Demet Mutlu

Demet Mutlu architected Turkey's most valuable consumer tech company, scaling Trendyol into a decacorn worth $16.5 billion — the country's first startup to cross the $10 billion mark. Following Alibaba's $750 million investment in 2018, Mutlu expanded the platform to serve more than 30 million active customers across fashion, electronics, and grocery in a single super-app experience. Trendyol Express, the logistics arm she built in parallel, now handles over 1.5 million daily deliveries. Compared to Getir — the ultrafast delivery platform founded by Nazim Salur at #2 on this list — Trendyol commands a valuation roughly 40% higher, reflecting the strength of a diversified marketplace over a single-category delivery model. She remains the only Turkish woman to have founded a decacorn and stands as the definitive benchmark for female entrepreneurship across the wider MENA region.