Speakers

A. Eren Öztürk

S360 Strategic Leadership and Learning Design

Eren works for S360 on sustainability strategy, stakeholder engagement, as well as strategic sustainability modeling including the business case for sustainability. He has strong knowledge on scientific foundations of sustainability, framework for strategic sustainable development, organizational learning, and corporate sustainability. After graduating from Environmental Engineering Department at Middle East Technical University (METU), he had worked for Regional Environmental Center (REC) Turkey Office between 2009 and 2013. The main areas of his work are Education for Sustainable Development, Local Environmental Action Plans and Sustainable Cities, Climate Change, and Regulatory Impact Assessment. In 2012, he has finished his MSc. degree on Strategic Leadership towards Sustainability at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden. He is currently carrying out his PhD research at Institute for Leadership and Sustainability at University of Cumbria in the UK. His research topic is “Organizations as living complex systems: daily business practices inspired by natural processes and flows”.
Ada Wong

Make A Difference (MaD) initiative Founder

Ada Wong founded the Make A Difference (MaD) initiative, a continuing platform to grow the next generation of creative leaders and innovative changemakers in Asia. She also founded the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture (HKICC), a unique non-profit organization whose mission is education innovation and a creative civil society. Among other projects, HKICC founded Hong Kong’s only “art high school”, the HKICC Lee Shau Kee School of Creativity and Ada is the School’s supervisor.
Agata Fortuna

KUSIF Project and Training Senior Specialist

Agata Fortuna graduated from Lodz University Faculty of International Relations and Political Science in 2009 with a master’s degree. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Turkish Language and Literature in the Department of Philology of Jagiellonian University. Since 2009 she has been working in the field of civil society in Turkey. She took part in different national and international projects titled capacity building of young people, cultural learning and dialogue in a conflict environment, social technology, and social entrepreneurship. She was a board member of YouthBank International between 2014 and 2020. Since 2015, he has been working as a Project and Training Officer at the Koç University Social Impact Forum. She provides content creation, training, and consultancy in the field of social impact management she. She teaches social entrepreneurship and social impact management at Koç University.
Ahmet Fikret Baltaoğlu

Expanscience Turkey CEO

After his undergraduate education at Boğaziçi University, he did a master’s degree (MBA) in the United State of America and then, started his professional life in the same country. He began his career in Turkey at Unilever in 1994. He continued his career at L’Oreal after 1999, and since 2013, he is the Turkey General Manager of Expanscience Laboratories, which is the first International B-Corp certified company inTurkey. He has been actively involved in the Educational Volunteers Foundation of Turkey as a Trainer and in the Association for Supporting Contemporary Life as a Mentor. His areas of activity and interest include, inter alia, Sustainability, Professional Coaching, and Agile working systems.
Alejandro Ortega

Sibö Co-founder & CEO

Experienced Leader and Entrepreneur today as CEO and cofounder of Sibö. Innovative entrepreneur and an expert in Business Communications, with a passion for creating sustainable solutions to save the world. In recent years, his entrepreneurial focus has been about using the innovative tools and solutions for sustainability and circular economy to create the future of the food industry. He believes sustainability is not a social responsibility issue but an efficiency challenge.
Anagnosti John Choukalas

Apivita Head of Global HR, Education & Sustainability / Global Brand Ambassador

Anagnosti John Choukalas studied at the University of Calgary graduating from the Biological Sciences department and specializing in Environmental Biology and Environmental management. He is a proud member of the APIVITA “Hive” for the past 17 years. He started in 2004 as a product manager of Medicinal and Aromatic plants and bee products and then was appointed in 2005 as the Supplies and Purchases Director of the company.In September 2015 he was appointed as the Global Head of Human Resources & Sustainability. Since the Spanish multinational PUIG acquired APIVITA in March 2017, he maintained the role of Head of Global Human Resources and Sustainability and additionally leads the Social Responsibility, Global Training, and Brand Strategy team. Most importantly he was appointed as a member of the Executive committee and the Global Brand Ambassador. Since 2004, he is a public speaker invited by universities in Greece and abroad to speak and inspire and motivate young people. For the past 20 years he has helped numerous young entrepreneurs establish companies in the field of Medicinal and Aromatic plants and Bee products and has offered his expertise and market support leading to very successful start-up business ventures.
Antonis Schwarz

Impact Investor and Philanthropist

Antonis Schwarz is an impact investor and philanthropist of Greek-German descent. Through his experience in the Venture Capital and Family Office space, he has extensive knowledge of the European Impact Investing landscape. In 2013, Antonis co-founded Vouliwatch, a Greek parliamentary monitoring organization that aims to increase political accountability and transparency. A strong believer in the power of activism, in 2016 he founded the Guerrilla Foundation, based in Berlin, which supports progressive social movements and activists working towards bringing about major systemic change across Europe. Antonis is also a Co-founder of the Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth at the University of Zurich. He holds a Bachelor degree in European Studies from King’s College London and a Masters in Management degree from IE University Madrid.
Aslı Alemdaroğlu

Zorlu Holding Corporate Communications General Manager

Atılım Şahin

ATÖLYE Creative Hub Director

Atılım is a connector, a community developer, and a facilitator. He focuses on creating meaningful connections between individuals and organizations, especially within the fields of creativity, design, and technology. He is the Creative Hub Director at ATÖLYE, where his journey started as a Community Manager in January 2016. He was in charge of leading the multidisciplinary community of ATÖLYE, paving the way forward for its growth strategies. Since then, he has developed his skills in community building, programming, organization culture, network building, and talent management processes. He supports ATÖLYE’s creative hub explorations across new locations, and gives ad hoc consultancy on community building strategies in projects.
Ayla Göksel

Özyeğin Social Investments CEO

Aylin Gezgüç

Arbor Impact Director

Bekir Ağırdır

KONDA General Manager

Bekir Ağırdır was born in Çal, Denizli in 1956. He graduated from the department of Business Administration at the Middle East Technical University. He worked as manager at several industrial companies between 1979 and 2003. He worked at History Foundation of Turkey, first as coordinator, then as director general between 2003 and 2005. He is a founder of the Democratic Republican Programme, a board member of Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV).
Berivan Eliş

Impact Hub Candidate Ankara Co-Founder

Berivan Eliş sas a cross-sector background focused on social development across a portfolio of youth, accessibility, gender, and human security issues. She is the founder of IstasyonTEDU, TED University Center for Social Innovation, where she led the work on social enterprise development, partnership building and policy dialogue for 5 years. She previously worked at the EU Delegation to Turkey, Bilkent University, United Nations Development Programme, and Community Volunteers Foundation (TOG). Currently, she is working on establishing Impact Hub Ankara. Berivan holds an MA degree in International Relations from Bilkent University and a BA degree in the same field from Ankara University.
Doç. Dr. Birol Ekici 

Union of Municipalities of Turkey Secretary General

Boğaç Şimşir

Eczacıbaşı Building Products Innovation Director, 2020 Global Compact Network Turkey SDG Pioneer

Born in 1970, Boğaç Şimşir graduated from Istanbul Technical University as a Mechanical Engineer in 1992 and completed his graduate studies in Economics at University of South Florida in 1994. In 1995, he started his professional career as a Product Development Engineer at GM Delphi. In 1996, he joined Hyundai Motor Company as Assembly Plant Production Supervisor, and in 1998, Ford Motor Company as Body Engineering Supervisor. After five years at Ford, Şimşir joined Arçelik as R&D Specialist, where he remained until 2006, and then he became Founding Partner and Chief Engineer at “maybe design” till 2013. As the co-founder and acting Chief Engineer in his most recent post in “BOxER Design & Strategy”, Boğaç Şimşir currently holds the position of Innovation Director at Eczacıbaşı Building Products Division since February 2014.
Bülent Özcan

Director-General for Financial Cooperation and Project Implementation at Directorate for EU Affairs

Burcu Karaca Uğural

Döngü Cooperative & BPREG Composites Founding Partner

Burcu is a textile engineer who has completed her Ph.D. in biocomposite production from agricultural sustainable products. On the way to commercialize the output of her Ph.D. thesis, she became the founding partner of “BPREG Kompozit A.Ş.” in 2017 and “Döngü Kooperatifi” in 2018. She is focused on developing biocomposites at BPREG Kompozit A.Ş. in order to help various industries in reducing their carbon footprint at product-production cycles. Furthermore; within the scope of sustainable alternative agriculture,  she is working to revive flax cultivation in Turkey under the roof of Döngü Kooperatifi. Besides, she is a research assistant at the Department of Textile Engineering, Ege University.
Cihan Koral

Facilitator & Consultant

Cihan is a facilitator/consultant with her work on designing/implementing inclusive and emergent processes. She works on capacity building for civil society, gender(ILO PGA), child labour, LGBTIQ+, immigration, conflict resolution, human rights, discrimination and inclusive stakeholder engagement. Being an accredited Lewis Deep Democracy instructor, she also works with nature-based emergent approaches such as Sociocracy, TheoryU, Social Presencing Theatre, Open Space Technology, Socratic Dialogue, Art of Hosting and NVC. She is also the co-founder of NGO Hasat, an organisation focusing on emergence impact through co-design and co- facilitation by bringing an understanding of engagement, conflict and inclusion.
Cüneyt Başaran

Editor in Chief at BloombergHT

After graduating from Boğaziçi University’s International Relations Department, Başaran completed his master’s at Yeditepe University. He started his career in finance, working as a trader in ABank and BNP in Istanbul. He then moved to London and served as the Head of Turkey Desks at Commerzbank and Standard Bank. In 2010, he switched to media and worked as the Editor-in-Chief at Bloomberg HT and Bloomberght.com. Currently, he is the London Representative for Ciner Media Group and a columnist for Habertürk newspaper.
Deniz Aycan

