Senior Management

Ümit Önal, a graduate of Istanbul University Faculty of Communication, started his professional life in media and communication sector. He joined Turkuvaz Media Group in 2007 and served as the General Manager of ATV, Advertising Group President and Executive Board Member, respectively, until 2015. After being appointed as the Board Member and CEO of Digitürk in 2015, he managed Digiturk's sales process to BeIN Media Group. Önal joined Türk Telekom family as the Assistant General Manager responsible for Sales and Customer Services at the end of 2016, and in December 2018, he was appointed as the Assistant General Manager responsible for Marketing and Customer Services, and in August 2019, he was appointed as the CEO of the company. Having more than 20 years of experience in the media and communication sector, Önal has contributed significantly to the process of radical change in the Turkish media, and he continues to lead the digital and technological transformation of Türkiye in Türk Telekom.

Throughout his career, Ümit Önal has actively taken positions in national and international associations. Önal served as the Chairman of the Board of Mobile Telecommunication Operators Association (m-TOD) in 2020; he is still actively Chairman of TV Monitoring and Research Committee (TİAK A.Ş.); Board Member at Advertisers Association (RVD), member to Foreign Investors Association (YASED), Board Member at Yıldız Teknopark of Yıldız Technical University and US Business Council Member of Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK); and he represents Türk Telekom at Association of TV Broadcasters (TVYD).

Önal joined the Türk Telekom family as the Assistant General Manager responsible for Sales and Customer Services at the end of 2016, and was appointed as the Assistant General Manager responsible for Marketing and Customer Services in December 2018. In August 2019, Ümit Önal was appointed as the CEO of the company and has been serving as a member of the Türk Telekom Board of Directors since March 2022.

Kaan Aktan, after Galatasaray High School, graduated from Boğaziçi University, Economics in 1995. He started his career at Anadolu Group. He worked in PepsiCo Türkiye Operation in 2002 and afterwards he worked at Texas Pacific Group Investment Fund Türkiye Asset Management companies as finance manager since 2007. He joined Türk Telekom in 2010 as Director of Financial Projects. He was appointed as TTNET CFO in March 2013. During his successful term of employment, he has also taken on several management roles at Turk Telekom and Turk Telekom Group Companies. Mr. Aktan is serving as Finance Assistant General Manager since December 2016.

Dr. Mehmet Beytur, after receiving bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, he completed his Master's Degree in Economics at Marmara University with his thesis on 'Energy Resources and Cooperation Opportunities of Islamic Countries'. In 2008, he received doctorate degree in Gebze Institute of Technology with his thesis on "Utilization of Outsourcing" in the field of Business Administration.

He started his career as an access engineer at Türk Telekom (at that time PTT) in 1991 and after serving as chief engineer, manager, assistant region manager and provincial manager, he has served as Istanbul Region Manager for more than 10 years. In this role, he carried out technical, commercial and all support functions.

He has worked in technology, customer, system and management based transformation projects in the company and the sector. Dr. Mehmet Beytur is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Türk Telekom SYS (Health and Social Aid Foundation) as well as serving as a member of the Board of Directors in Türk Telekom Group Companies. Mehmet Beytur (PhD) is serving as Support Services and Procurement Management Assistant General Manager since September 2019.

Upon graduating from Business Administration Department of Boğaziçi University in 1996, İsmail Bütün started his professional career at Çuhadaroğlu Holding Moscow Office. Between 1997 and 2000, Mr. Bütün worked at Enka Group within Foreign Trade department in Moscow as Sales and Business Development Manager. After joining the team of Nestle Türkiye in 2000, he worked at Nestle as CPW Türkiye Country Manager, Regional Marketing Director for Central Asia based in Uzbekistan, and as Head of National Key Accounts for Nestle Türkiye respectively. After 2011, he served at Nestle’s Global Headquarters in Switzerland, first as Business Excellence Manager at the Global Customer and Sales Management Unit and then he led global marketing projects as Marketing Manager at the NESCAFE Strategic Business Unit. Mr. Bütün returned to Türkiye in 2015 and was appointed as the General Manager of NESCAFE and also as a Board Member of Nestle Türkiye. In January 2016, he joined Turkcell as “Senior Vice President of Retail Sales” in charge of Consumer Sales and also appointed as an Executive Committee Member. Between July 2016 and January 2019, he served as the Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Committee member.

