External Advisory Board

Tuğrul Günal

Chairman of Board, Supply Chain Management Association

Mr. Tuğrul Günal completed his university education in business administration in Mainz- Germany and has been working at Siemens since 1989. During this period, he worked as Commercial Director in the Healthcare Business, Siemens Turkey Human Resources Director, Head of Compensation and Benefits, Latin & North America Human Resources Partner (Munich-Germany), Strategy Commercial Director (Vienna-Austria), IT Director and Supply Chain Management Director and currently, he is the general manager of the Siemens A.Ş Retirement Foundation in Turkey. Mr. Günal was a member and the chairman of Peryön Association and currently is the Chairman of TEDAR (Supply Chain Management Association) and Vice President of SEDEFED (Sectoral Associations Federation). Mr. Günal speaks English and German.

Alper Girgin

Company Owner, Girgin Akademi ve Danışmanlık Ltd. Şti.

After graduating from ITU Industrial Engineering in 2003, Alper worked at PepsiCo and Microsoft Partner for nearly 20 years.  Throughout his career, he has held various positions and responsibilities in PepsiCo's Finance, Marketing, and Human Resources departments, making significant contributions to the execution of global strategies, local-multinational cultural integration, and transformation of company priorities into daily services.

Having gained nearly eight years of experience in talent management, employer brand, culture and engagement, and total rewards in Human Resources. Alper significantly contributed to how a company can retain, develop and motivate talent.  In particular, Alper integrated the coaching mindset into many talent development programs within the company; "Train the trainer" and instructor for "Coaching Manager" and "Organizational Savvy" pieces of training.

He published his first book in English and Turkish (First 100 Days in Corporate Life) in 2019. In this book study, he combined his experiences in corporate life and his experience as an instructor for more than ten years. His second book, “Kim Kazanır” was published in 2023 which is a novel about professional career, strategic relationship management and organizational justice. “Kim Kazanır” was one of the candidates at “Platin İş Kitapları Ödülleri” in 2023.

Subsequently, he received Practioner and PCC accreditation from EMCC and ICF. Currently, he is a coaching instructor in the basic coaching training of Eternal Coaching Academy. He has more than 700 hours of coaching hours with his clients. Moreover, he has a facilitation certificate in PoY (Points of You) coaching creative tools and provides team coaching. 

 He also posts professional personal development tips from his @mrcorporatelife account for all professionals on Instagram & YouTube.

While having mentoring/coaching sessions with the audience he reaches through his own Instagram page, he also creates haute couture HR programs, including training, engagement programs & coaching for his clients and provides keynote speaking.

Celal Emre Koçak

Board Advisor, Gain Medya A.Ş.

Emre Koçak is an experienced product and management leader with extensive experience in the telecommunications and financial technology sectors. Passionate about working in growing companies and developing next-generation products and services, Emre has an entrepreneurial spirit and a strong analytical mind. Emre is always open to new challenges and opportunities and is excited to see what the future holds.

Born in Izmir in 1986, Emre Koçak studied at Koç University's Electronics and Electronics Engineering department with a High Achievement Scholarship after graduating from Konya Meram Science High School. Starting his career in the telecommunications sector, Emre Koçak first specialized in product pricing and product portfolio management, gaining an analytical perspective on the job. He then took on roles in segment management, value-added services, and product management teams, dealing with the processes from the production of a product/service to its delivery to a customer. He experiences the different working cultures and strategies of different players in different positions in the market at the 3 major players in the telecommunications sector, Türk Telekom, Turkcell, and Vodafone. Later, he gained experience in the B2B SaaS field as a Product Manager for e-transformation products during the digitalization of SMEs. He actively takes roles in the development, servicing, licensing, and auditing of new generation B2B and B2C financial technologies such as Mobile Payment (DAB) at Vodafone, Open Banking, VUK 507 at Softtech and Pazarama within the İş Bank group, experiencing the change, transformation, and maturation processes of different markets. He was responsible for the development, evaluation, growth and product/market fit testing of subscription-based revenue-generating services in the mobile application market. He continues his duties as a Board of Advisors at Gain Media and Tiyatronet.com.

Gizem Kişioğlu

Head of Marketing, JDE Turkey

After graduating from Marmara University in Political Science and International Relations in 2010, Kişioğlu embarked upon her professional life at Brown Forman Turkey as a Marketing Specialist. She had the opportunity to work with different brands and cultures and gained valuable experience in marketing and business management. After seven years in Brown Forman, while she was working as a Brand Manager for the whisky category, she decided to follow her dreams in a different FMCG category to create new challenges for herself. Following that, she started in Şölen Chocolate as Brand Manager responsible for a diversified portfolio with different brands. She had a chance to lead the transformation of brands, big innovation launches and creating brands from scratch. After 3 years in Şölen, she transferred from the world of chocolate to coffee and joined the JDE Turkey family as Group Brand Manager, working at JDE Turkey as Head of Marketing.

Esra Erkan

Data Analyst - Customer Analytics Lead, Vodafone

In 2019, she graduated with a third-place degree from the Business Administration department of MEF University. That same year, she began her professional career at Ernst & Young (EY) Turkiye in Tax Audit, soon transitioning to the Tax Technology and Digital Transformation Consulting department. During her tenure at Ernst & Young, her growing interest in data analytics and artificial intelligence led her to begin a master's program in Information Technologies at MEF University in 2021. Throughout her master's studies, she focused on data analytics, data science, and machine learning, deciding to continue her career in data analytics. While pursuing her master’s degree, she made a career shift to the Customer Analytics department at Vodafone Turkiye. She has been involved in projects that track customer footprints and derive meaningful outcomes from digital traces. She works on forecasting models and quantitative data analyses, creating insights from telecommunications sector data using omnichannel and multichannel perspectives, and solidifies these outputs with data visualization tools. Additionally, she participated in a global project called London Rise at Vodafone UK, part of a young talent program at Vodafone Turkiye. After graduating from her master's program in 2022, she has continued to work at Vodafone Turkiye and currently serves as the Leader of the Customer Analytics department.