Student of International Relations & Economy at Koç University

Deniz Aycan graduated from Istanbul Erkek High School in 2017. Currently a senior student majoring in International Relations and Economics at Koç University, she has worked on social innovation and sustainability throughout her academic journey. After launching a joint project focusing on the social adaptation of Syrian refugee children in collaboration with the KU Global Aid group, she developed the Safelace social initiative with her peers during imece’s 2020 challenge, earning her the qualification to participate in the incubation program. With extensive experience garnered through different workshops and volunteering activities in Turkey and abroad, Deniz believes in the power of young people, stakeholders and solidarity in creating a better and more sustainable world.
Deniz Dönmez

Senior Design Strategist & Service Designer at ATÖLYE

As Senior Design Strategist & Service Designer at ATÖLYE, Deniz works with various partners to achieve long-lasting and creative impact. As a transdisciplinary designer and strategist, her work spans across ATÖLYE’s disciplines; bringing strategic thinking, research and narrative building to projects in spatial, digital, learning, and organization design. Deniz collaborates with partners and stakeholders to frame strategic opportunities, user-centered business objectives and design principles. She works on the field and guides teams to understand customer needs and craft design solutions that are simple, useful and delightful. Her previous international experience in brand strategy, experience design and advertising assist in building narratives and holistic design strategies. She holds a Masters degree in Strategic Design from the Politecnico di Milano and a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University. Outside of work, you can find Deniz watching movies, listening to podcasts, reading magazines, and developing recipes that only she enjoys.
Didem Eryar Ünlü

Dünya Newspaper Coordinator & Columnist

She graduated in 1986 from Lycée Français Pierre Loti and in 1994 from Boğaziçi University English Language and Literature. Her professional life started as a reporter for Turkish Daily News. She then worked as an editor for The Publications Office of the European Union in Luxembourg, the Luxembourg representative of the CIDC (Center for International Dialogue and Cooperation) Magazine, and TV producer for NTV. She currently holds the positions of Coordinator & Columnist and Sustainability Editor at Dünya Newspaper where she has been offering her services since 1999. She speaks French and English. She has translations published by Kabalcı Publishing House.  
Duygu Ercan Mörel

Globesight Country Representative

Duygu Ercan Mörel leads the Turkey office of Globesight, a global advisory firm working collaboratively with innovative partners to craft solutions to the world’s most pressing social issues. Through her work, Duygu leads engagements with partners ranging from philanthropic foundations, international organizations, local non-profits, and government agencies, in the area of social impact and global development. Prior to joining Globesight, Duygu worked at the Ministry of Trade (former Ministry of Economy) for about ten years, as a policy officer developing and implementing multi-stakeholder projects to advance structural transformation in Turkey’s industrial production and exports. Lately in her role, she took part in building a nation-wide strategic roadmap for Turkey’s digital transformation. She started her professional career in London as a Capital Markets Analyst at RBC Capital Markets in 2007 and worked as a Research Associate at TEPAV, the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey before joining the Ministry. Duygu holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Bilkent University and master’s degree in international business and finance from Stockholm School of Economics.
Duygu Güner

Social Impact Evaluation Expert

Duygu Güner graduated from Saint-Joseph French High School and completed her undergraduate education in International Relations at Istanbul Bilgi University. In 2008, Güner completed her master’s degree in sociology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, focusing on immigration, before earning her Ph.D. in sociology from Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. Since 2009 she has been working in civil society. Güner worked full-time at KUSIF between 2013 and 2017 and has since been supporting KUSIF as a researcher. Güner continues to work as an advisor, trainer and social impact specialist, serving various NGOs and corporations that conduct CSR projects. Her areas of expertise include project management, social impact measurement, youth work, and experimental learning methods.
Duygu Vatan

Co-founder of Joon

Duygu Vatan is Joon’s co-founder, a social enterprise that provides design and sales support to disadvantaged producers. She is graduated from Middle East Technical University (METU) Business Administration department with a minor in Product Design. She completed her master’s in METU Industrial Design Department and researched the field of Design for Social Innovation in Rural Development. Duygu works on developing alternative production models to empower the disadvantaged groups’ social and economic participation with a design-oriented perspective.  She is experienced in business development, social campaign management, brand management, and fair&clean supply chain management.  Duygu is also specialized in developing beneficiary-oriented systems design for social innovation.
Ebru Dildar Edin

Executive Vice President, Corporate and Investment Banking at Garanti BBVA

Ebru Dildar Edin graduated from Boğaziçi University Department of Civil Engineering and started her career in 1993. She joined the Corporate Banking Department at Garanti BBVA in 1997. In 1999, she took part in the establishment of the Project Finance Department. After leading the department for 6 years as Senior Vice President, Ms. Edin became Project and Acquisition Finance Coordinator in 2006 and was appointed to her current position on November 25, 2009. A member of the Sustainability Committee since 2010, Ms. Edin also took responsibility of the coordination of the Sustainability Team, which was established in 2012 to implement the decisions of the aforementioned Sustainability Committee. Ms. Edin is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Business Council for Sustainable Development Turkey, Board Member of UN Global Compact Local Network, Board Member and Board of Trustees Member of Teachers Academy Foundation. Furthermore, Ms. Edin serves as Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Garanti BBVA Securities and Member of the Board of Directors at Garanti BBVA Leasing and Garanti BBVA S.A. (Romania). With 27 years of experience in banking and business administration, Ms. Edin’s areas of responsibility are Corporate Banking, Global Markets, Global Markets Business Solutions, Cash Management, Financial Institutions, Investment Banking and Finance, and Corporate and Investment Banking Strategy, Analysis and Coordination, and Sustainable Finance.
Ebru Metin

Legal Design Turkey Founder

Ebru Metin is the founder of Legal Design Turkey community which aims for more human-centred legal services and systems via legal design. She is currently working at Sabanci University Technology Transfer Office as a contract management expert. She had previously worked as an in-house lawyer, corporate governance specialist and data protection compliance program coordinator in various organisations located in Turkey, United Kingdom and Spain. She has pursued her Masters in International Financial Law program at King’s College London as a Jean Monnet Scholar in 2014. She is also a graduate of LL.M. in Business Law at Istanbul Bilgi University (2013) and B.A. in Law at İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent Üniversitesi (2009). She is also acting as European Legal Technology Association’s ambassador for Turkey and secretary general of Innovation in Law Studies Alliance. She has been given the “Advanced Practitioner” title at World Commerce and Contracting in 2020.
Ece Altunmaral

Reflect Studio Co-Founder

Ece is one of the three co-founders of the Istanbul based design + manufacturing office Reflect Studio. The studio focuses on garments and objects, leveraging brand identities of institutions through aesthetic, functional and sustainable products. The studio became a B-Corp in 2019 and continues to push innovative processes in sustainable manufacturing and design.
Ekrem İmamoğlu

Mayor of İstanbul

Ekrem Imamoglu was born in Trabzon in 1970.He graduated from Istanbul University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Following his undergraduate studies, he also attended and completed a Master of Science program on HR Management at the same university. He played footbol while he was student. He became a board member of Trabzonspor Club, Football, Basketbal and Beylikduzuspor.
In 1992, he started working for the family business while he was still a graduate student. He then became the CEO of the group companies. Under his management, the company mostly operated on urban planning and the housing projects. While he was building and planning for housing complexes to raise the living standards of the people, he encountered some problems pertaining to the political processes which resulted in a decision to become a public servant and solve problems of political nature.
Ekrem İmamoğlu

Ekrem Imamoglu was born in Trabzon in 1970.He graduated from Istanbul University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Following his undergraduate studies, he also attended and completed a Master of Science program on HR Management at the same university. He played footbol while he was student. He became a board member of Trabzonspor Club, Football, Basketbal and Beylikduzuspor.

In 1992, he started working for the family business while he was still a graduate student. He then became the CEO of the group companies. Under his management, the company mostly operated on urban planning and the housing projects. While he was building and planning for housing complexes to raise the living standards of the people, he encountered some problems pertaining to the political processes which resulted in a decision to become a public servant and solve problems of political nature.

He joined Republican People’s Party’s (CHP), the main opposition party in years, and became a party member. He worked hard for his party’s field campaigns, and in a short time he was elected the district head of CHP for the Beylikduzu in 2009. In the local elections of March 30, 2014, he became the elected Mayor of Beylikduzu. In the following years of successful management, Mr. Imamoglu captured the attention of society, media and the academia. Thanks to the positive changes he made in social life, infrastructure services and the living standards of Beylikduzu, he received a big support from the citizens of Beylikduzu district.

CHP appointed Mr. Imamoglu as the candidate for the Mayor of Istanbul in the local elections of March 31, 2019. After an inspiring campaigning process of three months, he became the elected Mayor of Istanbul. But this did not last long; in the 18th day of his mayorship, YSK cancelled the elections and announced a re-election date, June 23, 2019.

Mr. Imamoglu started his re-election campaign with an historic speech. His speech organically became the hope for his disappointed supporters and symbolized a moment of encouragement to fight for freedom and democracy in Turkey. His victory on June 23 with %54,2 support of votes became a milestone for the future of Turkey.

Mr. Imamoğlu is married, have 3 kids and lives in Beylikduzu since 1991.

