About

Ceyda Akbal currently leads the legal department at TAV Airports Holding, a company established in 1997 as a joint venture of Tepe, Akfen and Airport Consulting Vienna and won the tender for the Istanbul Ataturk International Airport in the same year. As the general counsel Akbal has led a legal team composed of four in-house lawyers since April 2012, centralising the legal consultancy activities within all of the TAV group of companies. Joining TAV Airports Holding in 2009 as a legal counsel, Akbal was promoted to her current position as general counsel after only three years. This role has been one of the highpoints of her career: ‘it is a richness for a lawyer to work as a legal expert in a niche sector like the management of airport operations, which covers a wide range of areas including retail, security, food and beverage and IT’. Central to the TAV Airports Holding’s expansion plans, most recently Akbal has assisted on opening a new 12,000-square metre terminal at Tbilisi Airport. Over the course of her legal career, Akbal has had the chance to work on major international projects along with the largest and most important finance corporations, being a main part of the their international growth and development.