[3] Following his return home after three more years in the US, Özyeğin was offered a post in Pamukbank, which belonged to his schoolmate, Mehmet Emin Karamehmet.
Then he transferred to Yapı ve Kredi Bankası to become its general manager, a much larger bank in Turkey acquired that year by the same friend.
[citation needed] Over the next few years, he invested in high-demand industries such as real estate, energy and retail, building condominiums and shopping centers across the main domestic business districts.
In 2005, Özyeğin sold the supermarket chain named GIMA to Sabancı Holding, and acquired in exchange the five-star hotel Swissotel in Istanbul from its Japanese owners.
At the end of 2008, Credit Europe Bank N.V. employed over 6,000 professionals working in the euro-zone countries Belgium, Germany, Malta and the Netherlands as well as in China, Dubai, Russia, Romania, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine, serving more than 3 million customers worldwide.
In an interview for the Creating Emerging Markets project at the Harvard Business School, he describes his commitment to expanding education opportunities for women.