Elifcan Şahan

imeceLAB

Elifcan is a 3rd-year Economics student at Marmara University. With her environmental and social awareness, she participated in the first challenge process of imeceLAB, on the theme of ‘Smart and Sustainable Urban Mobility’. Throughout her imeceLAB journey, she had the chance to take an active role in many social benefit-oriented activities. She also volunteered at AIESEC and worked at youth organizations where she aimed to create a collective impact by working with students from all over the world. For over a year now, she has been working at ara studio which empowers organizations, teams, and future leaders to create a more equitable world. Elifcan found her passion in design thinking and social entrepreneurship and her aim is to broaden her design-oriented perspective and create benefit-oriented work.
Elisabetta Meconcelli

Treedom EU Funds & Projects Manager

Elisabetta has always been fascinated by new cultures and worlds, as well as new ideas. That’s why after her Master Degree in International Relation, she started to work in European social planning; She has worked for a few years in the fields of international cooperation, global education and no-profit institutions. Her path continues with Treedom, as she strives to make the world a little better than how we’ve found it.
ElsaMarie D’Silva

Founder & CEO at Red Dot Foundation

ElsaMarie D’Silva is the Founder of Red Dot Foundation (India) and President of Red Dot Foundation Global (USA). Its platform Safecity, crowdsources personal experiences of sexual violence and abuse in public spaces. ElsaMarie is a 2020 Gratitude Network Fellow, 2019 IWF Fellow and a Reagan Fascell Fellow, a 2018 Yale World Fellow and an alumni of the Stanford Draper Hills Summer School, the US State Department’s Fortune Mentoring Program, Oxford Chevening Gurukul and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Commonwealth Leadership Program. She is also a fellow with Rotary Peace, Aspen New Voices, Vital Voices and a BMW Foundation Responsible Leader. She co-founded the Gender Alliance. Prior to Safecity, she was in the aviation industry for 20 years where she worked with Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines.
Emre Keskin

Hayal Gücü Merkezi Founder

Having started his career teaching fine-arts in Van after a series of coincidences, Emre Alettin Keskin now works as a social entrepreneur, educator and artist in Istanbul. In addition to his multidisciplinary work focusing on visual arts, music, education, networking, co-production, history, storytelling, learning, Istanbul, civilization, poetry and new forms of media, Emre is also a co-founder of various social initiatives, including Hayal Gücü Merkezi Derneği and Yeni Nesil Öğrenme ve Sosyal Etki Ağı. Emre works as designer, speaker, workshop leader, organizer, consultant and facilitator for various events associated with national and international initiatives, both public and private, as well as for universities.
Engin Ayaz

ATÖLYE Co-Founder

Engin is a transdisciplinary designer and strategist with a background in architecture, systems thinking, and interaction design. As a co-founder of ATOLYE, Engin focuses on leading a diverse team around interscalar strategy and design projects while honing the organization’s shared culture. In 2013, Engin received his Masters in Interactive Design and Media Arts from Tisch School of Arts, ITP of New York University. Following his ITP thesis on collaborative creative spaces, he co-founded ATÖLYE.
Ercan Balcı

Çayeli Bakır İşletmeleri External Relations Manager

Ercan Balcı specialized in communications in his undergraduate and doctoral studies, and earned a master’s in sociology as well. Between 2004 and 2008, Balcı managed various social development projects funded by the EU and other international organizations. Between 2008 and 2010, he served as a project manager for the UN Development Programme. After living in England for a period of time, he started working at Çayeli Copper Enterprises as the International Business Manager. Balcı has given undergraduate and graduate lectures in communication departments and has published articles and conference papers on publishing, nationalism and social development.
Ergem Şenyuva

Rekind UK & Yeşilist Founder

Ergem Senyuva Tohumcu is a sustainability expert, environmentalist, entrepreneur, and faculty member. She founded and grew Turkey’s award-winning sustainable living platform Yesilist.com, which today reaches millions of people. Ergem is the founder of Rekind, working with companies to identify innovative solutions for supply chains and circular economy opportunities using innovative approaches. She is a climate leader with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, a member of BMW Foundation’s Responsible Leaders network, and is a fellow at the Royal Society of Arts and Commerce. She recently co-founded Turkey Mozaik Foundation, a UK-based grant-giving institution to charities working in the domain of gender equality, children, education, women, and the environment. She is a faculty member at Fordham University’s London Centre, where she lectures on sustainability marketing and strategy at Gabelli School of Business.
Erhan Erkut

MEF University Founding Vice President

Erhan Erkut received a BSc in Industrial Engineering from Boğaziçi University in 1980 and a PhD from the University of Florida in 1986. Prof. Erkut taught at the University of Alberta School of Business during 1985-2005. During this period, he received nine teaching awards, including the INFORMS Teaching of Management Science Practice Award and the 3M Teaching Fellowship, and five practice and service awards from the Canadian Operational Research Society. He has also published more than 50 peer-reviewed journal articles. After returning to Turkey in 2005, he served as Dean of the Business School at Bilkent University (2005-07), the Founding Rector of Özyeğin University (2008-13), and as Vice-Rector of MEF University (2014-). Currently he serves on the boards of three local education associations and works actively to promote skills development for youth and entrepreneurship. With the support of the Mehmet Zorlu Foundation and MEF University, he has championed the professional development of thousands of high school and university students for four years with the YetGen trainings he provides as part of the 21st Century Competencies Training Program. Prof. Erkut is the author of “Üniversite Seçerken” and “İşte Ceylanlar”.
Erin Robert

J.P. Morgan Head of Impact Finance

Erin Robert is Executive Director and Head of Impact Finance at JPMorgan Chase. Erin previously worked in J.P. Morgan’s Corporate and Investment Bank in various roles across Markets and Investment Banking. She began her career in Public Finance, where she structured debt financings for municipal utilities, and subsequently led the Commodities Structuring team for the Americas, deploying capital to corporate clients through asset-based financings. Erin holds a Bachelor of Arts, Magna Cum Laude, from College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.
Ertunç Tümen, CFA

Ak Asset Management Executive VP, CMO

Tümen is the Senior Executive Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Ak Asset Management. His previous positions include Director of Marketing, Deposits and Investments in the Personal Banking Department and Vice President of Investment Portfolio Management at Akbank. Between 2013 and 2016, Tümen served as the President of CFA Society Istanbul, where he was selected as the Volunteer of the Year in 2014 and given the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020. Tümen serves as a member of the Ak Portfolio Venture Capital Fund Investment Committee.
Fatma Şahin

Mayor of Gaziantep and President of Union of Municipalities of Turkey

Fatoş Karahasan

Academician at İstanbul Bilgi University, Journalist, Writer

Dr. Fatoş Karahasan teaches Marketing Communication, Advertising and Digital Marketing at Istanbul Bilgi University. Following 14 years in executive management roles at global advertising agencies, she provides management consultancy to local and international organizations with regard to advertising pitches, product launches, product strategies, and research projects.  Karahasan delivers speeches and trainings on marketing, communication, and management. She also serves as Moderator or Chair in major conferences. She writes columns on hot topics for Dünya, Start Up and cnnturk.com. For many years, her articles have been featured in the newspaper Milliyet as well as Tempo and Capital magazines.  She has also published five books.
Fauzal Riski

Partner at Sampangan

Fauzal Rizki is the CEO and co-founder of Sampangan , Indonesia based circular technology company that converts waste into various sustainable materials for use in agriculture, construction, healthcare and more. His academic background was in Computer Science and started his career building CIMB X, a digital team one of the largest bank in South East Asia, before joining fintech payment Xendit, one of fastest growing Ycombinator startup then later helped banking offline distribution startup Socash, Singapore based startup to set up their operations in Indonesia from the ground up. He started his journey in Social Entreprise from creating Makesense chapter in Indonesia, a Paris based social entreprise platform promoting citizen engagement in solving social issues and later from meeting Impact Hub Jakarta founders, Stephanie Arrowsmith and Cynthia Hasan. Now Fauzal is trying to build a world where all waste is converted into value, creating decentralised and self-sustainable circular economy.
Filiz Bikmen

Social Investment and Founding Director of Esas Sosyal

Filiz Telek

Circle Facilitator & Author

Telek was born in İzmir in 1975 and studied Business at Boğaziçi University. Since 2017 she has been a student of the “Orphan Wisdom School”, which was founded by Stephen Jenkinson. She discovered her life goal in 2002 when she met the circle practice. After going on a healing journey in 2010, she heard the call of the Sacred Feminine and sowed the seeds for the Women are Medicine circle, which she continues to grow with sisters she adopted all around the world. In addition to hosting women circles, Telek has been conducting research on grief and death. In her poetry, stories and myths, where the themes of “loving the world” and “going beyond right and wrong” are delved into, Telek continues to listen to and weave the call of the Spirit and the breath of life.
Florencia Estrad

The League of Intrapreneurs Co-Founder and Global Catayst

Social entrepreneur, strategist, experienced facilitator in coaching groups throughout transformational journeys and innovation processes across different organizations and geographies. Florencia is passionate about people finding meaning at work and practicing collective leadership. She is the co-founder and Director for the League of Intrapreneurs, a global community working to unlock the human innovation potential inside our most influential institutions towards a sustainable world. The League is today present in over 27 countries with members from public and private sector driving #changefromwithin. Florencia has been facilitating programs based in Theory U for the last eight years in various formats and languages (English, Spanish and Portuguese). Within the Presencing Institute, she is co-leading today the Business & Leadership Macro-Hub and part of the holding team of Gaia en español. She spent over a decade working inside large corporations in Latin America and US, including ABN AMRO Bank and McKinsey & Company, and founded 2 social enterprises in Brazil: an impact-based innovation consultancy and an accelerator for impact-driven startups. She holds an MBA from UC Berkeley, is a Fulbright Scholar, Haas Merit Scholar, BMW Foundation Responsible Leader. Florencia is now based in Punta del Este, Uruguay, with her family Nacho, Maia and Sofia.
Francis Petersen

University of the Free State Rector and Vice-Chancellor

Prof Francis Petersen is the Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Free State since 1 April 2017. He has formerly been Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Town; Dean: Engineering and the Built Environment at the University of Cape Town; Executive Head: Strategy at Anglo American Platinum; Executive Vice-President: Research and Development at Mintek; and Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Cape Technikon (now the Cape Peninsula University of Technology). He is a recipient of the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust and Cape Technikon Researcher of the Year Awards.  
Fuat Savaş

