Management

Furkan Ünal has been serving as a member of Atakey Board of Directors since April 2023. At the same time, he has been working as Group CFO at TFI Tab Gıda since December 2022. Prior to his position at TFI Tab Gıda, Furkan Ünal served as CFO at Kardemir for 5 years, Deputy General Manager and Executive Board Member for Corporate Finance and Investments at AktifBank, and Chief Advisor to the Board of Directors at TAIB Bank, a subsidiary of Dubai Group. Furkan Ünal is still an Independent Member of the Board of Directors at two separate banks in Kazakhstan and Albania and a Member of the Advisory Board at a company listed on the US NASDAQ stock exchange. After his education in engineering, Furkan Ünal received his MBA-Finance Master’s degree from Bilgi University and continues his doctoral studies at the same university.

Ayse Aysin Isikgece joined Atakey as an independent board member in December 2023. After starting her career as Purchasing Assistant Position at GİMA incorporated company, Isikgece continued to work as Purchasing Group Manager for Fresh Products at Metro Cash & Carry Company. Between 2016 and 2018, she worked as a Member of the Executive Board of Carrefoursa and the Deputy General Manager for Food and Purchasing. In 2018, she was assigned as the Chairman of the Board of Directors as the General Manager of TİGEM (General Directorate of Agricultural Enterprises). Ayse Aysin Isikgece worked as Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry between January 2021 and April 2022. She continues her career as a Freelance Consultant, Board Member Strategic Advisor and Start-Up Mentor for the Private Sector and Non Governmental Organizations. Throughout her career, Isikgece has developed many projects that raise awareness for the protection of small scale producers and support of sustainable agriculture, such as “Geographically Indicated Products”, “If There are Bees, There is Life”, “Local Seeds, Fresh Crops”.

Halil Doğan Bolak joined Atakey in December 2023, as an Independent Board Member. After graduating from Istanbul Robert College High School in 1979, Halil Doğan Bolak studied Physical Optics Engineering at the University of Rochester’s Engineering and Applied Sciences Institute in 1983.He earned an MBA in Quantitative Finance and Management Information Systems from the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School in 1985, obtaining the “Beta Gamma Sigma” honor.

Between 1985 and 1999, Bolak served in various technical, operational, and general management roles as a third-generation family member in the Turkish Petroleum Group, a family company. During the growth period of one of the leading securities and banking software producer in Turkey, he worked and served as its general manager for a period. From 2013 to 2023, he held the position of co-founder and CTO (Chief Technology Officer) at Invstr, a London-based fintech company specializing in individual investment services. Bolak worked as a Senior Advisor in mergers and acquisitions at Mediobanca S.p.A. one of Italy’s leading investment banks, from 2013 to 2016. Currently, he is the founding partner of B4YO (www.b4yocapital.com), an early-stage VC focusing on investments in startups in Turkey, where the experience, expertise, and networks of partners can provide significant benefits. B4YO manages a Turkish VC (Venture Capital) fund with more than 40 investors and has completed seven investments to date. In addition to his role on the Board of Trustees at the Turkish Education Foundation, Bolak is also a member of the executive board of trustees at the Turkish Petroleum Foundation. Bolak, who is married and has three children, is a Galatasaray Sports Club Council Committee member.

Ahmet Özgül started to work as Deputy General Manager in Atakey as of April 2023. He worked as Business Development Manager in Ekur Inşaat San. ve Tic. A.Ş. in 2012, which is a related party. After working as a Logistics Specialist at Uzel Makine A.Ş. in 2005 and as a Business Development Specialist at Yıldız Holding A.Ş. in 2007, he joined the Group in 2012. After completing his undergraduate education in Industrial Engineering at Boğaziçi University, he completed his master’s degree in Industrial Engineering at the same university with a high honor.

Suat Açıkbaş joined the Group in 1995 as the accounting manager at Ekur Proje Yönetim Limited Şirketi in Liquidation. He started to work in Atakey in 2014 and has been working as Deputy General Manager since 2019. He undertook various tasks at different dates within Ecosystem Companies. He has also served as the deputy general manager in some Ecosystem Companies. Suat Açıkbaş is a graduate of Department of German Language Teaching of Anadolu University.

Hakan Çellik has been the Company’s Factory Manager since November 2022. He has been working in the Company since 2017. Before joining the Company, he worked as Production Supervisor at Ilkbal Gıda (08.2015-09.2016), Food Engineer at Cumhuriyet Sucukları (09.2016-03.2017) and joined the Company in March 2017 and worked as Shift Supervisor, Production Chief and Production Manager, respectively. Hakan Çellik graduated from Harran University with a degree in Food Engineering and graduated from Afyon Kocatepe University with a master’s degree in Occupational Safety and a master’s degree in Food Engineering.