Hamdi Ulukaya: Founder and CEO of Chobani
Business Owner · Food & Beverage
Hamdi Ulukaya bought a defunct upstate New York yogurt plant in 2005 and grew Chobani to over $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years.
About Hamdi Ulukaya: Founder and CEO of Chobani
Hamdi Ulukaya (born October 26, 1972) is a Turkish billionaire businessperson, activist and philanthropist of Kurdish ethnicity based in the United States. He is the founder, owner, chair and CEO of the strained yogurt brand Chobani, and as of April 2026 has a fortune of $13.7 billion, among the 300 richest people in the world. Ulukaya, a Kurd, has stated a strong commitment to Kurdish rights, citing it as a reason for leaving Turkey. He started a modest feta cheese factory in 2002 on his father's advice, and his major success came in 2005 when he bought a large, defunct yogurt factory in upstate New York, in a region with a dairy and cheese history dating to the mid-nineteenth century. Chobani achieved over $1 billion in annual sales in less than five years after launch and became a leading yogurt brand in the US by 2011. He was named Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013, and Inc. magazine called him "one of the most important entrepreneurs of the past decade" in 2019. In July 2022 UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed him an additional advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals. Sources: English Wikipedia (Hamdi Ulukaya, accessed September 2026).
Basic Information
Founder, owner, chair and CEO, Chobani
Company Details
Chobani
Yogurt, Dairy, Food Manufacturing
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