JP Morgan Executive Director

Fuat Savaş is an Executive Director responsible for emerging markets in the Infrastructure Finance and Advisory Department at J.P. Morgan. His position involves financing projects and consulting on energy, transportation, telecommunication and social infrastructure projects. His areas of interest include sustainable development, energy transition and impact investments. Fuat holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and literature from Yale University.
Füsun Aymergen

KAÇUV Field and Communications Assistant Manager

Gizem Girgin

Bilgi University Incubation Center Team Manager

Gökçe Tuna

UNDP Accelerator Labs Head of Exploration

Gülseren Çelik

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Head of Department for Multilateral Economic Affairs and Alternate Co-Chair of the SDGia Board

Diplomat, Head of Department for Multilateral Economic Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey. A team player, instigator, compassionate and visionary, she holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Business Studies from Trinity College, University of Dublin. She has served in Turkish Embassy’s around the world (Oslo, Cairo, Dublin and Canberra) also as the Turkish Consul General in Sydney. Having worked in the NATO and International Political Organisations Departments in the Ministry as well as in the Turkish Permanent Mission to UNESCO, she has extensive experience in multilateral affairs.
Hakan Güldağ

Journalist at Dünya Gazetesi, Writer

Born in Istanbul in 1961, Hakan Güldağ completed his primary education at Istanbul Oruçgazi School and his secondary education at the private Darüşşafaka School and Pertevniyal High School. He studied Journalism at Istanbul University’s School of Press and Broadcasting and History at Boğaziçi University. In 1987 he began his career at Dünya Newspaper’s Foreign News department. Over the years, he became the Chief of Foreign News and the Chief of Stock Exchange News and worked at the editorial office. After a period of working as a reporter, chief and director at various other media organizations, he returned to Dünya Newspaper to serve as the Editor-in-Chief between 2008 and 2019. In 2011 Güldağ was elected President of the Media and Communications Assembly of Turkey and served on the Advisory Board of Economics Reporters Association and the Monitoring and Ethics Board of the Journalists Association of Turkey. Güldağ represents Turkey on the Executive Board of the European Press Federation (EPF). In 2019, Güldağ purchased Dünya Newspaper, and now serves as its General Manager.
Dr. Hasan Süel

Chief External Affairs Officer at Vodafone Turkey, Vodafone Turkey Foundation Chairman

Joining Vodafone Turkey as Deputy CEO in 2009, Hasan Süel is responsible for external affairs of the company. In addition to his duties as Chief External Affairs Officer, he was appointed as Chairman of the Vodafone Turkey Foundation where he now leads projects addressing the urgent social needs in Turkey. Prior to Vodafone, Hasan Süel served as Corporate Affairs and Communications Director at JTI International between 2005-2009, Regulatory Affairs Manager at Aria between 2001-2004, and as Head of the Telecommunication Department at the Prime Ministry Privatization Administration between 1993-2001. Having worked as a part-time lecturer in Telecommunications Policy for Istanbul Bilgi University and Bilkent University, Süel also has academic experience in this field. Süel, who graduated from Middle East Technical University Faculty of Engineering, received his MBA at Bilkent University and Ph.D. in Business Administration and Management from Ankara University Faculty of Political Sciences.
Homam Hawari

Embark

Homam Hawari, a social science student at Bahçeşehir University who believes in making youth know that they all have a common purpose, and by unifying and connecting their effort together will increase the responsibility to find solutions for the potential challenges. He has experience in designing innovative solutions from IDEO and Hasso Plattner institute/School of design thinking. He is also the Turkish social relations coordinator and international/public relations assistant director in William Glasser international organization Turkey chapter. He is also a mentor to a high level business executive within the Embark Project where youth and leaders are committed to make our societies more inclusive.
Doç. Dr. Itır Erhart

Açık Açık & Adım Adım Founding Member

İstem D. Akalp

Ashoka Turkey Co-Director

İstem D. Akalp is the co-director of Turkey office of Ashoka, the first and largest network of social entrepreneurs. She contributes to Ashoka’s Europe and global strategies in enabling social entrepreneurship and changemaking ecosystems towards system changing solutions. In her previous role as the Director of Social Entrepreneurship Programs, she designed and implemented strategies to build an impactful social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Turkey while building a community of high impact Ashoka Fellows. She redesigned and implemented Ashoka Turkey’s strategy on working with universities by creating an open source online & offline guide on changemaking complemented by a video series and workshops in more than 15 universities in Turkey. She co-created and contributed to multi-stakeholder projects in Turkey’s social entrepreneurship ecosystem with outputs including Social Entrepreneurship Day, Turkey Social Entrepreneurship Network, Açık Açık Sosyal Girişim, The State of Social Enterprises in Turkey Research Report, Sustainable Social Enterprise Business Cases.
Jane Wei Skillern

UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, Center for Social Sector Leadership Senior Fellow

Jane Wei-Skillern is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Social Sector Leadership at the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. Previously, she has served on the faculty at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School (HBS), and London Business School. She is the author and coauthor of dozens of HBS and Haas UC Berkeley case studies, book chapters, and journal articles. Wei-Skillern is also the lead author of the casebook, Entrepreneurship in the Social Sector. A distillation of her work can be found at New Network Leader.
Javier Guillot

Bogota City Government,  the Department of Citizen Culture Environmental Culture Team Leader

Javier currently works as Environmental Culture Team Lead for the Department of Citizen Culture (SCRD) in the government of Bogotá, and as an advisor for projects in the field of public and social innovation. He was recently the co-founder of Círcula, an organization that creates responses to circular economy challenges by focusing on human behavior and culture, and lead of the Public Innovation Team at Colombia’s National Planning Department. He holds a BA in philosophy from the National University, an MA in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s in public policy (MPP) from the Hertie School.
Jay Coen Gilbert

Imperative 21 CEO

Jay Coen Gilbert is CEO of Imperative 21, a business-led network that believes the imperative of the 21st century is to RESET our economic system so that its purpose is to create shared well being on a healthy planet. Imperative 21 builds on Jay’s experience as cofounder of B Lab, the nonprofit behind the global B Corporation movement. Along with his B Lab cofounders, Jay is the recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship and the McNulty Prize at the Aspen Institute, where he is a Henry Crown Fellow. For more than a decade, Jay has co-taught a class about the role of business in society at Westtown School. Since 2016, Jay has been called into antiracism work, prioritizing his own learning and UNlearning journey while co-convening multiracial and white caucus spaces and formats including WMRJ and AWARE. Prior to co-founding B Lab, Jay co-founded and sold AND1, a $250M basketball footwear, apparel, and entertainment company. He has also worked for McKinsey & Co, as well as organizations in the public and nonprofit sectors. Jay grew up in New York City and graduated from Stanford University with a degree in East Asian Studies.
Jayne Engle

McConnell Foundation Director of Cities & Places Portfolio

Jayne Engle is the Director, Cities & Places Portfolio at the McConnell Foundation. Cities for People aims to test new ways of working and building networks to create more resilient and livable cities.
Jocelyn Wyatt

ideo.org Co-Founder & CEO

Jocelyn is the CEO of IDEO.org, the nonprofit design organization that she cofounded in 2011 after leading IDEO’s social innovation practice. Prior to joining IDEO in 2007, Jocelyn worked in Kenya as an Acumen fellow. She also served as VisionSpring’s interim country director in India, where she helped increase the distribution of low-cost reading glasses to the poor. Before that she did training, project management, and business development for Chemonics International, a contractor for USAID. Jocelyn earned a BA in anthropology from Grinnell College and an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management. Jocelyn was selected as an Aspen Institute First Movers fellow, was a program advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative, sits on the Grinnell College Alumni Council, and serves as an advisory board member to Marketplace the Druker Institute
Joey van den Brink

B Lab Europe Certification Manager

Joey is the Certification Manager of B Lab Europe. With a background in environmental economics, Joey’s key interest is the role of business in shaping more regenerative and inclusive economic systems. As part of his career at B Lab Europe, Joey has supported hundreds of companies in their B Corp journey, becoming an expert on the B Impact Assessment and the certification process.
Johan Falk

Exponential Roadmap Initiative Co-Founder & Director

John Elkington

Founder of Volans, Writer, Thinker

John Elkington, is Founder & Chief Pollinator at Volans. John is one of the founders of the global sustainability movement, an experienced advisor to business, a highly regarded keynote speaker and contributor, from conferences to boards. John’s 20th book Green Swans: The Coming Boom in Regenerative Capitalism was published in 2020.
Karel Vieler

Seepje Impact Manager

Karel Vieler holds a MSc in Ecology and Natural Resource Management from Utrecht University and works as an Impact manager for the company Seepje. Seepje is a Dutch certified B Corp that produces detergents, cleaners and cosmetics based on the best natural ingredients, such as the Nepalese Sapindus mukorossi soap nut. In 2020 Seepje sold over 1 million products in The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. According to consumer research, Seepje is seen as one of The Netherlands’ 40 most inspiring brands. As Impact manager, Karel mainly focuses on improving conditions throughout the supply chain and ensuring that the criteria for all certifications, including WFTO and B Corp, are met. He has worked for Seepje for almost 5 years now and has seen how its positive impact on people and nature has developed. Furthermore he is in the lead for Seepje’s CO2 Net Zero commitment and is working on mapping out Seepje’s carbon footprint.
Karen Lemasson

Laboratoires Expanscience Corporate Social Responsibilty Director, member of the Excecutive Committee

After 10 years of marketing responsibilities mainly in the automotive and household appliance sector in France and Europe, Karen specialized in CSR at HEC Business School. She is passionate about societal innovation and the transformation of companies towards a positive impact. She joined Expanscience in 2009 to develop the group’s CSR policy and integrate it into the heart of its strategy. She launched Open Innovation at Expanscience in 2015 to accelerate the deployment of the CSR policy and carried the worldwide B Corp certification for Expanscience/Mustela in 2018.
Kaya Axelsson

