Speaking at ‘the Strategy & Hiring’ Panel of Stanton Chase International

Matching Strategy with Board & C-Suite Hiring 

I spoke in the “Strategy & Hiring: Matching Strategy with Board and C Suite Hiring” Panel Session of the International Partners Meeting of Stanton Chase International. Other speakers were Jeff Johnson, the President of Boeing Middle East; Tayfun Bayazit, the Chairman of Marsh McLennan; and Çağrı Alkaya, Managing Partner, Stanton Chase Turkey. I talked about different executive profiles that are required for global and corporate companies going through different phases and hints on how to recruit and train professionals within the frame of long term vision and strategy.

TUSIAD Innovation Seminar

Turkish Industry and Business Association (TUSIAD) organized a seminar on innovation on March 14th in Istanbul, and the objective of the seminar is to encourage the university students to think differently and innovatively.

Ziya Boyacıgiller - Endeavour Advisory Board Member, Haluk Zontul – General Manager of Teknoloji Yatırım and Samir Deliormanlı – IP Licence Manager of Koç Conglomerate, from both academia and business world, attended the event. I am as a TUSIAD Technology and Innovation Working Group  President and Intel Middle East, Turkey and Africa Regional Director mostly talked about corporate innovations especially and to some extent individual innovations in her session. My ultimate message, to be remembered by the young people there, was that ‘Whatever you are doing right now, always think about how you can do it differently. That’s the only way you can add value to your life.’

Click here for the details.

I speak at EFNI

I am speaking  as a panelist in the Plenary Session “Shared challenges facing Turkey and European Union in a globalized world” at European Forum for New Ideas (EFNI) in Gdansk, Poland together with Mr Zbigniew Brzeziński (Center for Strategic & International Studies, USA), Mr Ludwik Sobolewski (President, Polish Stock Exchange –GPW-, Poland), Ms Beata Stelmach (Undersecretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Poland), Mr Jürgen Thumann (President, BUSINESSEUROPE, Germany), Mr Cevdet Yilmaz (Minister of Development, Turkey) on Friday, September 28 at 9 am CET.  Click here for the details!

Equilibrium Must Prevail; Socially Responsible Business

With Intel Mexico Country Manager

There was a great session on corporate social responsibility and why should businesses care for people and the planet. In attendance was Carlos Slim Domit, world's richest man's (Helu) son alongside other three CEOs of Unilever, Manpower and Groupo Bimbo. Audience listened attentively the strategies and plans of the biggest companies of the world how they address the gaps between the ones who have and who don’t.

B20 Notes, First Day.

With President Calderon

Los Cabos is a beautiful small resort town of Mexico on the Baja peninsula. It is similar to our Antalya in Turkey, with big resorts and endless beaches. President Calderon chose this beautiful secluded part of Mexico to host the world's business and economy leaders.

The Four Billion Dilemma...

And why isn’t technology fixing things?

First day of G/B20 in Los Cabos , Mexico, there were two very interesting speeches on technology and its applications. One at a fifty thousand feet level with biomedical changes and genome and how it will change us humans; the other on real life applications to problems for other 4 billion people; power and electricity. 

Dean Kamen is president of DEKA company. He worked on stairs climbing wheelchairs; prosthetic arms; pap smear test machines prior.  In his opening line he mentioned all the CEOs who are coming to G20 represented business who operated mostly in the 60 countries in the world and had no interest to go beyond that for economic reasons and he made a call to the room for everyone to focus and help to find a way to fix two very fundamental issues that people in remaining of the world faced today. Water and electricity. He talked about two billion people on earth with no access to electricity and over one billion people with no clean water access; and the other two billion scrambling to get it.

Celebrating global women summit in the city of Athena; 
Goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization!

I have several favorite cities that I love going back to in the world. Since I got the invitation to attend Global Summit of Women in Athens, I been so anxious. I kept on planning, just being happy that I would go to Athens finally after a while. You see, I am originally from Izmir, a beautiful Aegean town right across the sea from Athens, same parallel, same geography, same climate.And in the years I used to cover Greece from Istanbul, I always would feel like I was visiting Izmir with the palm trees, four story apartments w sun shades, our very own food but called Greek food mostly with greens, oh and if I may add, the very same loud and beautiful blonde women Izmir is known for J I did my usual round, ran to the Benaki museum to smell the ethnography of a part of my town Izmir brought to Athens at end of last century; as well as traditional clothes, artifacts, paintings, ancient and archaeological finds from Asia Minor-the land which we call Anatolia today.

World Economic Forum on the Bosphorus

We as team participated in the “World Economic Forum on the Middle East, North Africa and Eurasia” which convened more than 1,000 leaders from industry, government and civil society last week in Istanbul. Quite a spectacular event with attendance such high level from all countries surrounding Turkey. 

Akdenizin her iki yakasındaki kadınlar soruyor: birbirimize nasıl destek olabiliriz? Birbirinden çok uzakta, okyanusun iki yakasında, farklı kültür ve coğrafyalarda olsalar da dünya kadınlarının sorunları ve istekleri ne kadar da aynı. Bu kadınların birbirlerine yardım etmek istediklerini görmek ise bir o kadar sevindirici.

Women on both sides of the sea talking—How do we help each other? I have been real lucky this month: was first in Barcelona, Spain for a business women summit together with Mediterranean women from southern Europe and northern Africa and Middle East; and then I was in Rabat, Morocco with women from all over the Middle East.

Ayse reporting from Cannes G20!

Folks, I was in Cannes B20 last week; business forum for the biggest 20 economies in the world gathering which is called the G20. It was a fabulous experience to experience something so high level; be there with world CEOs and also get to listen and sit at the same table with world leaders.

Some of my observations are below; but my most inspiring moment was when Mohammed Yunus of Bangladesh said ‘Today’s youth is the most powerful generation of humankind. If they wish to change the world they can           sssssssssssssssssssssssssswith technology.’