Mehmet Şimşek was born on January 1, 1967 in Arıca (Kefre), a small village of Gercüş district of Batman (Mardin at that time), as the youngest child of a Kurdish family with eight children and subsistence agriculture. His father's name is Hasan and his mother's name is Mehdiye. His parents do not speak Turkish and he has four older brothers and four older sisters. His mother passed away when he was 5 years old.
His older sisters could not receive education due to the conditions of the period. He studied the first two years of primary school in his village. Since her older brother Nazmi is a teacher, she finished the rest of her primary school education in Batman, where she taught, and learned to speak Turkish in primary school. He completed his secondary and high school education in Gercüş.
Then he went to Ankara to get his university education and graduated from Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of Economics in 1988 as the second in the term.
He worked as a research assistant at the same faculty for about a year. He went to England, which is connected to the United Kingdom, for his master's education with an Etibank scholarship.
He completed his master's degree at the University of Exeter. His father died while he was in England. After qualifying for a master's degree in finance and economics, he returned to Turkey.
Private Life of Mehmet Şimşek
Mehmet Şimşek married Annalize Granwald, an American financier born in 1998, whom he met in 1971 in Istanbul, on January 20, 1999 in Turkey. Divorced from Annalize Granwald on July 23, 2009.
He has been married to landscape architect Esra Kara from Gaziantep since 9 January 2010 and they have twin daughters and a son. His three older brothers are retired teachers and another is an engineer.
Mehmet Şimşek lives in his house in London, the capital city of England, which is now a part of the United Kingdom. Şimşek has a film collection. He plays tennis for 2-3 hours every morning after breakfast.
Mehmet Şimşek's Political Life
He served in governments established under the premiership of Mehmet Şimşek, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ahmet Davutoğlu and Binali Yıldırım. In 2007, 2011, June 2015 and November 2015 Turkish general elections, he entered the parliament as a member of the Justice and Development Party.
Şimşek took part as the minister of state in charge of the economy in the 60th Turkish Government established by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was the prime minister at that time. He also took part in the 61st Turkish Government established by Erdoğan and the 62nd Turkish Government established by Ahmet Davutoğlu, the 63rd Turkish Government and the 64th Turkish Government. He was appointed as the Deputy Prime Minister again in the 65th Turkish Government established by Binali Yıldırım.
He was named Europe's finance minister of the year in 2013 by Emerging Markets magazine. In the same year, he was named one of the 500 most influential people in the world by Foreign Policy magazine. Şimşek entered the parliament for the first time as the AK Party Gaziantep deputy in the 2007 Turkish general elections and took place as the state minister responsible for the economy in the government established by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In addition to his duty as the minister of state responsible for the economy, he has also been a member of the High Planning Council, the Privatization High Council, the Defense Industry High Coordination Board, the Economy Coordination Board, the Money-Credit and Coordination Board, and the Science and Technology High Council.
Şimşek, who carried out this duty until May 1, 2009, was appointed as the minister of finance with the cabinet reshuffle announced on that date. Şimşek, who was elected as the AK Party Batman deputy in the June 2011 elections, was reinstated as the finance minister.
He re-entered the parliament as the AK Party Gaziantep deputy in the June 2015 elections. He was re-elected as Gaziantep deputy in the November 2015 Turkish general elections and was appointed as the deputy prime minister in the government established under the prime ministership of Ahmet Davutoğlu on 4 November 2015.
In addition, he served as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank's Turkey Governor between 2007-2009 and as a Member of the Coordination Board of the Istanbul 2008 European Capital of Culture Agency between 2011-2010.
After Ahmet Davutoğlu's resignation on May 22, 2016, he took part as the Deputy Prime Minister in the government established by Binali Yıldırım.