Strategic Engagement Fellow at Oxford Net Zero

Kaya Axelsson works as the strategic engagement fellow at Oxford Net Zero (an interdisciplinary climate change mitigation research programme at the University of Oxford), and as an advisor to the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign.  Kaya holds an MPhil in Comparative Government from the University of Oxford, earning a distinction for her thesis on the success of politically unlikely Renewable Energy Coalitions. Kaya has worked for over 10 years in nonprofits and political campaigns for social and environmental progress and consults regularly for organisations on their sustainability strategies.
Kerem Alper

ATÖLYE Co-Founder

Kerem obtained a dual degree in Mathematics and Environmental Economics from Wesleyan University and completed his MBA at Stanford University along with a Master of Science in Interdisciplinary Design from Stanford School of Earth Sciences and Hasso Plattner Institute of Design where he also worked as a lecturer of classes around applications of design thinking in select topics and contexts. In 2012 Kerem was selected a Lightspeed Venture Partners Fellow through which he founded an agriculture software startup called Farmulate. Later on he worked at Nest around digital products and new business models around residential energy efficiency frameworks (acquired by Google in 2014). He returned to Istanbul in 2014 as the co-founder of ATÖLYE, a transdisciplinary innovation platform.
Kerem Okumuş

S360 Co-Founder & CEO

Kerem Okumuş was the co-founder of the Turkish Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change (www.iklimplatformu.org) and represented Turkey as the member of secretariat network of Corporate Leaders for Climate Action hosted at the University of Cambridge. Okumus was the Head of Business at the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe based in Budapest (REC), which was founded by the European Commission and USA Government. He also worked as the Deputy Director of the REC Country Turkey. He served for the World Bank as the member of the senior panel for the Climate Investment Fund/PPCR Private Sector and worked for the The Climate Reality Project (founded by former USA Vice President Al Gore) as the Head of Central and Eastern Europe & Turkey Branch Office. He also served on the Steering Committee of the European Commission Innovation for Sustainability EBAE Programme and represented Turkey for 8 years. He was one of the initiators and then became the head of business network of CEO Platform for Green Growth in MENA Region based in Dubai.
Levent Erden

Next Academy Founder, Academician

Levent Erden was born in Istanbul and earned his bachelor’s and MBA degrees from Boğaziçi University, after graduating from Galatasaray High School. Until age 35, Erden held senior staff positions in international corporations, such as L’Oréal, Allied Lyons, Pepsi Co and Havas. He currently serves as the chairman and an educator at Next Akademi, an organization which he founded, and which is recognized as the leading academy for interactive business management marketing and communications. In addition to reaching his audience through his magazine articles and television shows, Erden continues to follow what’s “next”.
Louisa Mammeri

BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt Network Organizer for North Africa and West Asia

Louisa is building a community of responsible leaders in Western Asia and Northern Africa at the BMW Foundation. She does so by creating experiences and a platform to inspire leaders to work towards the UN 2030 Agenda. She is passionate about transformative encounters and connecting brilliant ideas, both in the service to a peaceful, just and sustainable future in the region.
Louise Pulford

SIX CEO

Louise Pulford is the Executive Director of SIX, a global social innovation exchange working to advance the field of social innovation with philanthropy, universities, corporates and governments. She leads a team of 8 spread across London, Hong Kong, the US and Canada to advance the field of social innovation through major programmes of work with foundations, universities, corporates and governments. Under Louise’s leadership, SIX has hosted events across 6 continents in over 30 cities, engaging over 5000 people. Louise has worked on social innovation with the European Commission since 2010 and she sits on the Advisory group for social innovation for Seoul Metropolitan Government. Louise is a seasoned speaker on building networks, the value of exchange and social innovation globally, and regularly designs and facilitates social innovation training programmes for governments, foundations and universities around the world. Louise also publishes regular articles on networks and social innovation.
Maja Groff
Lawyer & Convenor of the Climate Governance Commission
Maja Groff is an international lawyer based in The Hague, and is a Convenor of the Climate Governance Commission, which seeks to propose high impact global governance innovations adequate to meet the climate challenge. A graduate of Harvard, Oxford, and McGill Universities, and she is an attorney admitted to practice in the state of New York, formerly working in corporate law. She was a co-winner of a major international prize in 2018 on global governance innovation (New Shape Prize). She serves on the Advisory Boards of BCorp Europe and ebbf, organisations devoted to ethical business.
Marcelo Bicalho Behar

Natura & Co Vice-President Sustainability & Group Affairs

Marcelo Behar is a sociologist and a lawyer graduated at University of São Paulo, in Brazil. He has worked in many NGOs and as a journalist on Foreign Politics at Folha de São Paulo. He served the Brazilian government in the Justice (as Chief-of-Staff and responsible for the Brazilian Disarmament Campaign) and Strategic Affairs (as Vice-Minister) Ministries from 2003 to 2009. He is an executive since 2009, worked in infra-structure and joined Natura in 2013. He is currently the Vice President of Sustainability and Group Affairs for Natura &Co, the global beauty group that comprises Avon, Natura, The Body Shop and Aesop and is committed to address the climate crises, protect the Amazon, defend Human Rights and embrace circularity, all by 2030.
Marcello Palazzi

NOW Partners Co-founder and Global Ambassador

NOW Co-founder and Global Ambassador. Impact entrepreneur, economist and visionary for human progress. 35 years global experience focused on Better Economies, Enterprises and Entrepreneurs for public good. Has led and co-led 25 successful ventures across the highest levels of business, civil society, finance, government, philanthropy and academia.  Marcello brings decades of leadership and collaborative experience developing ventures, projects and initiatives in the roles of entrepreneur, strategist, foreign policy professional, investor, diplomat and educator. He brings foresight, vision, leadership, intelligence, innovation, creativity and energy to meet challenges with entrepreneurial action. Marcello is committed to ethical values and principles. He has a capacity to shift from high strategy to low implementation and has global contacts with some 50,000 conscious leaders around the world.
Marta Anglada

Ferrer Head of Sustainability

Marta has been working in Ferrer for over 7 years and she is leading Ferrer’s Corporate Sustainability Strategy and the BCORP certification movement. Before working in Ferrer, she has worked for over 7 years as sustainability consultant helping organization in their journey towards sustainability, and she previously lived in Germany for over 4 years working at ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability on European Projects  on Green Public Procurement & Ecodesign  both for DG-Environment & UNEP. She holds a Bachelor Degree in Environmental Sciences and Environmental Engineering, Master in Innovation & Executive development program in marketing and leadership by ESADE.
Mehemed Bougsea

Think-it Co-Founder & CEO

Mehemed Bougsea is co-founder and CEO of Think-it, an engineering collective that accelerates and integrates North Africa’s next generation of technical leaders with innovative teams around the world. Previously Mehemed has worked as a strategy consultant to GIZ as well as the German, Tunisian, and Libyan governments on the socio-economic development of youth in regions with elevated unemployment rates across Africa, and built the country office of Kiron Open Higher Education in Turkey, which enables access to university level education for refugees. He holds an MPA in Development from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs and is a fellow of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School.
Mehmet Atakan Foça

Teyit Founder

Mehmet Atakan Foça is a journalist and social entrepreneur. He graduated from the Social Sciences Faculty of Ankara University before leading the Turkish translation of the Verification Handbook. He received the Exclusive Media Award given by Transparency International for his verification work. In 2016, he founded Teyit, an organization that aims to render critical thinking a common value of the information ecosystem. In 2017, he was chosen as a fellow for Ashoka, the world’s largest social entrepreneurship network. Currently Foça coordinates Factory, an organization featuring Incubation and Community programs that support actors who solve problems in the information ecosystem.
Mehmet Üvez

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Principal Inclusion Lead

Mehmet has been with EBRD since 2015 and reports directly to the Director for Gender and Economic Inclusion within the Economics, Policy and Governance Department of the Bank, delivering the country strategy and policy initiatives for young people, women, people living in less developed regions of Turkey for a wide variety of sectors including agribusiness, infrastructure, energy and natural resources sectors. Mehmet has over 20 years of experience working with Turkish Government, International Organizations and Financial Institutions. Before joining EBRD, Mehmet served as Deputy Chairman of the Board of Treasury Controllers at the Turkish Treasury and Deputy Head of Audit Authority responsible from the oversight of EU-Turkey Financial Cooperation under the Instrument for Pre-Accession. Mehmet is a Turkish national with a MBA degree from University of Rochester, William E. Simon School of Business and /BSc in Business from Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences.
Melsa Ararat

Director of CGFT at Sabanci University

Dr. Ararat is an activist scholar of management and the founding director of Corporate Governance Forum of Turkey hosted by Sabanci University. She was a founder of the Global Board Ready Women project and initiated Turkey’s Independent Woman Directors Platform in 2012. Dr. Ararat is a member of the Global Advisory Board of the 30% Club since 2020 and chairs the Steering Committee of the Club’s Turkey Chapter. In 2015, she launched the Business Against Domestic Violence Project in cooperation with the UN Population Fund which successfully mobilised Turkey’s largest corporations against intimate partner violence to date. Dr. Ararat serves on the board of the International Corporate Governance Network which represents global institutional investors since 2015, and on the board of Global Compact Turkey Network since 2019. She also co-chairs the Network’s Gender Equality Task Force.
Meltem Ceylan Alibeyoğlu

Darussafaka Middle School Academic Coordinator

Mert Çetinkaya

ATÖLYE Academy Director

Mert is an experienced facilitator, organizational development consultant, design strategist and instructor. Mert joined ATÖLYE in 2015 to establish and lead ATÖLYE’s organization and learning design practice which gave birth to ATÖLYE Academy in 2020. At ATÖLYE, his work focuses on supporting organizations to build a culture of innovation and internal design capabilities by running immersive learning programs, establishing community of practices, facilitating design sprints and human-centered design bootcamps. He has an extensive experience of delivering 300+ workshops and training programs under his belt.
Merve Kavas

