Maya Tekeli is a Turkish national and famous personality. She is the owner of numerous high profile companies and she has built her business empire in the textile industry in Turkey and the region of Africa. She was born in Marmaris in Greece, the daughter of a Greek landed businessman who was an immigrant to Turkey. She is described as someone who always wanted to be on top and she certainly has succeeded in this area as the President of the National Association of Beauty Schools and she is very proud of her achievements. She rose to prominence at a very young age and she studied art and design in Athens before she enrolled in the University of Athens with the goal of becoming an architect, but she became more interested in marketing and she graduated in political science in order to try and find a solution for the problem of illiteracy in Greece.
After that she moved to Paris and then went to Bologna to study medicine and became involved in the medical profession. It was there that she decided to go into fashion designing and she honed her skills in this field by joining the FEMSA. She then worked for several years in the advertising field in Milan before she decided to concentrate on clothing and she has never looked back since. She holds numerous awards including the titles of “Most Promising Costume Designer” at the annual Fashion Week in London and she has been nominated multiple times for “Best Costume Designer” at the Venice International Fashion Week. She has also set up her own fashion houses including a perfume house and she enjoys traveling and she is very much involved in Turkey and her community in Greece.
Maya Tekeli now manages her own design consultancy and she has many other design portfolios as well as teaching in design schools. She is very active in her community in Greece and she continues to teach and promote community development through her university visits and her workshops. She is extremely humble about her height and she regards it as something that happened to her at a very young age that can’t be changed. She expresses however, that she would love to grow even taller and she is happy and gracious about being called “The shortest Greek.”