Haluk Can Hür, Founder and General Manager of Latro Kimya

We conducted an engaging interview with Latro Kimya founder and General Director Haluk Can Hür about the company's operations, product range, and the goals it aims to achieve in the coming years.

Mr. Haluk Can Hür, could you tell our readers about yourself and your professional background?

I graduated from the Chemical Engineering Department at Hacettepe University in 2002. I began my professional career as a Plant Engineer in the dyehouse of a large holding company's textile division, working there for 1.5 years. After completing my military service, I took my second position as a sales executive at another company producing textile auxiliary chemicals. At that company, I served as Sales and Marketing Director for 9 years. During this period, I took on a managerial role in all matters related to the company's domestic and international operations, export activities, management of distributor operations abroad, and all sales and marketing functions. Later, in 2010, I founded Latro Kimya. Initially, Latro Kimya focused on the textile sector as a distributor of raw material chemicals, primarily specializing in silicones from Momentive. In subsequent years, with the addition of many different sectors and products to our portfolio, the company significantly expanded its scope of operations.

Could you provide information about Latro Kimya? What are the factors that determine your success policy?

Since the day we founded Latro Kimya, we have believed in our motto "The pleasant address of chemistry." First and foremost, I want to emphasize that we strive to create an environment where both our employees work with pleasure and our customers receive services with satisfaction, where all our stakeholders conduct this business with happiness and joy. In my view, determining the factors of success is not straightforward. However, if we ask what differentiated us and what enabled our growth, we can say it is the ability to analyze, understand, and correctly match chemicals, sectors, and applications from a technical perspective.

Haluk Can Hür: "As Latro Kimya, we strive to provide solutions that will improve our customers' processes and add value to their products, solve their chemical problems, or make cost-reducing improvements. We also try to instill this awareness in the DNA of our team."

We work to ensure that our team members who join us are technically well-equipped and continuously improve their skills, study the theory thoroughly to understand applications well, and in practice, enter our customers' facilities to carefully analyze their processes. When you create a person who thoroughly analyzes the application side and has theoretical command of the chemical side, the result is truly solution-oriented.

Could you tell us about the sectors you serve and your product range?

First, starting with products, we are primarily specialized in silicone-based chemicals. Although not all sectors yet have sufficient knowledge about it, silicone has a very important place in the chemical world. As Latro Kimya, we strive to be expert and specialized in this area. As we began serving many different sectors, in addition to silicone chemistry, we started providing solutions related to other products. We supply products to many different sectors ranging from cosmetics to agriculture, from pet sheet and plastics to masterbatch, from solar panels to electronics chemicals and RTV sectors. The electronics sector is growing quite rapidly worldwide. In this context, there is a category I consider important called electronics chemicals. In recent years, particularly as Latro Kimya, we have been focusing on electronics chemicals. Under this heading, we provide solutions with our products in protective, adhesive, and insulating properties for the defense industry, space and aviation industries under the name of electronics chemicals.

What are your domestic and international sales activities?

We are a company serving many different sectors domestically. In terms of our team size domestically, we reach many regions. We have included foreign national team members working abroad in our company structure. Thus, we create a more multinational culture within the company. After establishing Wonderlab, our own laboratory, we began focusing more on international sales activities. As we developed our own product range, we made corresponding progress in exports.

What is the purpose of establishing "Wonderlab," a laboratory specialized in research and development? Could you provide information about the work conducted at Wonderlab?

We established our own laboratory, Wonderlab, approximately two and a half years ago within the framework of several objectives. One of these objectives was to produce our own products from Wonderlab. Our aim is to know our customers well, understand applications thoroughly, identify their technical needs and problems, and then find solutions from our suppliers. When we cannot find solutions from our suppliers, our own laboratory, Wonderlab, comes into play. Thus, we conduct our own formulations and modifications. Another important purpose of Wonderlab is to compare and report products according to our customers' requirements. Our mission as Latro Kimya is to ensure that all solutions and products we provide add value to our customers.

Could you tell us about your pre-sales and after-sales technical support team for better serving your customers?

Our sales team consists of chemists, chemical engineers, and mostly individuals at the master's degree level. The aim here is for technically competent individuals to understand the application and chemicals well and correctly combine the two in the right place. Our technical logistics is our greatest strength that makes us who we are, and to provide good technical logistics, we do our best to develop the infrastructure of both our laboratory and sales team.

What services do you aim to provide to the cosmetics, personal care, and household care sectors in the coming years?

We are a company that monitors all trade fairs and international developments in cosmetics, personal care, and household care, and we closely follow all trends in final products. Our greatest distinction as Latro is to monitor international final product trends and provide solutions to our customers accordingly. While following these trends, we inform our customers about these trends and focus all our concentration in this direction. Generally speaking, independent trends occur in Europe, the Far East, North Africa, and the Middle East, and because we closely monitor these trends, we are able to make significant contributions to our customers' export products. In the coming period, with the introduction of our new suppliers, we will have further developed our product range.

How do you evaluate the production and consumption volume, particularly in the cosmetics, personal care, and household care sectors?

First, I would like to note that our general approach should demonstrate development oriented towards exports. As Latro Kimya, we explain to all our customers the trends occurring internationally. The aim here is for our customers to export their products to various continents such as the Far East and Africa more extensively. With such a strategy, the cosmetics, personal care, and household care sector grows and sustains itself very rapidly. Haluk Can Hür: "Nowadays, for all companies, international expansion has become much more important, and this will enable us to do better work."

What innovations do you aim to implement in the coming years? What advantages will these innovations bring to Latro Kimya and the industry?

Our objective is to provide raw materials that will add value to our customers' products and create differentiation, increase process efficiency, and provide chemical solutions to all types of problems they face. In this way, we add value and provide benefit to the industry. At the same time, I believe that Latro Kimya will have a greater presence on the international platform in the coming period.

Could you tell our readers about LatroSailing, an enjoyable activity you conduct together with your employees?

We have a sailing team called LatroSailing, which we have formed with Latro employees. Sailing is one of the sports that best reflects the importance of teamwork. Everyone has a role here, and each role is critical to the boat's speed. I love sailing because it is the best example of working together. With Istanbul being one of the world's finest locations for this activity, we spend pleasant time with our team each year.