He was born on October 26 1972. He studied political science at Ankara University, and today he is a Kurdish entrepreneur and businessman living in the United States.He is the owner, founder, president and CEO of the Chobani mega empire.

After arriving in the US, he studied English and also took business courses, but he ended up getting a job at a farm near New York City.

His father visited him at the farm, but was disappointed with the taste of the cheese that was made there. This is why he suggested that Hamdi try importing the cheese from their family farm to sell in the US. This imported cheese sold so well that he ended up opening a small cheese factory called Euphrates in Johnstown, NY. However, his business failed after two years. This is the period that Hamdi Ulukaya remembers as the most challenging period of his life.

All that you need is a dream and a willingness to take risk—Hamdi said about his early business endeavours.

And the opportunity for risk presented itself by chance. In 2005, Hamdi found a flyer in his mailbox advertising the sale of a nearly century old Kraft yogurt factory. Although he threw away the flyer, Ulukaya still went to see the factory and, despite the advice of his attorneys and bankers, decided to purchase it. Since he did not have enough money, he took out a loan and, as he says, hoped for the best.

Much like the cheese, the yogurt (that everyone in the US calls “Greek”) was not even close to what a Kurdish farmer’s son was used to.

He, therefore, firmly decided that his yogurt would be full flavoured, creamy, and rich – just like the one drunk by shepherds in his homeland.For this reason, he decided to name his company Chobani, after the Turkish word çoban meaning shepherd.

From the very beginning he adopted an unusual business strategy. Instead of focusing on small specialised stores, he purposefully focused on large wholesale chains.He did it because he wanted his yogurt to be accessible to everyone, as opposed to just niche consumers who frequent the specialised stores.

Since he could not afford the large entry expenses, Ulukaya suggested paying them in yogurt or after the yogurt was sold. And it sold. The first order containing several hundred cases of Chobani yogurt went on its way to a large chain in October 2007. The store ordered more the following week.

Without funds to run a traditional marketing campaign, but realising the power of digital media, Ulukaya hired a team of people to constantly and directly engage with his consumers on blogs and social networks. In addition to this, Chobani gave away 150,000 containers of yogurt for free throughout the US in the first year alone.

Yogurt began to conquer the US. In 2009, the company was selling 200,000 cases a week and doubled the sales every subsequent year. That same year, Chobani became the largest yogurt producer in the world with over a billion dollars in annual sales, and its owner became a billionaire.

However, in 2013 dark clouds came over the company when it became known that its brand new 450 million dollar factory was working at only a fifth of its capacity while, at the same time, hundreds of people were exhibiting symptoms of food poisoning after consuming yogurt from moldy containers. Only days away from bankruptcy, Ulukaya made a desperate move and sold 35% of his company to the TPG investment firm for about 750 million dollars.

The capital injection and the new business approach that TPG introduced saved the company which is now spreading to Australian, Asian, and Latin American markets, while also opening “yogurt cafés” in the US in which you can try exotic and unusual tasting food and beverages based on Chobani products.

In 2014, Ulukaya pledged to donate two million dollars to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Syria and Iraq.

Despite his world-wide fame, Hamdi Ulukaya did not forget where he came from. In May 2015, he announced that he would donate half of his wealth, nearly 700 million dollars, to projects targeted at helping refugees in the Middle East. This initiative, started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, has the goal of encouraging billionaires throughout the world to donate at least half of their wealth to charity.

“In the decade since I started Chobani, dramatic changes have occurred around the world. Today, more than 50 million people – most of them women and children – are living as refugees or displaced people, robbed of life’s opportunities by war, persecution, and natural disasters,” says Ulukaya, and he adds how he grew up watching his mother help those in need and how he had always planned to give away most of what he made.

He visited the Greek island of Lesbos in September 2015 to get a better idea of the Syrian refugee crisis.

That same year he started the “Tent” foundation to aid refugees world-wide. Ulukaya stated that he would like to encourage more businessmen to engage in helping refugees around the world by using their expertise to provide more innovative solutions to the refugee crisis. He also started a program aimed at helping refugees find jobs.

That same year he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and launched several initiatives geared towards helping refugees and encouraging world and business leaders to join the effort.

In October 2015, Ulukaya was honored with a humanitarian work award by the American Turkish Society (ATS) for his personal work and dedication to relieving the suffering of the Syrian refugees. He also won an award for his two million dollar donation, as well as his signing of the Giving Pledge and pledging to donate half his wealth to charity, contributing in this way to the effort to solve the global refugee crisis.

And in this way, Hamdi Ulukaya came full circle. A boy from a small farm in Turkey, a young student of political sciences in Ankara and English in New York, a maker of yogurt that even the shepherds from his native village would be proud of, a billionaire who gave away his wealth to help the children growing up by the Euphrates where he himself was born.

Hamdi Ulukaya, the founder and president of the US-based Chobani company that deals in yogurt production, was honoured as the World Entrepreneur of the Year at a gala ceremony held in 2013 in Monte Carlo and organised by the assurance and consulting firm Ernst & Young.

“Over the past 26 years, entrepreneurs have done more than any other group to stimulate innovation, job creation and prosperity during both periods of growth and in more challenging economic conditions,” Jim Turley, the global CEO of Ernst & Young concluded.

“Although Hamdi is truly an inspiring World Entrepreneur Of The Year 2013, the 49 women and men whom we honored tonight and the thousands of entrepreneurs who enter this program every year are all winners. Hamdi epitomises the vision and determination that set entrepreneurs apart. Now more than ever, we must acknowledge, celebrate and learn from these remarkable people,” Jim added.

Hamdi was born at a farm in eastern Turkey and he moved to the US in 1994 to learn English and attend business school.

He started making feta cheese in 2002 after a visit from his father, who did not like the cheese available in stores at the time. Three years later he purchased a closed-down yogurt factory and founded Chobani, which became the number one yogurt brand in the US. In the beginning he had five employees and today he has 3000.