Heading all legal operations of Turkish Airlines and managing more than 30 employees, Ali Uysal has led some significant changes in the legal department during his two years in the...

Ursa’s head of legal, Ana Lluch is responsible for 20 jurisdictions in which the company operates, including Turkey. When she first assumed her position in 2005 there was no legal...

Aslı Irmak Acar Kurşun has experienced rapid progression over the course of her career. Only four years after the start of her professional career she became the first in-house counsel...

Tani, a technology company, operates within the Koç Group, Turkey’s largest industrial and services group. Aslı Şahinkaya was the first in-house counsel to join Tani, and ‘the major change for...

Legal affairs director Ayşe Tümerkan joined Abdi İbrahim, the first Turkish company on the list of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, in 2008 to assist with legal work produced in...

Bahar Yenerer joined Atos Turkey as head of legal and compliance in 2012, after a successful career in major Turkish law firms. When she first started at Atos Turkey, the...

Having served for nearly seven years as the head legal counsel and corporate compliance officer for Bayer, a global enterprise with core competencies in the field of healthcare, agriculture and...

Highly experienced in the banking sector, Berna Avdan has worked for some of the country’s biggest banks. She started her career in the banking sector with Osmanli Bank, where she...

Burcu Şener Sözer is the head of legal at Aygaz, Turkey’s seventh largest industrial organisation. She joined Aygaz in 2011, after 13 years in private practice at several top Turkish...

With an illustrious career spanning in-house and private practice, Buse Pınar Kaçar has held senior roles in major multinational companies, including Carrefour and GSK. She joined Yörsan as chief legal...

Çağhan Tansel has led some of the most significant changes in the legal function at RB Turkey. When he assumed his position in 2012 the local branch did not have...

Çağla Zıngıl, group legal director, joined Akkok Sanayi Yatirim ve Gelistirme, a company with operations in chemical, energy, and real estate sectors in Turkey, eight years ago as the only...

‘With a workforce of over 20,000 people and with more than 50 subsidiaries operating globally mainly in construction, energy and real estate sectors, my role requires me to oversee and...

Cesur Kılınç has been the general counsel of Anadolu Group since 2000. Kılınç joined the company, one of Turkey’s leading conglomerates, as legal director in 1994. Prior to that, he...

Ceyda Akbal joined TAV Airport Holding, the leading airport operator in Turkey, in 2009 as legal counsel and, after only three years, was promoted to the role of general counsel....

The highly praised Çiğdem Dayan, ING Bank’s chief legal counsel, has impressed peers and clients alike with her navigation of major deals. A highly experienced lawyer within the banking sector,...

When he joined BP Turkey as the head of legal, Deniz Reha Özilhan’s first and defining task was the establishment of the legal department in the company. For that purpose...

Ebru Gürdemir joined Tetrapak as a legal counsel heading all legal operations across Greater Middle East and Africa in 2011. She has already had an impressive in-house career in some...

Ekin Sungur is the head of legal at BNP Paribas Cardif Turkey. She started her legal career at Moroglu Arseven Ozdemir where she worked for two years before moving over...

Esra Ünal was appointed head of legal of Statkraft Turkey in 2012. Previously she had worked as a legal counsel for Tucas Petrol for four years and as a regulatory...

Throughout nearly two decades at the helm of all legal services, Gökhan Saraç has led the award-winning legal function of Unilever NametRub (North Africa, Middle East, Turkey, Iran, Israel, Caucasia,...

Gözde Çolak joined Procter & Gamble in 2009 as an assistant legal counsel; in 2011 she was promoted to legal counsel and is currently the acting head legal counsel. With...

Alshaya’s senior legal counsel, Gözde Kuşçuoğlu, has served the company for nine years and has always performed to the highest standards. When she first joined, the successful retail franchise company...

Since joining AES Entek in 2012, Gülenay Ruşen Gelmez has led major changes in the structure of the company by merging all department legal matters into a central function. She...

With 15 years of in-house experience in the banking sector, Gunce Çakır İldun’s role has been pivotal for the success of the legal work at Deutsche Bank Turkey. ‘There was...

A business-oriented commercial lawyer, Hakan Bekiroğlu always strives to invest a lot of personal enthusiasm in his work. As chief legal officer at Tofaş, the market-leading company in the automotive...

Hande Karakülah spent almost five years at British American Tobacco, before moving industry to join Avon, one of the world’s leading direct sellers of beauty and related products, as head...

With over twenty years in CSC Germany, assistant general counsel Juergen Schminke is highly skilled in the legal and business aspects of IT, demonstrating significant experience in negotiations of large...

During his 17 years of experience within Çimentas Group, Kayhan Karabayır has taken wide-reaching initiatives to increase the proactivity and productivity of the legal department. ‘I developed the information channels...

‘When I started at Koc, we were a team of only three lawyers and our scope of work was limited to purely legal; we were not involved in the business...

