TED UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
MEMBERS OF THE EXTERNAL ADVISORY BOARD
Prof. Dr. ESRA KARASAKAL graduated from Ankara Atatürk Anadolu High School and received her bachelor's (1994) and doctorate (2000) degrees in Industrial Engineering from Middle East Technical University (METU). She also earned a master's degree in Operational Research from Lancaster University, UK (1995). She worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ottawa, Canada, for one year. Since 2001, she has been a faculty member at the Department of Industrial Engineering at METU. Between 2020 and 2023, she served as the Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at METU. Her areas of interest and research include multi-criteria decision making, decision analysis, facility layout, defense systems analysis, mathematical modeling, optimization and its applications. She has published numerous works in these fields in internationally reputable journals. She is a member of the Turkish Operational Research Society and the International Society on Multi-Criteria Decision Making.
IŞIL ÖZER BÖLÜK, after completing high school education at Ted Ankara College, graduated from METU Engineering Faculty- Department of Industrial Engineering and Anadolu University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences- Department of Economics. She completed her MBA degree at Atılım University.
She started her professional work as a work study-method engineer at Bayındır Healthcare Group in 1995. She took managerial positions in quality management processes as ISO 9001 Project Manager, Total Quality Management Team Leader, a founding member of the Joint Commission International (JCI) Quality Standards and the member of Quality Council. She personally carried out strategic management, budgeting, planning, investment feasibility studies and investment evaluations, capacity and layout planning, work study, workforce analysis, business development and service designs, management reporting, cost management and pricing studies. Between 2002-2016, she worked as an executive in the Departments of Strategic Planning & Business Development and Human Resources & Talent Management at Bayındır Health Group.
Since 2017, she has been working as Deputy General Manager responsible for Strategy, Planning, Digital Transformation, Information Systems, Data and Analysis, Financial Affairs, Human Resources and Talent Management, Financial Reporting (IFRS), Materials Management, Purchasing, Legal Affairs, Biomedical, Technical and Support Services Departments at Bayındır Healthcare Group.
She is a member of Turkey Quality Association (KALDER) and Artificial Intelligence and Technology Association.
UĞUR CAKOVA is an Industrial Engineer with more than ten years of experience working in the data science business. Uğur specialises in shaping decision making processes via artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms. After graduating from Bilkent University Industrial Engineering department in 2008, he completed his master's degree in Finance at the same university. He started his professional career in Akbank, and undertook various data science and marketing analytics roles. After leading the Analytics Lab in his last role in Akbank, he joined Trendyol in 2021. Currently, he is leading the Growth Analytics team to identify sustainable and profitable growth strategies for Trendyol.
ELİF DÜŞMEZ TEK is part of Deloitte since 2004. Elif is a Partner at Deloitte Consulting and is acting as Clients and Industries Leader for Deloitte Turkey. She has served Clients mainly in energy sector and her energy sector experience dates back to 2000, before she joined Deloitte. She has taken part in key market transformation projects in liberalization of Turkish power and gas markets including Balancing and Settlement System Project and Establishment of EPİAŞ. She has also assumed responsibilities in determination of sector strategies and directing investments of several local and international private sector investors to Turkish power and gas markets. Her key areas of expertise include design and implementation of organized power and gas market places, determination of power and gas tariff and pricing strategies, alignment with EU acquis in energy sector, simulation of Turkish power and gas markets, energy demand and supply planning, post-merger integration, determination of target operating model and transformation projects. In her more recent experience, she serves Clients from different industries in their transformation journey in strategy and business design domain.
Elif has BS in Industrial Engineering from Middle East Technical University. She has MS degrees in Industrial Engineering and Information Systems both from Middle East Technical University.
NGO Activities: TÜSİAD Energy Working Group Vice President (Technology Integration); EDİDER (Digitalization in Energy) Board Member; Shura – Member of Advisory Council
MEHMET İVEYNAT graduated from Bilkent University - Industrial Engineering Department in 2011. After completing his military service, he worked for Türk Traktör Fabrikası (TTF) first as a Planning and Inventory Control Engineer, and then as a Production Planning Engineer. After working at TTF for about 2 years, he changed the sector and started to work as a Planning Engineer at FNSS Savunma Sistemleri A.Ş.. After working in this department for 2 years, he transferred to Programs Directorate - Weapons Carrier Vehicle (WCV) Project as Project Coordinator with internal rotation. He started shortly after the signing of the WCV Project Agreement and have been continuing his duty for more than 5 years. He takes an active role in all processes from contract negotiations to after-sales service, from production to vehicle acceptance, from qualification to customer relations, in order to meet the schedule and cost determined within the scope of the WCV Project. Within the scope of the Project, a total of 260 vehicles were delivered to the Ministry of National Defence – Turkish Land Forces. Thanks to the high end-user satisfaction, the new contract has been signed for an additional 84 vehicles and the demand is expected to increase even more.
MELİSSA KARAGÜR graduated from TED KDZ. Ereğli College. In 2017, she was entitled to receive her Bachelor's Degree from the Department of Industrial Engineering of TED University. In 2021, she received her Master's Degree from the Department of Industrial Engineering of METU. She worked at TED University 2018-2022 as research assistant. She continues the Doctorate Program in Industrial Engineering and also works as a teaching assistant at METU.
ZEYNEP KİRKİZOĞLU is the Finance Director of MAN Kamyon ve Otobüs Tic. A.Ş. since 2017. She obtained her BS and MS degrees in Industrial Engineering from METU in 2004 and 2006, and a second MS degree in Industrial Engineering from University of Arkansas in 2009. She has worked in research and teaching assistant positions in these universities before joining MAN in 2010. She has then held several positions in Sales, After Sales, and Controlling departments in the Turkish organization, as well as a one-year assignment in the company’s headquarters in Germany before assuming her current role. In parallel, she is continuing her PhD studies in METU IE department on the area of after sales services for durable goods.