Board of Directors

Biography

DZ BANK AG- Deutsche Zentral-Genossenschaftsbank Türkiye Representative Office

Pınar Ersoy completed her primary and secondary education in Türkiye, attended high school and university in Germany, and obtained her master's degree from the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Bonn. After her postgraduate studies, she interned at the European Parliament. 

Pınar Ersoy began her professional career as a regional manager at Oyak Bank, where she worked for 6 years. She then worked for a further 6 years at KfW Ipex-Bank Türkiye as a project coordinator. Afterwards, she took over the management of Pelikan Ofis ve Kirtasiye for 3 years before becoming the Chief Representative of DZ Bank Türkiye, a  position she has held for nine years. DZ Bank AG is the second largest financial group in Germany. She has been active in Türkiye for decades and has had a local representative office since 2006. DZ Bank's business focus in Türkiye is on export and project financing.

Pınar Ersoy is also actively involved in many NGOs.

In 2019-2022 she was a member of the board of the German-Turkish Chamber of Industry and Commerce and since September 2022 she has been the President of AHK Türkiye. 

Biography

Attorney Bige Yücel is Head of the Legal and Compliance Department of Siemens Türkiye and a member of the company's Managing Board. For nearly 20 years, Yücel has taken on various responsibilities in the legal sector with passion and commitment. Before joining Siemens Türkiye, she worked at the law firm Bıçakcı & Tanverdi from 2003 to 2005, and then at the law partnership Hergüner Bilgen Özeke from 2005 to 2020, where she served successively as a lawyer, managing lawyer, and responsible partner in the Litigation and Non-Contentious Processes Department. After graduating from St. Georg Austrian High School, she completed her undergraduate studies at Istanbul University Faculty of Law and her master's degree in Economic Law at Istanbul Bilgi University. Bige Yücel is proficient in English and German and is the mother of two children, one girl and one boy.  

Biography

Born in 1960 in Istanbul, she graduated from Istanbul German High School and then Karlsruhe Technical University Informatics Faculty as a Computer Engineer in 1984. In 1985, she worked in different positions at Nixdorf Computer Türkiye, which she founded and became a partner, and at the parent company in Germany. She co-founded Login A.Ş. in 1990 and Infina A.Ş. in 1995, companies developing software for ERP and capital markets automation. In 2019, she founded Öneriver Yazılım A.Ş., which operates in robo-consultancy. She served on the Board of Directors of Türk Ytong Sanayi A.Ş. between 2007 and 2024. Demiren Holding A.Ş., of which she is the Chairman and headquartered in Istanbul, operates in the field of company subsidiaries. Between 2020 and 2024, she served as the President of the Alman Liseliler Kültür ve Eğitim Vakfı (ALKEV Okulu), of which she was the founding trustee. Serving education and promoting German language and culture in our country has been a source of pride for her. She is also a trustee of the Türkiye Bilişim Derneği ve Türkiye Eğitim Gönüllüleri Vakfı (TEGV).

Biography

Burkhardt Hellemann comes from the small town of Wiedenbrück in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. After graduating from high school, he went to Latin America for two years and completed his voluntary service in Chile. He then studied religious pedagogy and later - parallel to his professional career after his first degree - political science. After completing his second degree, he began working for a Catholic NGO, first in Cologne and then in Yaoundé, Cameroon. In January 2016, he moved to Accra, the capital of Ghana, where he became the representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. His work focussed on political party cooperation and economic policy support for the private sector. Through the latter commitment, he got to know and appreciate the worldwide activities of the German Chambers of Commerce Abroad (AHK), for which he became office manager of the AHK Ghana in April 2021. After spending about 3 years in AHK Ghana, he joined AHK Türkiye, which has offices in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, as a Board Member and Secretary General as of May 2024. Burkhardt Hellemann lives in Istanbul with his wife and four children. 

Biography

Nuh Beton A.Ş.
(appointed by TOBB)
Mehmet Eskiyapan was born on 13.12.1950 in Ankara.

Education:
1968 TED Ankara Koleji
1974 Fachhochschule Dortmund/Germany, Mechanical Engineering 

Professional activities:
Owner and Chairman of the Board of Directors of SEDO A.Ş.
Member of the Board of Directors of Nuh Çimento Sanayi A.Ş.
Member of the Board of Directors Nuh Beton A.Ş.
Member of the Board of Directors Ahmet Eskiyapan Holding
Member of the Board of Directors Ahmet Eskiyapan Vakfı
Member of the Board of Directors Nuh Çimento Sanayi Vakfı 

Memberships:
Council member of the Kocaeli Chamber of Industry
Delegate of TOBB  
Member of the TOBB Industrial Council
Member of AHK Türkiye
Deputy President of TD-IHK  

Biography

NRW.Global Business Türkiye

Dr. Adem Akkaya studied business administration at the Universities of Marmara (Istanbul) and Goethe (Frankfurt) (Dipl.-Kfm., 1996) and worked as a research assistant at Gutenberg University (Mainz) (Dr. rer. pol., 2003). After a language stay in the USA, he worked at Yeditepe University (Istanbul) as an assistant professor of accounting (2006). Since 2007, he has been the representative of NRW.Global Business in Türkiye. He has also been a lecturer at Marmara University since 2010 and has been teaching entrepreneurship courses. 