In January 2020, Mr. Bütün joined Türk Telekom International as Chief Commercial Officer. He completed “New Frontiers” programme at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in 2017; and “Innovative Marketing for Strategic Advantage” programme at Stanford University in 2018. İsmail Bütün is serving as Consumer Sales Assistant General Manager since May 2020.

Mustafa Eser graduated from the Department of Physics of Hacettepe University in 1996. Between 1996 and 1998, he conducted his master’s degree studies at the University of Cologne and Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf. Since 1998, he has been taking part in Information and Education sectors as an entrepreneur and a manager. Between 2007 and 2014, he worked at Türksat A.Ş as Director. Between 2014 and 2017, he worked as the Manager responsible from Public Sector Relations and Regulation at Digitürk. Since May 2017, he served as the Public Sales Director at Türk Telekom. Mustafa Eser, is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sebit A.Ş., a subsidiary of Türk Telekom and Türkiye’s leading educational technology company, also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Türk Telekom Sports Club and is responsible for the basketball branch.

Mustafa Eser is serving as Corporate Sales Assistant General Manager of Türk Telekom since April 2020.

Ali Gürsoy graduated in Faculty of Management from Bilkent University in 1993. He started to work for Şişecam Group as Assistant Specialist in 1995 and continued his professional life at Esbank T.A.Ş as Specialist in marketing department. In 1997, he relocated to the United States and worked as a Financial Analyst at ATB Consulting (New York) followed by a role as a Financial Risk Manager at Aragon Asset Management (Chicago).

In addition to his professional life, Ali Gürsoy continued his education and graduated from Pace University-M.S. in Investment Management (2001), Columbia UniversityGraduate Diploma in Computer Science (2003) and University of Chicago-M.S. in Financial Mathematics (2005) in the United States and Sabancı University-M.S. in Data Analytics (2021) in Türkiye, respectively.

After his return to Türkiye in 2006, Ali Gürsoy worked as Assistant General Manager at Risk Türk Financial Software Company for five years. During this period, Ali Gürsoy led the team that provided software and consulting services related to market risk, credit risk, asset-liability management, and portfolio management within the company. He managed a portfolio of clients consisting of Türkiye's leading banks, investment, and portfolio management companies. Since 2011, Ali Gürsoy has continued his professional career at Türk Telekom Group, where he led the establishment of the functions of Corporate Risk Management, Business Continuity, Internal Control, and Sustainability. In addition to this role, Gürsoy also served as the Assistant General Manager of Finance at AssisTT A.Ş., one of the Turk Telekom Group companies, from 2018 to 2020.

Ali Gürsoy is serving as Head of Enterprise Risk and Business Continuity at Türk Telekom since December 2019.

Tahsin Kaplan who has more than 20 years of experience in the field of Corporate Law and Regulation in both private and public institutions, graduated from Marmara University Faculty of Law in 1999.After starting his professional career as a freelance lawyer, he took office under the titles of Legal Adviser, Group Head of Legal Affairs and held several Board Memberships in finance and media sectors. He has been working as a freelance lawyer since 2016.

Tahsin Kaplan is serving as Legal and Regulation Assistant General Manager of Türk Telekom since August 2021.

Kıraç began his career at Siemens in 1996. Later, he worked as a Planning and Integration Management Manager and then continued his duty at Nokia Siemens Networks under the same title.

Kıraç, who started working at Türk Telekom in 2008, assumed the position of Türk Telekom Network Director in 2010. Between the years of 2010 and 2014, he also served as the Chairman of the NANI Working Group of the European Telecommunication Operators Organisation ETNO, headquartered in Brussels, in addition to his duty at that time. After the restructuring, which was formed by the merger of Türk Telekom, AVEA and TTNET companies, he served as the Director of Core & Transport Network.

Yusuf Kıraç served as the General Manager of Türk Telekom International between December 2016 and August 2018. Since August 2018, as Assistant General Manager of Technology (CTO) at Türk Telekom, he has been managing the Company's activities in the fields of fiberisation and digital transformation, 5G, SDN, NFV, ipv6, Artificial Intelligence, IT product and channel deduplication, and Real Time Pricing, Cyber Security, Data Centre. Kıraç leads the efforts to realise network transformations with open-source technologies in the development of solutions such as SEBA (SDN Enable Broadband Access) and vRAN (Virtual Radio Access Network), and the localisation initiative in telecommunication infrastructures with the projects he started on the use of domestic products in the network layers of Türk Telekom.

