About

Father, husband, entrepreneur, stoic, student of life, mentor to other students.

I've spent twenty-five years building, buying, scaling and selling companies. Mostly between London and Istanbul, with a chapter in Los Angeles. The lines of work have varied: AI in financial markets, e-ticketing, educational toys, digital mortgages, property development. The common thread, looking back, is curiosity and a stubborn unwillingness to leave a good question alone.

I studied industrial engineering at Bogazici University in Istanbul, then earned an MBA in strategy and entrepreneurship at UCLA Anderson School of Management. I'm a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. I speak workable French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, all of them poorly enough to be charming and well enough to order dinner.

I've worked alongside faculty as a subject matter expert on executive programmes at MIT (Human AI Collaboration), Oxford Saïd Business School (Fintech), and Imperial College (AI and Machine Learning in Financial Services). The work keeps me close to the questions younger founders and senior practitioners are sharpening.

Stoicism is the philosophy I keep returning to. Marcus Aurelius travels with me, on the bedside table at home and in the bag everywhere else.

Outside the office: reading, chess, puzzles, meditation, table tennis, ballroom dancing, football (Galatasaray, since you asked), and trying to write a haiku that lands.

Above all of the above: spending time with my daughter. The longest breakup in life.

Feel free to schedule a chat if you're interested in exchanging course notes.