Giovanni Guidetti keynote speaker

Giovanni Guidetti is believed to be one of the best head coaches of all times in woman volleyball. Born in Modena in 1972, he started his professional coaching career at the age of 23 and coached national teams all around the world, including United States of America, Bulgaria, Germany and Holland. He has lived in Turkey since 2008, working as the head coach of VakıfBank club. Giovanni Guidetti won 5 CEV Champions League, 4 FIVB World Cup, 7 Turkish League and 5 Turkish Cup trophies during the last 10 years. He has also been appointed as the head coach of Turkish National Team in 2017. Under the leadership of Guidetti, Turkish National Team has been qualified for 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and the team reached quarters for first time in Olympics history.

Besides his successful coaching career, Mr. Guidetti is a famous activist. He is pioneering various projects to fight against gender discrimination, using volleyball as a strong tool to empower girls all around the country and tear down the barriers for girls for equal access to sports. He is the founder of a social movement platform called “Yarının Sultanları” (Sultan of Tomorrow). The mission of the platform is to provide equal opportunity to the girls in the socio-economically disadvantaged regions of Turkey through volleyball. He visits the villages of disadvantaged regions with his assistant coaches and train the girls who have never played volleyball. In 2019, he has been officially appointed by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as the advocate for gender equality. This is the first time sports person has been chosen to become United Nations advocates in Turkey.