"This article concerning Yilmaz Duzen appeared in the London Business Guide magazine in 2005"

Yilmaz Duzen was born in 1962. In 1971, he and his family emigrated to Britain. His father worked in sweat-shop factories as a tailoring machinist. Within 7 months, Yilmaz became fluent in English and his first tentative experience of translation was sight-translating newspaper articles to his father. Not long after, he was to become a well-known name within the fledgling Turkish community, able to effectively communicate the needs of the Turks to the British authorities.

In 1981 he was given a place at the University of East Anglia to study for a BA Honours Degree in French, Linguistics and Russian. In his third year, he went to live in France where he continued his education at a French university studying Philology. In his final year Yilmaz received a 1-year intensive training course in Conference Interpreting to European Parliament standards and specialised in this field. By the time he graduated he had learned to communicate with a high level of fluency in French and Russian.

At the time, Turkish people did not regard interpreting as a profession. So much so that his father even tried to find him employment in the rag trade business rather than see him embark on an interpreting career. However, Yilmaz persevered and began his interpreting career in the mid-1980s, working within the medical field and serving Turkish patients who had just started coming to Britain in their droves. This was the era of Turgut Ozal: Prime Minister of Turkey. Currency restrictions had just been lifted, thereby releasing Turkish patients to seek medical treatment outside the borders of Turkey. By 1989, however, the devaluation of the Turkish currency and the establishment of quality hospitals in Turkey made trips to foreign countries costly and uneconomic. This, in turn, caused Yilmaz to seek new areas of interpreting.

The year 1990 saw Britain being flooded with asylum seekers from Turkey. In that year prospective interpreters were invited to sit an entry exam to join Scotland Yard's list of official interpreters. Out of more than 100 candidates Yilmaz was the only one to succeed in being selected. He says: "In those years there were just a handful of interpreters. I was the only qualified interpreter to have received specialist interpreter training."

Yilmaz subsequently applied to and was accepted as a member by all four professional bodies for interpreters and translators in the UK: the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, the Institute of Linguists, the Association of Police and Court Interpreters and the National Register of Public Service Interpreters. He then went on to join the Council and Committees of these professional bodies thereby becoming not only the voice of interpreters, but also setting direction to and taking part in the decision-making apparatus that would ultimately affect his profession on a national level. In 1998, he was invited to join the Panel of Experts of the National Register of Public Service Interpreters.

The year 2005 saw Yilmaz's name listed in the Directory of Expert Witnesses, which means he is called upon to give expert witness evidence on matters concerning complications and difficulties in the Turkish language. Yilmaz is also the official interpreter and translator appointed by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Department of Trade & Industry, European Central Bank, the world's football governing body, FIFA and scores of other public service and government bodies, as well as being on the European Commission's list of Conference Interpreters in the Turkish language.

Yilmaz describes himself as "a person who loves a challenge" and adds that, throughout his life, he has been his own greatest competitor. He explains that his purpose in life is "not necessarily to be the best and finest interpreter, but to better himself perpetually and to further his profession always". He says he owes his achievements to his principled approach to life, giving high priority to education and training and always working in a disciplined and honest manner.

Yilmaz is married to Hannan Kilci, who graduated in Psychology at the Middle East Technical University. In his leisure time, Yilmaz likes spending time with his family. His interests include playing sports, maintaining his garden and watching documentaries.