Selmin Karatas

Growing up surrounded by the streets of Manhattan, Selmin spent her childhood in New York. Her mother took her to Central Park every day, but that wasn’t enough. She was going back to the Mediterranean every summer as her mother wanted to free them from the concrete buildings and get fresh air. Running barefoot in the grass, picking olives from the trees, and learning about rural life dynamics, she appreciated nature very much. Born with an entrepreneurial drive, she studied and enrolled with a BBA in International Business and Management from Berkeley College and Masters from Harvard University. Her early interest in creative writing and playing the piano professionally at the age of 9 ignited her creativity to help her father create a unique and natural product based on an ancient Mediterranean formula dating back 2000 years. Witnessing how the people of the small villages made all kinds of products using cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil with other Mediterranean extracts made it a mission to keep this tradition, pay homage to the land, and give back to nature.