The state-owned foreign trade promotion organisation NRW. Global Business is the partner for all companies for investment projects and relocating to North Rhine-Westphalia, for the development of growth markets and for networking with international business partners. In addition to subsidiaries in Japan and the USA, NRW.Global Business has representative offices in China, India, Korea, Poland, Russia and Türkiye.

Biography

Andreas Radel, born in 1964 in Bremen, is married. He completed his high school education and military service in Bremen and Oldenburg.

He studied Business Administration at the University of Bayreuth (Bavaria) and Aston University, Birmingham, UK, Dipl.-Kfm.

12 years as logistics and sales manager in the power plant industry, he started his position as Sales Manager at EJOT GmbH & Co. KG in Germany in 2001 and has been working as Managing Director since 2003.

Since 2009, he has been working as General Manager at EJOT TEZMAK Fastener Technologies Industry and Trade Inc. in Istanbul.

EJOT is a family-run, medium-sized, family-owned group of companies based in Bad Berleburg (North Rhine-Westphalia) and is a leading manufacturer of connection technology with around 4.600 employees. EJOT customers primarily come from the automotive and supplier industry, telecommunications and consumer electronics as well as the construction industry. EJOT offers a wide range of innovative fasteners, in particular self-tapping screws for metals and plastics, technical formed parts made of plastic and metal and a complete programme for fastening the outer shell of buildings.

The EJOT Group has been active in Türkiye since 1996 and has two production sites in Gaziosmanpaşa (2000) and Çerkezköy/Tekirdağ (2022). Around 300 employees produce screws mainly for the automotive, home electronics and construction industries. More than 75% of the products manufactured in Türkiye are exported. 

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Enis Sonemel graduated from Koç High School in 1998 and from Boğaziçi University, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering in 2002. In the same year, he started his career at Siemens Business Services Türkiye. In 2005, he joined Siemens Health (Healthineers). Between 2008-2012, he worked at Siemens Healthineers Headquarters in Germany. During this period, he worked as a Senior Manager in Sales and Marketing and was responsible for the EMEA region countries, India and Southeast Asia. After returning to Siemens Healthineers Türkiye in 2012, he initially worked in the Sales and Marketing departments in various positions and was then appointed Deputy Managing Director responsible for Medical Imaging Technology in 2015. Since 2019, he has been working as General Manager and Chairman of the Board of Siemens Healthineers Türkiye.  In 2021 and 2022, he was listed among ‘Turkey's 50 most admired CEOs’ and won the Golden Leader Award. As part of the team in Türkiye, he is also responsible for the management of operations in Israel, Bulgaria, Romania and Kazakhstan in the Siemens Healthineers Middle East Europe and Central Asia region.  He is also a member of the Board of the German-Turkish Chamber of Industry and Commerce. He is fluent in English, German and Italian. He is married and has one child.  

With 175 years of global experience and more than 71.000 employees operating in more than 70 countries around the world, Siemens Healthineers contributes to a healthier life for people. It offers a wide range of services in the health services sector, from diagnostic imaging to laboratory services, after-sales service and maintenance. In 2021, with the acquisition of Varian Medical Systems, the company entered a new business area and acquired one of the most comprehensive portfolios in the medical technology sector. 

Biography

Secretary General, Head of Legal and Compliance Mercedes-Benz Türk AŞ

Gamze Gökçen Pilevne graduated from the Faculty of Law at Marmara University in 2006. After graduating and working in different law firms in Istanbul, providing legal advice to companies in a wide range of sectors, she realised that she wanted to provide legal support as part of a commercial enterprise and decided to become a corporate lawyer. Since 2011, she has been working as a lawyer for the Mercedes-Benz Türk family. As a business partner, she provided legal support to all processes of the company in the fields of production, distribution and marketing. Since 2016, she has been General Secretary and Head of Legal and Compliance at Mercedes-Benz, overseeing the Legal, Compliance, and Public Relations team. As of January 2022, she has been appointed as the Chairman of the Company's Sustainability Committee and coordinates the activities within the company to achieve Mercedes-Benz Türk's global transformation commitments as well as its environmental and social welfare goals as a local industrialist. At the same time, she strives to contribute to the ecosystem through her roles as a board member of the German-Turkish Chamber of Industry and Commerce and as Chair of the Sustainability Committee in the Automotive Dealers Association.