Heading all legal operations at AvivaSA, one of Turkey’s leading private pension and life insurance companies and a joint venture with Sabanci Group, Kurtuluş Çaltekin joined the company in 2012....

Markus Renfert joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development six years ago as a project finance lawyer, following nine years at a magic circle law firm. His qualification under...

As the general counsel of Siemens Turkey for nearly a decade, Mehmet Celal Savas has succeeded in transcending the structure of the legal department from ‘the classic legal concept to...

Within only two years in Akfel Holding, legal affairs director Mehmet Yılmazer has managed to establish a central legal department that is at the pinnacle of performance. In his current...

A well-known and widely respected lawyer, Meltem Azbazdar has had an impressive career spanning in-house and in private practice. She started her career in the Istanbul offices of Denton Wilde...

Meltem Özker Gündüz is the legal affairs and compliance director, managing legal and compliance tasks for Novo Nordisk in the Near East Business Area covering Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan,...

A highly skilled energy lawyer with 15 years of experience in different sectors of the energy industry, Müge Önal heads all Eurasian legal activities of Lukoil, Russia’s second largest oil...

Current head of legal at Shell, Murat Vanlıoğlu, has had an enviable career to date. He started his in-house career in the banking sector, joining Ernst & Young as a...

For Nazli Dereli Oba, legal coordinator at Karadeniz Holding, the creation of the legal department in the company has been the greatest achievement of her in-house career. In 2012, when...

Necati Karabayır joined Vaillant, an internationally operating heating, ventilation and air-conditioning technology in 2013, after leaving Siemens. An ambitious individual, it took Necati just eight years to reach the level...

Having completed her first ever year as an in-house counsel, following a successful career of seven years in law firms, Türkmen Holding’s first in-house counsel Nihan Seda Kişi has set...

Prior to the establishment of D-smart, Oktay Demir was a legal consultant at Dogan TV Holding. He was appointed chief legal officer to take up the challenge of establishing a...

Highly experienced in corporate and commercial affairs, Oyku Api was appointed country legal manager at Metlife in 2011. Prior to that, Api was working for a law firm, dealing with...

Ozan Alakuştekin takes pride in having given a start to the whole legal structure of THY OPET, which ranks 25th on Turkey’s Fortune 500 list. Head of legal, Alakuştekin has...

Özen Keskin recently returned to Generali, the global insurance giant set to be one the main players in the Turkish market, taking up the challenge of building an in-house legal...

For Pamela Iyer, senior legal counsel at PM Group, every day at the office is an achievement, as in-house counsel are required to find solutions to business issues as and...

For Ruba Unkan, legal affairs director at Sabancı Holding, the largest industrial and financial conglomerate by profit in Turkey, every day offers a unique challenge due to the diverse nature...

Following a successful twenty-year career at White & Case, in 2014 Şebnem Önder assumed her first in-house role as the legal director at British American Tobacco Turkey and Northern Cyprus....

Billed as a ‘pragmatic and result-oriented professional’ Selin Evrem has been head of legal and compliance officer at Henkel Turkey since 2013. Prior to joining Henkel, Evrem was a corporate...

Limak Holding is a Turkish conglomerate with major operations in the fields of energy, infrastructure, tourism, port and airport management and aviation; it has been included in the world’s largest...

Heading all legal operations of Paypal in the CIS, MEA and Greater European regions, Senay Gurel has taken up a very challenging role dealing with e-money, a fast evolving area,...

Simhan Savaşçın Başaran is the chief legal counsel of Eczacıbaşı Group, a prominent industrial group that contains 41 companies. She joined the group seven years ago and has since expanded...

A veteran banking in-house lawyer with almost 20 years of experience in the field, Süreyya Uğurses has worked for some of the country’s biggest banks, including Isbank, HSBC and Eurobank....

During his time as corporate secretary in Mercedes Benz, Tansu Akin has turned a one person in-house department into an 11 member team that excels in all areas of its...

During her 17-year tenure as senior lawyer and head of legal department for Cargill, Tuba Çetin Alpa has played a central role in the company’s regional growth. Cargill is an...

Tugabay Ekinli, vice president and associate general counsel legal operations international at GSK believes he has always been very lucky in his career. It was less than a decade ago...

Tülay Aktan joined Efe İçecek Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş in 2012 as the legal and corporate affairs director. She invested a lot of time and effort in the improvement of...

Supporting the legal operations of AstraZeneca across the Middle East, Africa and Turkey, requires a high degree of commercial alignment with the businesses goals. Ümit Çakır, as acting head of...

Heading all legal and corporate affairs in Microsoft Turkey, Yasemin Genc has strived to shift the perception of the legal department within the business. To this end she has taken...

Described as ‘a proactive individual with strong negotiation skills’, Coca-Cola Turkey’s legal director Zeynep Derman Küçükönder has been working in-house for more than 17 years. With extensive experience in multinational...

With continuing activities of the Turkish construction company IC Holding at home and an increasing number of projects and transactions throughout the world, chief legal counsel Zihni Gönen is managing...