Social Innovation Strategist

Merve Kavas is a system entrepreneur working for the development of the social innovation ecosystem in Turkey. She worked as Incubation Program Coordinator at IstasyonTEDU Center for Social Innovation. She designed and delivered capacity building supports through Incubation Program and Support Program. She worked with social innovators and support programs for business models, community development strategies, access to finance and program designs. She is in the process of building a network/national body for social entrepreneurs to carry out advocacy and to improve cooperation between social entrepreneurs. She graduated from TED University Department of Economics with a minor in Management. She is a Turkish Entrepreneurship Foundation Fellow.
Mine Ekinci

KODA Coordinator

As the founder and Coordinator of KODA (Rural Schools Transformation Network), established in December 2016, Ekinci has been working and volunteering in civil society initiatives in the fields of education, human rights and social policy since 2010. After completing her bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University, Ekinci earned a master’s in International Education Policy at Harvard University. Her areas of interest include rural education, education policy and social entrepreneurship in education.
Mustafa Özer

imece Director

Mustafa is the director at imece social innovation platform, where he works with young social innovators and impactful entrepreneurs to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda. He has 10+ years of experience in building micro to small enterprises to promote local and fair economic development. He played a significant role in UNHCR Turkey’s community-based livelihoods response to include refugees in the registered economy by managing a small-grants and small business development program.
Dr. Natasha M. Matic

King Khalid Foundation CSO’su

Dr. Natasha Matic is the Chief Strategy Officer at the King Khalid Foundation, a leading philanthropic institution working to create equal economic opportunities and improve sustainability practices. For the past 25 years, Natasha provided practical solutions to challenges in philanthropy, corporate sustainability, impact entrepreneurship and social and economic development. Through her leadership, Natasha spearheaded the Foundation into an era of strategic philanthropy, an era that emphasizes a systems-change approach to solving inequalities, building stronger sectoral ecosystems and working collaboratively with businesses, governments, and the global philanthropic community. Through her consulting practice, Natasha worked with for-profit and non-profit organizations to embed ethical, social, and governance (ESG) accountability into their organizational DNA through strategy development and impact-focused solutions. Prior to this, Natasha served as the Chief of Party for AED, a global civil society organization working on large-scale social change programs. Natasha holds a Ph.D. in Economic and Political Studies from Boston University and a Degree in Business Excellence from the Columbia Business School. She holds an International Law Degree from Belgrade University. Natasha is a Member of AccountAbility’s Sustainability Standards Board, MIT’s Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship, and Foundation20 Steering Committee.
Nathan Gilbert

Executive Director at B Lab Europe

Nathan has worked within the fields of business and sustainability for over ten years. For the past decade, Nathan has led the global growth of the B Corp movement supporting the scaling from a small community to a global network around the world. Currently acting as Executive Director for B Lab Europe, Nathan balances supporting the growth of an impact driven business network with a much larger mission of influencing economic systems to be aligned with the values and principles of the B Corp movement. Nathan has spent his entire career in business management, public service, and the nonprofit sector working in 6 different countries. He holds a Master of Science in Nonprofit Management from Milano the New School of Management and Urban Policy in New York City.
Neila Benamara

B Lab Europe SDG Programme Manager

Neila is an experienced programme manager with an international background. She leverages her multicultural experience, diverse set of skills and great energy to drive positive change in the world with an ecosystem building approach as the SDG Programme Manager of B Lab Europe. Closing the gap between Business and the Sustainable Development Goals she supports the development of actionable tools and engaging offers to make sure companies can contribute effectively to the SDGs. She started her career as a Supply Chain Management professional, combining a research and consulting approach to solve systemic issues. She then acquired deep experience in organisational change and transformation in a number of markets across Asia and Europe. Given her diverse international experience she has developed a great ability to observe and quickly understand differences in culture, adapt with agility in consequence and how that should influence the decisions a business takes.
Noel Hatch

Camden Council – London Borough of Camden – Head Of Strategy

Noel Hatch is Head of Strategy at Camden Council. Noel is passionate about mobilising the collective power and creativity of people around local places. He helps senior leaders across different sectors to develop, accelerate & embed strategic change through leadership across partnerships in strategy, transformation, insight, service design and whole systems change.
Onur Eryüce

Counsellor to the Mayor, Izmir Metropolitan Municipality
Secretary General, Association of Social Democratic Municipalities

Onur Eryüce is committed to strengthen economic, social and cultural ties between cities through international cooperation. In 2011, he played a pivotal role in the foundation of the Association of Social Democratic Municipalities (SODEM). The organization was set up to foster strategic partnerships among Turkish municipal leaders and their European counterparts. SODEM led to great impact and increased city level interactions among urban stakeholders and communities. Under Onur’s management, the organisation has grown to 141 member municipalities, representing more than 18 million people, and has successfully contributed to EU-Turkey collaboration on issues at the municipal level. Onur is responsible for setting up and furthering political, social, cultural and economic dialogue between the municipalities and their counterparts from all around the world. In April 2019, he was appointed as the Counsellor to the Mayor by the Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Assembly; one of the largest Mediterranean port cities with 4.5 million inhabitants. In his new function, Onur is engaged and focused on linking Izmir and its local communities to the global value chain and global cooperation networks. Onur’s prior objective and drive are to improve the growth, governance, and finance of the city.
Otto Scharmer

Senior Lecturer at MIT and Founding Chair at Presencing Institute

Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer in the MIT Management Sloan School and founder of the Presencing Institute. He chairs the MIT IDEAS program for sustainability and cross-sector innovation.In 2015, Otto co-founded the MITx u.lab, a massive open online course (MOOC) for leading profound change and he also co-founded the Societal Transformation Lab (u.lab-S) in 2019. Otto earned his diploma and PhD in economics from Witten/Herdecke University in Germany. He received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching at MIT (2015) and the European Leonardo Corporate Learning Award (2016). In 2018, the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General appointed him to the UN Learning Advisory Council for the 2030 Agenda. For 2019 he is ranked #3 of the world’s top 30 education professionals by Global Gurus.
Ömer Yüngül

Zorlu Holding CEO

Born in İzmir in 1955, Ömer Yüngül finished the Boğaziçi University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1978. Kicking off his career at the construction company Tekfen İnşaat, Yüngül filled various managerial posts in Metaş, Faz Elektrik, and Merloni Elettrodomestici. Joining Zorlu Holding as the General Manager of Vestel Beyaz Eşya, a white goods manufacturer, in 1997, Yüngül became Chairman of the Vestel Executive Board in 2000. Following a successful 15 years in Vestel management, Yüngül became the first CEO of Zorlu Holding in 2013.
Özgür Göker

UBP (Union Bancaire Privée) Analyst

Özgür Göker is an Equity Research Analyst focusing on Emerging Markets at Swiss based UBP since 2013. He started his career as an internal auditor at Dışbank in 2002. Later he worked as an equity research analyst at HSBC, Yapı Kredi Yatırım and UniCredit. Özgür Göker graduated from ODTÜ Electrical-Electronic Engineering department, and has an MBA degree from Bilkent University.
Peter Nørgaard Dupont

Coffee Collective Co-Founder & CEO

M.Sc. in International Development studies and Systems Ecology, Peter N. Dupont has been working with Specialty Coffee for more than 20 years. Since 2007 as Co-Founder and CEO of Coffee Collective A/S. Has been member of the board of the international Alliance for Coffee Excellence as well as have served at the Copenhagen Business Council.
Peter Ramsden

Freiss ltd. – Managing Director

Peter Ramsden is the Managing Director of Freiss ltd. He works on helping cities and other actors to learn about how to design and implement difficult policies. He has been doing this partly through the EU funded URBACT programme and partly through other initiatives.
Pınar Arapa

EVP, People and Culture at Akbank

Pınar Anapa joined Akbank in 1999 and after undertaking various responsibilities in the Internal Audit division, she worked as the Deputy Head of Internal Audit between 2007 and 2014. Anapa served as the Human Resources Management Senior Vice President between 2014 and 2019 and has been the Executive Vice President in charge of People and Culture since June 2019. Her areas of responsibility cover career development, organizational development, training, architectural solutions and cultural events. Pınar Anapa is a graduate of the Economics Department at METU and received an Executive MBA degree from Sabancı University in 2006. Anapa is a member of the Women in Tech Association.
İ. Renay Onur

İstanbul Spor A.Ş. General Manager

After obtaining his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering at METU, Onur earned a master’s degree in Business from Bilkent University before holding managerial positions in various sectors, such as finance, and strategy and business development, for 18 years. With athletics having always been a major part of Onur’s life, he co-founded Adım Adım, Turkey’s largest volunteer-based sports initiative, which is known for starting Turkey’s first charity running group and aims to empower NGOs through charitable giving. With this project, Onur was chosen as a fellow for the social entrepreneurship organization, Ashoka. He is also the founding member and President of the Board of Directors for Açık Açık organization and has served as the General Manager of Spor Istanbul since 2019. Onur gives seminars on entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, volunteering, empathy and leadership, in addition to serving as a member of the Turkish Olympic Games Preparation and Organization Committee.
Richard Bartlett

Enspiral Director

Activated by the Occupy Movement in 2011, Richard Bartlett co-founded Loomio, a digital tool for decision-making in collaborative groups. Then in 2016 he co-founded The Hum, a collaboration training company for self-organising teams. He is a Director and longstanding member of Enspiral, a network of people supporting each other to grow up and to get paid for doing meaningful work. He’s enthusiastic about co-ownership, self-governance and developing relationships of partnership instead of domination.
Rushka Ely