In addition to his current position, he has been serving as the acting CEO of Argela Yazılım ve Bilişim Teknolojileri A.Ş. since June 2022. Yusuf Kıraç is also a Board Member of ONF (Open Networking Foundation), Board Member of Türk Telekom Group Company NETSIA, which is headquartered in the USA, Chairman of Türk Telekom Youth and Sports Club Board of Directors, and Board Member of İnnova A.Ş.

International Awards and Achievements: Guinness World Record, June 2013 First operator in the world capable of carrying 8 Terabits over a single fibre hair, 2011 and 2012 ICCI Energy Efficiency Awards, Turcyos II Türkiye-TRNC Fibre Project Achievement Certificate.

Zeynep Özden, graduated from Bilgi University's Department of Public Relations in English, started her career in Corporate Customer Services at BP Petroleum, and took on professional and managerial responsibilities in the fields of strategic planning and performance management in the communication and media sectors. She joined Türk Telekom Group as 'Commercial Planning Director' in 2017 and carried out the Projects for Efficiency of Sales Channels and Restructuring of Corporate Sales Customer Segmentation. Özden, most recently served as the 'Marketing Intelligence and Customer Experience Director', responsible for Marketing Planning, Pricing, Customer Experience and Customer Analytics. Zeynep Özden is serving as Marketing and Customer Experience Assistant General Manager since September 2022.

In 1993, after graduation from Marmara University Business Administration (English), Mr. Şehsuvaroğlu started his professional career as an auditor in Deloitte financial services company. He took part in the audit and consulting projects of various clients across sectors for a period of 10 years until 2003.

He joined Arkas Holding in 2003, where he led the restructuring of Holding’s internal audit function and the auditing of agency, marine and land transport, port and logistics service businesses. He established the auditing processes in overseas locations of Arkas including Spain, Ukraine and Algeria. Following his role in Arkas Holding, he joined Turkcell by late 2006, where he led the Sarbanes Oxley- SOX compliance efforts of the company as per the listing requirements in the New York Stock Exchange. Apart from Internal Audit, he led Enterprise Risk Management, Information Security and Business Continuity Programmes until the end of his employment in Turkcell in late 2011. During this period, he was also the acting CFO in Turkcell’s Ukraine subsidiary Lifecell simultaneously for a year.

In late 2011, he joined Yıldız Holding and restructured the existing Internal Audit functions of national and regional companies of the holding in accordance with the International Standards of Internal Auditing. Following that, he started the global auditing processes of global operations of the holding subsidiaries Godiva and United Biscuits. He led these efforts by establishing local audit teams based in New York and Shangai to support existing team in Istanbul. In October 2018, he left Yıldız Holding and assumed the role of Chief Compliance Officer of Netaş. During this tenure, he executed the adoption, monitoring and management of business processes in Netaş as per the best practice standards of compliance. Emre Şehsuvaroğlu is serving as Head of Internal Audit since September 2020.

After receiving bachelor’s degree in Electrics & Electronics Engineering from Turkish Military Academy in 1990, Mehmet Emre Vural, completed Artillery and Rocketry school in 1991.

He started his career in Kraft Foods Türkiye in 1994 responsible for Human Resources, Administration, IT and Legal functions where he successively took chief, manager and coordinator positions. In 2002 he joined Ülker Group and served as HR Manager, Recruitment Manager, HR Business Partner, HR Director responsible for International Operations and Yıldız Holding HR Director. After joining Matlı A.Ş. in 2012 as General Manager and board member; he took CEO position in Destek Holding starting from 2014.

Through his career, he completed numerous re-organisations, renovation, implementation and launch projects. Mr. Vural is serving as Human Resources Assistant General Manager since December 2019.

Yavuz Yıldırım graduated from Uludağ University in 1999 from the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Business Administration. Following his past work experiences in trading, he started his career in 2002 at Telsim, followed by various positions in sales and marketing units at Nortel Networks Netaş between 2004 -2006 and then Vodafone between 2006-2009). Mr. Yıldırım joined Türk Telekom in 2009 as Director of SME Sales Operations and contributed to the establishment of SME sales channel. In November 2011, he undertook the Wholesale Sales Director role and served as the President of Türk Telekom Wholesale Clients Business Unit between April 2015 - December 2016.

Mr. Yıldırım is serving as Wholesale Assistant General Manager since December 2016.