Cave de Genève
Photo © A. Agca
She arrived at 18 with a suitcase and not a word of French. Today, she sits on the board of André SA, a long-established Vaud company specialising in wood processing. Between those two lives stands a woman who lost everything and rebuilt it all.
Adana, a city in southern Turkey, is a land of cotton fields and dry heat. That is where Ilkay Agca was born, into a family where every penny counted and dreams had to be weighed against reality. Her father moved between a textile plant and painting jobs, depending on the season. Her mother stayed at home and raised four children. Ilkay was the eldest: the one who helped, protected and cared for the others, especially her sister, 13 years her junior. “I was like a second mother to her.”
From an early age, Ilkay dreamed of teaching. She loved passing on knowledge, guiding and explaining. Even in primary school, her teacher would leave her in charge of the class whenever she had to step out. “I have always loved education, learning and passing things on.” As a teenager, she pictured herself in front of a blackboard. She would be a teacher, not by default but by vocation. That spark would never quite leave her.
At 18, her life took a different turn. Through an arranged marriage, Ilkay Agca left Turkey with nothing but a suitcase, a passport and a photograph of a man she had only ever seen in a picture. “I saw him in the photo… and I had no idea who he was,” she recalls. On the plane, caught between fear and hope, she already sensed that something momentous was at stake. When she landed in Switzerland, the shock was immediate: the cold, the quiet streets, the unfamiliar faces and, above all, a language she did not understand at all. She was alone, truly alone, in a foreign country, with only the man she was to marry as a point of reference. For a moment, the ground seemed to give way beneath her feet. She had to learn everything and rebuild everything.
Reality soon caught up with her. Her Turkish commercial diploma was not recognised, and her first months became an enforced apprenticeship. So she started again, without protest or complaint, with the quiet determination that would become her trademark. She learned French in three months, laying the foundations of a language she would make her own, and made such rapid progress that she was given an extra teacher to keep up with her. She studied in the mornings and worked in a textile factory in the afternoons. In the evenings, she cleaned the offices of the cantonal police, sometimes followed by shifts at Migros. Her days were long and her nights short, but she kept going. Not just to survive, but to build. To prove, above all to herself, that she could carve out a place in a country where nothing was handed to her. It was a hard time, but it did not break her. It forged her.
Behind that energy, however, another reality was taking shape: a marriage that was not of her choosing, growing isolation, and in-laws who refused to accept her. “I was not welcome,” she says. It is not a complaint, simply a statement of fact. She became a mother twice, yet remained trapped in a life that was stifling her. So she made the bravest decision of her life: to leave. To walk away from what was holding her back, even if it meant starting from scratch once more. Then the unthinkable happened. “My husband kidnapped my two children and took them to Turkey.” Her world was shaken, but Ilkay Agca did not collapse. Even in the midst of chaos, something inside her refused to give in: a raw, almost instinctive strength that told her to hold on, to keep going and not to let life decide for her. That untamed, unyielding strength would drive everything that followed.
Ilkay Agca went through hard times, but she never gave up. She kept repeating a sentence that became her anchor, her breath and her compass: “I want my two children, one day, to look at me and say: Mum, we’re proud of you.” That thought never left her. She clung to it like a rope in the dark. She knew she had to hold on, not only to survive, but to show her children that you can fall, get back up and keep moving forward.
So she chose to rebuild her life through education, climbing a steep slope one step at a time. While unemployed, she did not ask for a break; she asked for courses. Accounting, management, languages: anything that might open a door, however narrow. She threw herself into her studies with near-military discipline, turning every class into a springboard and every exam into a personal victory. It paid off. She passed, found work again as an accounting secretary at a garage, and proved once more that she could start over from nothing.
Once back on her feet, she did not stop there. She wanted to go further. Ilkay completed one qualification after another as naturally as breathing: a specialised accounting diploma, an HR certificate, a federal HR qualification and a federal diploma in SME management. Each was more than another piece of paper; it was one more step towards the life she had vowed to build. And with every new skill, Ilkay took back control of her future, and of her children’s. Nothing came easily. Everything was earned.
It was in this spirit that Ilkay Agca joined André SA as a temporary accountant, covering a one-month absence. Just one month. But within days, the company realised it had found far more than a stand-in. She worked with surgical precision, controlled speed and a professional ethic that commanded respect. She observed, understood, organised and improved. She did not just fill the role; she made it her own. Word soon spread through the offices, almost like a rumour travelling from floor to floor. Colleagues said it, managers saw it, and the verdict was soon clear: “We can’t let a gem like this go. She has to stay.” There is something rare about Ilkay: a quiet intensity, a reassuring reliability, a presence that lifts others and, above all, an almost infectious zest for life.
At André SA, she went on to become accountant and then head of human resources, before emerging as one of the company’s key figures. Working for a wood business founded more than a century ago, she knows better than anyone that the finest trees are those that have survived the harshest winters. Today, Ilkay Agca sits on the board of this Vaud company, founded in 1898, alongside its existing partners and four other new partners. The woman who was only supposed to stay for a month has become an invaluable and reassuring presence the company can no longer do without. Her rise has been meteoric, yet deserved; exemplary, yet strewn with obstacles; dazzling, yet built with the infinite patience of those who know that nothing beautiful is born in haste.
Everyone around her agrees: Ilkay is a bright, joyful and deeply caring presence. Friends describe her as radiant, with infectious energy and an inner strength that is as impressive as it is inspiring. “After everything I’ve been through… I must have a strong character to still be standing today,” she says.
To recharge, she does not look for silence or solitude. She looks for life, laughter and moments of warmth. “I installed karaoke at home… and my friends and I sing and dance. In those moments, it feels as if every song brings back a piece of me I thought I had lost forever.” It is there, in those spontaneous evenings, that she recharges: in the music filling the room, the friends around her and the moments they share. Beyond this rediscovered joy, Ilkay is also carried forward by the love of those closest to her. Her children and family are proud of her, and that recognition has become a precious foundation for the life she has rebuilt. Perhaps that is what sets her apart: a rare ability to stay joyful despite the storms. Ilkay’s story is a celebration of life, a life she has taken back into her own hands, scene by scene, until it became a story of light.
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