After being graduated from TED Ankara College, he received B.B.A dual degrees from Economics and Business Administration with honour degree from Boston University. At Heidelberg University, Germany, he worked on EU expansionary policy and received MBA from Harvard Business School. He initiated his career in Prime Ministry Undersecretariat of Treasury, Directorate General of Foreign Economic Relations, the Department of World Bank projects. Then, he worked as a consultant in EU, MENA and Asia projects at Bain & Company, branch manager and vice president in Garanti Bank and Garanti Insurance. During 2007, he worked as the founding CEO of BNP Paribas Group’s international insurance association, CARDIF Turkey, and then the CEO of Groupama Insurance and Groupama Pensions & Life Insurance. Currently, he is the CEO of Zurich Insurance Group.Yılmaz Yıldız has been deemed worthy of Capital Journal’s “The Most Successful CEOs under age 40” award in 2010 and Italy International Alternative Investment Review’s (IAIR) “The Best CEO in Southern Europe” award in 2015. While he was delegating the CEO duties in Zurich Insurance, the firm has been granted “The Best Insurance Firm in Turkey” award by UK World Finance for four times and “Southern Europe’s Best Insurance Company” award in 2015 by IAIR.