Western Cape Economic Development Partnership Programme Lead

Rushka Ely is a development practitioner with a focus on local, city, and town-scale challenges, processes, and solutions. She leads a number of programmes for the Western Cape Economic Development Partnership (EDP), a government support organisation enabling collaboration across governments, sectors, and regions. This role builds on her experience working within the South African government, having been a part of the green economy team at the Western Cape Government. Rushka is particularly interested in the role of public governance innovation as a mechanism for systems change. Rushka has extensive experience working with local and regional governments, as well as the private sector and civil society. Rushka is academically trained in development studies.
Rym Baouendi

Medina Works Founder & CEO

Rym Baouendi is the founder & CEO of Medina Works, a boutique design+strategy consultancy based in Montreal and Tunis. She advised a wide range of public, private, and third sector organizations with the development of world-class, high-performance urban developments including the US National Parks Services, the Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council, the World Green Building Council, Nokia, Abu Dhabi Louvre, Masdar and BMCE bank in Morocco. She co-founded Cogite, Tunisia’s first coworking space, is a founding board member of Endeavor Tunisia and has led the development of BIAT Foundation’s entrepreneurship support programs in Tunisia. Rym is a THNK fellow and holds a Masters degree in Building Engineering from Concordia University (Montreal, Canada), a Civil Engineering and Urban Planning degree from INSA de Lyon (France), and a diploma in Initial Studies in Architecture from the School of Architecture of Lyon.
Sandra Castañeda Elena

Triodos Bank Head Of Corporate Development

As Director of Corporate Development with Triodos Bank in Spain, Sandra oversees the communications and marketing strategies of the bank, as well as the activity of the Triodos Foundation. Her history with Triodos Bank dates back to 2001 – 2005 where she was part of the team that set up the bank in Spain. From 2013 to her joining the Spanish branch again in 2017, she was member of the board of the Foundation for the Administration of Triodos Bank Shares (SAAT by its initials in Dutch). In between her career at Triodos Bank, she pioneered sustainability in the fashion sector, working with companies such as Inditex, C&A and Skunk Funk. Sandra has a Masters in International Law of Human Rights and a Law and Business degree. She has participated in development programs in Nicaragua, the Balkans and the European Commission in Brussels.
Sandrine Dixson-Declève

Co-president of The Club of Rome

Sandrine Dixson-Declève is currently the Co-President of the Club of Rome and divides her time between lecturing, facilitating change in business and policy models and advisory work. She holds several advisory positions for the European Commission: Chair, Expert Group on Economic and Societal Impact of Research & Innovation (ESIR); Assembly Member, Climate Mitigation & Adaptation Mission (DGR&I); TEG Sustainable Finance Taxonomy and Sustainable Finance Platform (DGFISMA); United Nations: Food Summit Action Track 5 Resilience and for companies/organisations/institutes such as BMW, UBM, Climate KIC, UCL-Bartlett School of Enviornment and the IEEP. Sandrine is also a Senior Associate and faculty member of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and a Senior Associate for E3G, Ambassador, for the Energy Transition Commission (ETC) and WEALL. In 2017 Sandrine co-founded the Women Enablers Change Agent Network (WECAN).
Seher Alacac

UNDP Assistant Resident Representative and Co-Chair of the SDGia Board

Seher Alacacı Arıner has been serving as Assistant Resident Representative responsible for the UNDP Program in Turkey since 2017. She has been engaged in UN system since 2005in different capacities. Throughout her career in UN, she had managed a series of Programmes that respond directly to socio-economic and political reforms in Turkey in linewith EU accession requirement. The main focus of her work had addressed targetedinterventions to support national human rights mechanisms and transparent, accountableand efficient judicial systems for better access to justice. She has also been leading the workof UNDP in terms of integrating SDGs in several areas of development, including policyintegration; innovation, data analysis and financing.As development practitioner, who started her career in working at the field in South East Anatolia development projects, Seher Alacacı Arıner has more than 15 years of experience in development work in a variety of capacities, mainly in management, partnership building,financing and resource mobilization, but also including programme and policy design, projectimplementation, advocacy and research. She has also strongly engaged with internationalcommunity representatives and national partners in governments as well as loosely defined networks of non-governmental organizations. She is also an active contributor of theintegrated work of UN on human rights, resilience and SDGs. She was graduated from Bilkent University Department of Political Science and Public Administration and has an MA degree on European Integration, focusing on judicial and political ethics.
Senem Başyurt

Darüşşafaka Cemiyeti General Secretary

Senem started her career in Andersen Consulting in 1992 and switched to banking a year later. She continued her career in investment banking and worked in Körfezbank, Demirbank and HSBC before joining Transaction Advisory Services of EY Turkey in 2007 as an executive director. She has provided advisory in numerous public offerings, M&A transactions, and privatization projects in Turkey for over 15 years. Senem has led buy/sell side advisory and valuation assignments for local and foreign clients in a wide variety of industries and assisted the Turkish Government in its privatization of a number of state-owned companies. Senem switched careers internally within EY in 2012 and assumed the role of Director of Operations (COO) for EY Turkey, to lead the operational transformation of EY Turkey’s support functions and the change management initiatives related to Workplace of the Future concept – which was being implemented in EY offices worldwide and Turkey was one of the pilots. She joined Darüşşafaka in 2017. Senem holds a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey and an MBA from University of Exeter, Exeter, UK. She is also a local CPA and has been qualified with an Advance Level License for Turkish Capital Markets from Capital Markets Board of Turkey (CMB).
Serdar Turan

Editor-in-Chief at Harvard Business Review Türkiye

After earning a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Turan received his master’s degree in Business. In 2000, he co-founded Infomag Publishing and helped to establish BusinessWeek Turkey in November 2005. Having also served on the team that created the Harvard Business Review Turkish Edition, Turan currently holds the position of editor-in-chief for both Harvard Business Review Turkey and Bloomberg Businessweek Turkey.
Serra Titiz

Mikado Founder & Managing Director

Serra Titiz has been working on sustainable development since 2003. She worked with youth, with women and vocational groups at large NGOs at managerial levels, has participated to international programs on NGOs and Civic Activism. Her work has always been a reflection of social innovation. Today, Serra Titiz is the founder and the managing director of a social enterprise: Mikado Sustainable Development Consulting, in Istanbul, Turkey. Mikado, is a social enterprise that crafts models for sustainable development. Mikado develops models through viable partnerships among private sector, civil society, educational institutions and public organizations and through mobilizing and matching existing resources with the needs of the society. Mikado is one of the first B Corp Companies in Turkey and honored as “Best for the World” and “Best for the Community” four year in a row for creating most overall positive social and environmental impact. One example is the “Future is Brighter” Youth Platform (www.gelecekdaha.net), which is an online platform, creating social impact through use of technology. The Platform is targeting youth unemployment and enables knowledge and experience sharing without any time and space restriction for youth to make more informed decisions about their education, career and life. The e-mentoring module is a prominent tool developed to enable volunteers (1400 today) to meet and share professional expertise with students (10000 today). Serra has been named Ashoka Fellow in 2013. She is an Eisenhower Fellow.
Seza Eraydın

S360 Impact Manager

Seza contributes to THINK360 studies within S360 by carrying out research and analytics. After graduating from Istanbul Erkek Lisesi, she completed the undergraduate degree in Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University, and Erasmus program at University of Cologne. During her graduate studies in the same department at Boğaziçi University, she focused on politics of disaster management and she wrote her master’s thesis on 2011 Van Earthquake in which she emphasizes sustainable and inclusive disaster management policies and their impact on society and environment. Prior to joining the S360 team, she worked as a research assistant at Boğaziçi University and a commissioning editor at E-International Relations, an open access website for students and scholars of international politics. She presented her academic works on disaster management at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Nazım Hikmet Research Center of Culture and Art. Among the areas of her research interest are equality, social and economic inclusion, local development, and inclusive education.
Shahira Amin

Independent Journalist

Shahira Amin is an independent journalist based in Cairo. Former deputy head of state run Nile tv. She quit her job at the height of the 2011 uprising to protest censorship of her work. Amin is a longtime contributor to CNN’s Inside Africa and a BMW Responsible Leader. She co-founded the Egyptian Media Women Union, an NGO that serves as a support network for young journalists, especially women and which helps build their capacities. Amin works as a correspondent for Al Monitor and as a Consultant for the EU.
Sharanya Thakur

Gravity Earth Project Manager

Sharanya is Project Manager at Gravity, a French-Kenyan start-up which uses its blockchain-based decentralized identity solution to help individuals and businesses access services and opportunities. She is also an active member of Techfugees France, an impact driven global organisation nurturing a sustainable ecosystem of tech solutions supporting the inclusion of displaced people.
Stefan Koch

Senior Manager Corporate Strategy & Portfolio Development at Covestro AG

Stefan has an experienced background on sustainable business development and management across industries (finance, energy, healthcare, agriculture, chemicals). In multinational companies he has been working at the interfaces to investor relations and corporate strategy embedding a modern sustainability perspective into core processes. Additionally, as intrapreneur, Stefan has gained various experiences in the field of inclusive business development in emerging and developing countries and has initiated and managed strategic programs to tackle various development challenges in collaboration with entrepreneurs, impact investors, non- and governmental organizations. He is global fellow of the league of intrapreneurs and the BMW responsible leadership network.
Simge Aydın

S360 Strategy and Corporate Relations

Simge Aydın works as a Sustainability Consultant on nonfinancial asset management and coordinates B Corp Community in Turkey. Simge has graduated from International Relations faculty of Galatasaray University and she holds a MA in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies from College of Europe, Bruges. In her master thesis she explored Environmental Policy and Sustainable Development dynamics in Turkey around key concepts such as EU Conditionality, Europeanization and Normative Power of Europe.
Sinem Güravşar Gökçe

