Acquisition International - Influential Businesswoman Awards 2022 23 May22288 Online Retail CEO of the Year (DACH Region): Ceyda Avunduk platform from parents for parents, littlehipstar combines a wide range of products with optimal service and thus an all-round convenient shopping experience. For this, the company has achieved the Shop Usability Award 2019 and was voted Shop of the Year. In addition to the design and high quality, littlehipstar’s products are characterised above all by a special focus on sustainability. It wants to be the responsible e-commerce platform, as Ceyda says, “From my understanding, sustainability is just not enough these days.” That’s why, for example, the company chooses to buck the trend of Black Friday by using a campaign to call attention to responsible shopping and conscious consumption. The plan is to not promote the purchasing of needless products. What might sound like a contradiction for an e-commerce store, but this is simply part of the company’s philosophy. It distances itself from greenwashing practices and even goes a step further: At littlehipstar, responsible business lies at the heart of all company decisions. The littlehipstar team is made up of responsible people, as individuals, as parents, and as a company. The work environment is not hostile. The days and hours are not “cut throat”. It offers flexibility, with more than 75% of its employees being mums; some even work from home and that’s absolutely fine, because they rock it, regardless. From the beginning, the company, which now has 20 employees, has focused on the compatibility of work and family and actively supports mothers with its own job programme when they return to work, Famport (www.famport.com). This programme has been hugely successful with so many applications from super qualified parents, predominantly moms, that it is currently working on turning this into a bigger project called Famport by littlehipstar, a matching system specialised for qualified mums and dads who are seeking flexibility and family-orientated companies of all sizes. As CEO, Ceyda manages her team in cooperation with her business partner and she is responsible for the company’s strategy. As a mum of two, she manages the business at home, and that’s how she knows how challenging it can be to find the balance between career and family. Therefore, it is personally so important to Ceyda that women support women and parents support parents. Indeed, Ceyda is doing all she can to support women within the industry because they are so disadvantaged in many areas, including unequal pay for the same work or the career break after birth of a A In 2013, Ceyda Avunduk founded littlehipstar after she had her first son. littlehipstar is an online shop for unique, sustainable children’s clothing, accessories, décor and furniture. This start-up has grown into one of the most popular platforms for high-quality children’s products online within a few years. The range currently includes 4,500+ items including furniture, toys, and decorative items, and is aimed at parents who have children aged 0 to 10 years. child. She comments, “There are just so many qualified women who don’t get the chance to combine kids and career in a healthy and realistic way. When we started our own mum programme and looked for a few new employees, we received several hundred applications from great women. I mean, we grew within the last few years, but not in a way that I could hire all of these dedicated mums. That was the time when we decided that we need to open our own parental programme for other companies, too. We want to support families in their balancing act between working and being a parent and at the same time to initiate a rethinking in the entire industry.” Ceyda’s career began at The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Istanbul where she was responsible for the fundraising. Some years later, she was hired by the main supporter of WWF at the time and began working in a bank in the area of corporate social responsibility. These experiences as well as her career as a professional tennis player have taught her a lot. She says, “I live my life with the motto, ‘You never lose. You either win or you learn.’ So, I am not afraid of supposedly failing. And I ask for help! Something many moms are not good at.” She is now focused on the future, indeed aiming for littlehipstar to become the responsible e-commerce platform for families, while being a game changer within the industry. The company will continue striving to be “the happy place for families”, with this description encompassing its goal of sustainably improving families’ lives. Thus, it is always on the lookout for ways and means to support families not just with its products, but in general. Ceyda also plans to invest more time into Famport and the company’s new initiative, ‘littlehipstar helps’, which takes part in charitable work such as supporting flood disasters and childcare facilities. Additionally, ‘littlehipstar stories’ will be launched, a company blog sharing tips and tricks for parents. On top of that, Ceyda would like to be able to go out and tell the littlehipstar story to inspire others to also run responsible companies. After all, empowering people and caring about giving back to society by running a sustainable business is a great responsibility. Ceyda says, “Rather than a few people doing things perfectly, we need to have billions doing it imperfectly, and that’s the story I’d like to tell going forward.” Company: littlehipstar GmbH Contact: Ceyda Avunduk Email: info@littlehipstar.com Website: www.littlehipstar.com
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