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Halil Ozcan - Burgan Bank Turkey - Chief Digital Officer
Halil holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Galatasaray University, in Istanbul, Turkey. He has 15+ years of professional experience in financial services and technology management with a wide range of innovation projects mostly focused on digital banking, and new technologies. Halil is Chief Digital Officer for Burgan Bank Turkey and leading neo bank “ON” as a business line. Prior to Burgan Bank he was in charge of sales and marketing of digital bank CEPTETEB at Turkish Economy Bank (TEB) BNP Paribas JV in Turkey. He had participated several roles in business development, marketing, mobile strategy including launch of CEPTETEB Pure digital bank. He also worked as consultant for IBM and focused on financial services projects such as new channel development for banks and insurance companies. Halil is fluent in Turkish, English and French.
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Ali Cakiroglu - UPT Payment Services and E-Money (A Subsidiary of Aktifbank) - CTO
Ali Cakiroglu graduated from Ege University Computer Engineering Department in 2000 and has over 23 years of experience in Information Technologies department of financial institutions. After starting his career as a Software Specialist at T. Isbank in 2000, he continued at Akbank in 2008. Cakiroglu managed different projects and teams on digital channels, call center, branch, innovation, fintech integration and open banking. As of October 2021, Ali Cakiroglu started to work as CTO at UPT Payment Services and E-Money and he is responsible of IT infrastructure of international money transfer and payment platform. With UPT platform, It is possible to send or receive money to/from bank account, credit card or name, either domestically or internationally, in multiple currencies on UPT branch and UPTION Mobile.
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Aziz Kose - NEOHUB (A Subsidiary of DenizBank) - Chief Innovation & Ecosystem Officer
Aziz Kose is a graduate of the Department of Mathematics from Middle East Technical University and has an MBA degree from Bahcesehir University. Starting his career as a Project Planner and Analyst at Motorola in 2007, Kose worked as Implementation and Maintenance Specialist at Turkcell and then as Projects and Planning Director at Topaz Telekom in 2008. He is Project Management Professional (PMP) and Professional Scrum Master (PSM). In 2014 and 2015, he served as the Co-Founder of Tagvance Media and ArgosAI ventures. Kose, who started his career at DenizBank as the Head of Open Innovation & Ecosystem Banking in 2018, has been serving as Executive Board Member at Deniz Ventures and the Chief Innovation & Ecosystem Officer of DenizBank's subsidiary NEOHUB since July 2021.
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Hakan Kantas - Halkbank - Information Technology Director
He started his professional career in 1993 in the IT department of Pamukbank. He was the CIO of Vaillant Group in 2007-2008. He has been working for Halkbank since 2008. He created IT Risk Management Methodology as the first bank in Turkey, he led CSI (Continual Service Improvement) projects that delivered comprehensive innovative transformations to implement global best practices in IT through service-oriented approach and IT process model. Currently, he is the Director of IT Continuity Management Department and he's responsible from following areas; Operational Resilience, IT Continuity Management, Disaster Recovery, Crisis Management, IT Capacity and Performance Management, Data Management and KVKK. He is a member of ISACA (Gold Member), IEEE Professional Member, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Member, The Informatics
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Levent Yildirmak - ING Turkey - Technology Director, Business Banking, Wholesale Banking & Risk
Oversees & drives the roadmap of Technology in Business Banking, Wholesale Banking & Risk domains. Leading critical change initiatives and technologies by focusing on developing flexible, scalable, efficient solutions reducing SG&A and increasing EBITDA. Tech leader with high achievements in leveraging digital technology to drive business growth, personal productivity, performance, profitability and expanding intellectual property capital. A thought leader, a change motivator, strategic thinker and strong partnership builder. Diverse experience 25 years in high-growth multinational companies with extensive knowledge in Technology & Banking.
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Remzi Soral - Turkish Economy Bank - Digital Banking Channel Development Director
Remzi Soral graduated from Bogazici University, Management Information System in 2001 and completed MSc degree from Bogazici University, Engineering and Technology Management in 2004. After 15 years experience at TEB as a business analyst since 2018 he is responsible from TEB Digital Banking Channels. Digital banking strategy creation: Creation and implementation of TEB’s digital banking strategy, including CEPTETEB (pure digital banking solution) and cross-functional digital banking needs (i.e. Trading App (Pratik Borsa) with investment teams. Channel and business management: Day to day channel management of all digital banking tools (i.e. mobile banking, internet banking, all apss and new banking techs). New technologies and innovation: Creation of new partnerships with tech providers, fintechs and startups as well as managing existing relationships with big tech. companies i.e. Apple, Google, Samsung, GSM operators to generate new solutions and tools for digital banking. User experience: Testing existing channels’ user experience and update them according customer needs. Next generation digital banking: Creating long term digital banking strategy alongside with the upper Management.