Istasyon TEDU Projects Coordinator

Dr Sinem Güravşar Gökçe works at IstasyonTEDU – TED University Center for Social Innovation, which works for the development of social entrepreneurship and social innovation ecosystem in Turkey. She took part in researches on the status of social enterprises and social entrepreneurship ecosystem. She has publications on organizational behavior, management and innovation. She worked in the private sector, public sector and various universities; volunteered in non-governmental organizations and established her own training and consultancy company. After completing her bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Bilkent University, Sinem earned a master’s degree in Engineering Management at  Middle East Technical University and PhD in Management and Organization field.
Sukhrob Khojimatov

UNDP Turkey Deputy Resident Representative

Mr. Sukhrob Khojimatov is an acting Senior Manager in UNDP Turkey with over 20 years of experience in Development and Programme Management in International Organizations as well as in Governmental Institutions and private sector, sustained by Master Degree in Law. Sukhrob was appointed as UNDP Deputy Resident Representative in Turkey in November 2017. Prior to that, he was Deputy Country Director for Somalia and Director of UNDP Somalia Nairobi Support Office (2013-2017). Before that, he was in NY in a short assignment in a position of the Head of Policy and Operations Support Unit within Regional Bureau for Europe and Central Asia (RBEC). Prior to that, Sukhrob worked as Assistant Resident Representative and Programme Manager in UNDP Tajikistan (2006-2013). Before joining UNDP from 2000 until 2006, Sukhrob holds a number of senior positions in USAID Legal and Economic Development Projects in Tajikistan. He began his career in the Office of General Prosecutor of Tajikistan in 1996 and hold the position of the Deputy Head of Department.
Şafak Müderrisgil

Etkiyap (Impact Investing Turkey) Co-Founder & Chair

Şafak Müderrisgil, as the co-founder and chair of Etkiyap, is advocating impact investing in Turkey with the focus of raising awareness and establishing an ecosystem for impact investing. She is an impact investor in different countries and sectors, and an international venture philanthropist. She has a professional background in law, and specialisation in public policy. Şafak served several public and private companies as a legal adviser and board member at a national and global scale, and also advised public figures in Turkey. She holds a LLB and a LLM in private law from Ankara University Law Faculty, and a MPP from the University of Oxford.
Şirin Payzın

Journalist

Şirin Payzın completed her higher education in France, Ankara and New York to start off, in 1993, as a reporter for Show TV evening news. In 1994, she was transferred to the ATV News with Anchorman Ali Kırca. At ATV, she worked as presidential reporter and then foreign news correspondent. She relocated to Belgrade to live there from 1998 to 2000. She was in the field to report the NATO intervention against Serbia, the Kosovo War, and diplomatic negotiations. In 2000, she took part in the founding team of CNNTÜRK as a senior diplomatic correspondent. From 2005 through 2007, she was the anchorwoman of CNNTÜRK Evening News. Between 2008 and 2018, she prepared and hosted the debate show “Ne Oluyor? (What’s Going On?)”. In 2018, after 17 years of service, she left CNNTÜRK for digital media. She currently writes for T24 and creates content for T24’s YouTube channel in the form of exclusive interviews and news stories.
Tim Jackson

General Partner at Walking Ventures

Tim Jackson is an ecological economist and writer. Since 2016 he has been Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP) at the University of Surrey in the UK, where he is also Professor of Sustainable Development. From 2004 to 2011 he was Economics Commissioner for the UK Sustainable Development Commission where his work culminated in the publication of Prosperity without Growth (2009/2017) which was subsequently translated into 17 foreign languages. It was named as a Financial Times ‘book of the year’ in 2010 and UnHerd’s economics book of the decade in 2019. His latest book Post Growth – life after capitalism will be published by Polity Press in 2021. Tim holds degrees in mathematics (MA, Cambridge), philosophy (MA, Uni Western Ontario) and physics (PhD, St Andrews). He also holds honorary degrees at the University of Brighton in the UK and the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, the Academy of Social Sciences and the Belgian Royal Academy of Science. In 2016, Tim was awarded the Hillary Laureate for exceptional international leadership in sustainability. In addition to his academic work, he is an award-winning dramatist with numerous radio-writing credits for the BBC.
Thandi Dyani

Girls Are Awesome Head of Strategic Partnerships

Thandi Dyani is passionate about building communities, connecting people and organisations to solve the most wicked challenges facing our societies. She believes in radical collaboration, responsible leadership and equality. Thandi always focused on development issues, gender equality, enabling social entrepreneurship and ecosystems, connecting dots, people and ideas. She has also been a DJ for more than 20 year and splits her time and work between the Nordics and Sub- Saharan Africa.
Todd Porter

Edge Of Chief Ecosystem Officer

Todd Porter is a Tokyo-based ecosystem entrepreneur, President of EDGEof Education, a New Zealand Edmund Hillary Fellow, and founding board member of Venture Cafe Tokyo, the ecosystem building nonprofit of Cambridge Innovation Center, a global leader in innovation districts and industry specific labs and hubs. He was a founding TEDx Ambassador and a co-founder of diverse ecosystem platforms such as TEDxTokyo, PAN Asia, FabCafe Global, and Impact Foundation Japan. Todd started his career at Bain & Co., Ashoka: Innovators for the Public and Public Allies, and holds an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
Ufuk Akçiğit

University of Chicago Professor of Economics

Umre Metin

YetGen

Umre Metin completed her primary and secondary education in Siirt, where she also received special education at Siirt Science and Arts center for 10 years. While attending Siirt Science Highschool, she served as the captain of the volleyball team and was a team member of the school’s Tubitak research team. Umre received a 75% scholarship from MEF University for her studies in business, where she financed herself throughout her studies working part-time and graduated with honors. Her first internship was with Etkinlikcim.com and KTH Event Management while she was in the preparatory class for university. Then she worked as an intern at NN Group, Albright Stonebridge Group, Aventio MB, and IELEV, and as a long-term intern (9 months) at Koc Holding. Umre also worked as an assistant to Prof. Erhan Erkut, and helped him with his courses as well as his research, edited his writings, and helped manage various events. She also worked as the director of the “Yetkin Gencler” program which is a 21. century skills awareness program, graduating over 1,000 students in 5 years. She is one of the partners and a member of the board of the recently founded Yetkin Gencler Education Cooperative. Umre worked at Userspots briefly after graduating, and she currently works as part of the management team at Udentify, one of the successful Turkish technology startups.
Ümit Boyner

Board Member of Boyner Group

Wieteke Dupain

Euclid Network Knowledge and Research Lead

Wieteke joined Euclid Network as Programme Manager in 2019. She focuses on strengthening membership engagement and leading on several programs and events.She has 15+ years of (program) management experience across government, academia, international organisations, private sector and as entrepreneur. Before joining EN Wieteke was CEO at the Graduate Business Forum and Executive Director at the CEMS Global Alliance in Management Education Alumni Association. Wieteke has two Masters in Business Administration: a Masters in Strategic Management from RSM Erasmus University and a Master in International Management from ESADE, RSM Erasmus University and the CEMS Global Alliance in Management Education. After living and working around the world she has recently returned to her home country – The Netherlands – and currently lives with her partner Roel and son Finn in Rotterdam.
Valerie Marouche

BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt Network Organizer for Northern & Central Europe

Valerie is building a community of responsible leaders in Northern & Central Europe at the BMW Foundation. By connecting leaders from diverse sectors and cultures who are nonetheless united in their shared vision of a more just and sustainable future, she opens up equitable and inclusive spaces for inspiration, connection and collaboration that advance the UN’s 2030 Agenda. Throughout this work she is guided by a belief in the powerful serendipity that can be created when one life is influencing another.
Yasemin Sırali

Fiba Holding Social Investments Director

Yasemin Sırali is Director at Ozyegin Social Investments, a network of institutions including the Mother Child Education Foundation (ACEV), Husnu Ozyegin Foundation (HMOV), and Ozyegin University based in Turkey. Ozyegin Social Investments focuses primarily on education, from early childhood to higher education to adult trainings. Prior to joining Ozyegin Social Investments, Yasemin worked as a management consultant at the New York City and Philadelphia offices of Deloitte Consulting, where she provided advisory services to pharma and biotech companies on strategic and operational issues. She completed an Honors degree in Economics and French Literature at Swarthmore College and obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School. Yasemin is a Board Member of the Education Reform Initiative, Steering Committee Member of the Early Childhood Peace Consortium, Vice President of the Harvard Club of Turkey, Fellow of the Harvard University FXB Center for Health & Human Rights, and a Responsible Leader of the BMW Foundation.
Yeliz Mert

B Lab Europe Country Partner Manager

Yeliz is a social designer and catalyst active in the fields of social innovation, entrepreneurship and ecosystem building. At B Lab Europe, she is responsible from network management, strategy and stakeholder engagement. She represents Europe at the B Global Climate Task Force and leads B Lab Europe’s climate activities. She previously worked at Impact Hub Amsterdam and started a business in natural skincare. Yeliz is a capacity builder, facilitator and connector with experience in curating and delivering content utilizing 9+ years of accumulated knowledge in the areas of regenerative agriculture, circular economy, climate action and inclusion. She lived in 8 countries and is believer of the power of collaboration for a sustainable future. Yeliz holds a joint master’s degree in Sustainable Territorial Development from KU Leuven, University of Padua and University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Galatasaray University.
Yunus Arıkan

ICLEI Director of Global Advocacy

Yunus Arıkan has MS and BE degrees from METU in Ankara, Turkey as well as a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Environmental Diplomacy from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He has been working at ICLEI World Secretariat since 2009. Before this, he was with the Regional Environmental Center in Turkey, leading the development of the Climate Change Programme as well as the UNDP Turkey Country Office and Ministry of Environment. Between 2009-2012, Yunus led ICLEI´s Cities Climate Center. Since 2013, he leads ICLEI´s global advocacy at the UN. He is one of the Organizing Partners of the Local Authorities Major Group at the HLPF and member of the MGFC at UN Environment.

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