Vuslat is a powerful manager and activist, ranked amongst the 100 most influential women in the world. Her choice of an unlikely vernissage among the steppes of Anatolia had a precise historical meaning: the Dogan family is originally from that area, which is close to Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), the cradle of human civilization. Origin of the dynasty date back as far as 1600. For centuries, though, they have been just a well-known family in the small and unknown village of Kelkit. Fortune started with Aydin Dogan: born in 1936, his life seemed to be on the same course of his ancestors, confined to Kelkit.  He attended primary and secondary schools in the little village and got a high-school diploma in the bigger city, but still secluded in central Anatolia, of Erzincan. His giant leap arrived in 1956 when he attended the University in Istanbul, where he studied economy but, most of all, showed some early signs of leadership: he became the Student Community Leader.

Three years after moving to the country metropolis, an under 25 years old Aydin registered his first business ever: he started a construction equipment trading company. A billionaire was born.

In 1961, few years after its creation, Aydin’s company was still very small, with just three employees. Today his firm Dogan Holding is one of top Turkish conglomerates, with over 13,000 employees and an additional 12,000 people through suppliers: revenues stand at 1.6 billion Euros coming from oil industry, green energy, car components and tourism. Doğan Holding went on to became a public company listed in the Istanbul Stock Exchange: it shows a 10 billion Euros market capitalization.

Industry may make you rich, but it’s doubtlessly boring. As many self-made men, Aydin developed a passion for media: journalism always has a fascination in rich people. As early as 1979, the Doğan Holding became a publisher with the acquisition of the daily newspaper Milliyet. It was Dogan’s first step into the publishing industry. The biggest one, though, would arrive years later: in 2003 the family bought the ownership of Hurriyet, the country's main newspaper. Aydin gave it to her daughter Vuslat, who became CEO and then chairwoman. At the time, publishing was a big deal for the family: the purposedly named newco “Doğan Media Holding” controlled many newspapers (Posta, Hürriyet, Radikal, Fanatik, Turkish Daily News) and 21 TV channels all over the world: a vast empire which gained Aydin the “Media Baron” nickname and a role as chairman of the World Newspapers Association (WAN).

The family left in 2018, due to disagreements with Prime Minister Erdogan. But Vuslat still has a passion for publishing. She does not believe in the twenty-year prophecy of 2043, the last year for paper newspapers on earth: «Newspapers are very strong brands, very hard to bring them down. Moreover, it is very difficult to create new ones». However, they went the wrong way: «In recent years, to overcome the crisis, newspapers have focused on sensationalism and polarization: it is a divisive information model, which is not good and does not work, because news, of any denomination, is a right".

For decades, from 1977 until 2009, mister Dogan himself has been the top single taxpayer person registered in all Turkey. He always equated patriotism with a duly filed tax return. But such a guinness of record and such a nationalistic stance hardly can go unnoticed, especially in Turkey and especially so if the Prime Minister is the “Sultan” Erdogan. So Turkey tax agents looked into Dogan’s empire and found something less nice than the founder’s emphatic declarations. In 2009, the Ministry of Finance charged a humongous tax fine about 3.8 billion Turkish Lira (approximately 2.53 billion Dollars).

The family claimed that the decision was based on "subjective" evaluations. They argued that if similar fines were to be imposed on other companies on similar grounds, all the share transactions in Turkey could easily be subjected to the same treatment and fined by the tax authorities. And since that was not the case and it was only Dogan Group that was penalized by the Ministry of Finance, the case was politically motivated, they implied. This implication was voiced strongly by the spokespersons of international bodies like the European Union, while the issue became a priority item in Turkish political agenda.

For some time, the Dogan family became a sort or “freedom martyr”. For many months the holding company held negotiations with the Ministry of Finance. After 3 years long strong-arm with tax authorities in 2012, the holding reached an agreement: Doğan paid an undisclosed sum.

Was it an Erdogan’s retaliation against a political enemy or a real Dogan’s responsibility no one will ever know, but for sure the scandal marked the patriarch’s autumn. Mister Aydin retired as head of Doğan Holding on 2010 New Year’s Day, handing over his post to her other daughter, Arzuhan Doğan Yalçındağ, who also serves as head of the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (TÜSİAD), the country’s powerful lobby.

While her sister took the family’s empire steering wheel, Vuslat built a career between family responsibilities and public roles: speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the club of the world's powerful, she started a passionate effort about women's civil rights, in a country where in rural areas, like that of the museum, they all wear the full burqa and are still on the margins of society. She lobbied for an increase in the number of women in Parliament. Thanks to her, in the last political elections, female deputies rose to 104, still a minority but the share rose from 4% to 17% of deputies.