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Tuncer Demirel - Halkbank - IT Enterprise & Digital Applications Senior Vice President
Tuncer Demirel graduated from Ihsan Dogramaci University (formerly Bilkent University) Electric-Electronics Engineering in 1993. He has worked in Netas, Akbank IT, Aktifbank, Softtech & IBM as a developer, technical lead, IT executive and consulting positions. He participated in Turkey's first Internet and mobile banking projects. Today, he has a 30-years extensive expertise in digital banking, payment systems and process digitalization. As the IT Enterprise & Digital Banking Applications SVP at Halkbank, he is responsible of the application architecture & development of banking enterprise applications, low-code platforms, digital banking and payment systems.
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Yesim Calidag - Fibabanka - Director of Technology Strategy and Operational Excellence
Supervises the Agile Delivery & DevOps, Operational Excellence & Service Management Processes, CIO Office, test & quality, robotic process automation and enterprise architecture units. Owns and leads the digital transformation programme of Fibabanka in agile delivery, robust operations and operational excellence. Builds mechanisms to enhance strategic value of IT. Sets the strategy and roadmap to achieve excellence in technology delivery utilizing agile processes and practices. Leads the development and continuous improvement of all ITSM processes and Agile Software Development (SDLC/DevOps) in IT, working closely with the development and infrastructure teams. Leads the enterprise process improvements and development of process automations through designing, developing, testing and maintaining processes through Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and enhanced workflow automation platforms. Leads the design and implementation of a logging, monitoring, analysis and reporting structure to create visibility of IT in order to get insights for strategic planning risk and performance, including teams, infrastructure and applications. Sets the testing and automation strategy, standards and guidelines for the organization in line with best practices; ensures that each software product released is tested according to the standards. Responsible for financial management and budgeting and supports risk and overall compliance of IT.
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Burak Altun - Intertech (A Subsidiary of Denizbank) - Head of Cyber Security and Threat Management
I started my career in 2010 at Akbank in the Technology Security team. At 2013, I moved to Garanti as a Security Threat Expert. Between 2017-2023, I managed teams such as Threat Management and Log Management. Now, I’m the Head of Cyber Security and Threat Management of Intertech.
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Emre Olcer - Is Bank - Digital Banking Division Head
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Okan Acar - Kuveyt Turk Participation Bank - Head of Digital Banking Group
Okan has 21 years of banking experience in several departments including Credit Analysis, Product Development, Retail Marketing, SME Marketing, Digital Marketing, Digital Transformation and Private Banking. He also taught undergraduate courses at private universities for 3 semesters. He has a PhD in Finance at Istanbul University. In addition, he has an advanced CMB license, credit and corporate rating licenses and a BES certificate. Since October-2020, he has been working in the digital banking group of Kuveyt Turk.
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Ozer Gulce - Alternatifbank - Head of Information Security Management
He was born in 1971 in Bursa. He completed his B.Sc and M.Sc at Istanbul Technical University. His career, which started in the IT sector in 1993, still continues as Head of Information Security Management at Alternatifbank. Mr. Gulce worked at TSKB, OBASE and SDLC and held active positions in the sector in the fields of information security, information technology governance, software development, system management, decision support systems, primary control and audit activities.
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Selim Tastan - Kuveyt Turk Participation Bank - Head of Digital Transformation and Innovation
Selim Tastan began his banking career in Turkey in 2005 when he started working in IT department at Kuveyt Turk Participation Bank having different roles, Quality and Project Manager until 2013. He worked as the head of IT at KT Bank AG in Frankfurt, Germany until 2017. He came back to Turkey and continued his career as the Application Management Manager in Kuveyt Turk's IT Group. Dr. Tastan has been working as Head of Digital Transformation and Innovation in Strategy Sector since 2018. After graduating from the University of Arkansas with a degree in Computer Information Systems, he completed his MBA at the University of Texas in 2005. He completed his PhD in Business Administration at Halic University. In his doctoral thesis, he conducted his study on Economic and Technological Determinants of New Entrepreneurs Emerging in the Global Financial Technology (Fintech) Sector.