Turkey
IPFA has been holding events in Turkey since 2011 with topics covering both infrastructure and energy and including participation from key governmental and multilateral institutions including EBRD and the IFC. Our first event of 2017 will be looking at Motorway BOTs.
Branch Council
Asli Basgoz
White & Case
Partner
Asli Basgoz is a New York-qualified attorney who founded White & Case’s offices in Istanbul and Ankara in 1985. White & Case was the first international law firm established in Turkey. She has recently completed a four-year term on the firm’s four-person global Executive Committee, the first woman to serve in this management position in its 100 plus history.
Ms. Basgoz has taken the lead in many M & A, privatization, joint venture, private equity, and project finance transactions over the last 30 years, including many of the highest profile transactions and first of kind projects that have taken place in the market. Her experience spans a diversity of sectors including banking and financial services, healthcare, and infrastructure, manufacturing services, logistics, tourism, energy, telecommunications and media.
Ms. Basgoz is consistently singled out as a leading lawyer by peers and industry commentators including Chambers & Partners Guide to the World’s Leading Lawyers for Business’, European Legal Experts, and IFLR1000.
Turkey is a jurisdiction of great importance for White & Case, and many of its clients, and Ms. Basgoz is very active in the business world as Founder and Board Member of GIF (Global Relations Forum of Turkey), Member at TUSIAD (Turkish Industry & Business Association) and at YASED (International Investors Association of Turkey) and as Advisory Board Member of FODER (Financial Literacy and Inclusion Association).
In April 2014, Fortune Magazine named Ms. Basgoz one of the“50 Most Powerful Women Leaders in Turkey.
Ayçe Şule Gürleyik
Ziraat Bankasi A.Ş.
Head of Project Finance
Today Ayçe Şule Gürleyik is serving as the Head of the Project Finance Department of TC Ziraat Bankası A.Ş. (“Ziraat Bank”) which achieved approximately USD 9 Billion financing commitment to the real sector investments in a very diversified number of industries in less than 3 years time.
In 2012 she fulfilled the establishment of this new department of Project Finance in Ziraat Bank which is a hallmark in the Turkish banking industry with more than 24,000 employees and over 1,600 branches everywhere in Turkey as it is the oldest and one of the biggest in the country, which it origins reach back to 1863.
She was born in 1972 in Ankara. Being a graduate of Middle East Technical University she has a degree of economics. She started her professional life as an Internal Auditor in Koçbank A.Ş. and served in various positions including retail banking, cash management, branch management in Interbank and Denizbank. Before joining Ziraat Bank she was the Deputy General Manager in Bank Pozitif Credit and Investment Bank which is a subsidiary of Bank Hapoalim.
Şule Kilic
EBRD
Deputy Country Director, Turkey
Şule has over 20 years experience working on a variety of Project Finance/Financial Advisory, M&A, Private Equity, Bank Acquisition projects.
She is currently working as the Deputy Country Director for Turkey at EBRD since June 2014. In this position, she reports directly to the Country Director, provide support to develop the Istanbul RO as the main operational hub in Turkey, and assist to develop and deliver the country strategy. Responsibilities in her position: Take the lead in the Bank’s strategy business development and execution (infrastructure (municipalities, transportation, social infrastructure, PPPs), energy (power and natural resources)). Portfolio monitoring. Policy Dialogue and Representation of the Bank to the Turkish Government. Staff Management.
Prior to that, she worked as Head of Financial Advisory Turkey for PCF based in Istanbul and as a Managing Director in Unicredit Group for over 6.5 years, representing Unicredit CIB in Turkey for its financial advisory, structured and project finance activities across all industry sectors including infrastructure, PPPs, energy, commodity industries, oil and gas. She has been responsible for the structuring and arranging of several transportation, infrastructure, PPP and privatisation projects in Turkey. An excerpt of her transactions include: Financial Advisory of ETLIK PPP, BILKENT PPP and IKITELLI PPP Projects, Financial Advisory for EURASIA TUNNEL Project, Financial Advisory for STAR Refinery Project and TOLLROAD PRIVATISATION, structuring & arranging mandates of DALAMAN AIRPORT, IZMIR AIRPORT; ZAFER AIRPORT; ANTALYA AIRPORT, ATATURK AIRPORT; ESENBOGA AIRPORT, MERSIN PORT; BANDIRMA PORT and ISKENDERUN PORT, BASKENT GAZ Privatisation, structuring and coordinating roles in various other BOT schemed projects and other infrastructure projects currently in progress.
Previous to her employment with UniCredit, Sule worked for Garanti Bank (Project Finance-Transportation & Infrastructure), Emporiki Venture Capital (Representative Head of Turkey Desk), Dogus Holding (Advisor to Chairman), Citibank (as the Head of Strategy & Business Development, Bank Acquisitions and M&A) and the Privatisation Administration of Turkey (Project Manager for PETKIM Privatisation).
Sule is a graduate of Istanbul Technical University (with 1st degree honour), Turkey, a BSc in Industrial Engineering and has acquired an MBA and MSc from the University of Manchester, UMIST, UK (graduated with Distinction). She is currently proceeding with PhD in Finance at Bosphorus University, Istanbul.
Orçun Makal
EY
Senior Director
Arif Ozozan
GAMA
Burak Sencer
Mott MacDonald
Country Director
Engin Turhan
Finansbank
Director of Project and Structured Finance
Engin Turhan is currently working as the Director of the Project & Structured Finance and Corporate & Commercial Derivative Products Sales Team at Finansbank.
He has 12 years’ experience in Project Finance, has successfully closed many deals in the Income Producing Real Estate (Offices and Shopping Malls), Energy, Infrastructure, Shipping, Textile Sectors and has led many Acquisition and Privatization Transactions.
He has been actively involved in the Financing of Airports and Ports in which Public and Private Sector acted as partners. In recent years, he has specifically focused on PPP Models in the Healthcare Sector.
He currently holds a Master’s Degree in Political Economics and Business Administration and a Bachelor degree in Economics from Marmara University.
Aisha Elaine Williams
IFC
Country Manager for Turkey
Aisha Williams is IFC’s Country Manager for Turkey. She oversees IFC’s program in Turkey
and manages the day-to-day operations for the Istanbul Operations Center, IFC’s hub for the
EMENA region and the corporation’s largest office outside of Washington, DC.
Aisha joined IFC in 2005 as an investment officer in the Telecom, Media, and Technology
Department, where she led several landmark transactions, including’s IFC largest infrastructure
investment in Iraq, a pioneering investment in Afghanistan’s mobile phone sector, and a PPP for
a submarine telecommunications cable connecting East Africa to the rest of the world. In 2010,
Aisha relocated to Istanbul. As Special Assistant to the Vice President for EMENA, Aisha’s
portfolio included contributing to the design and implementation of the Istanbul Operations
Center and supporting the development of IFC’s corporate and EMENA regional strategies.
Prior to joining IFC, Aisha worked as a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Co. in Chicago,
USA, specializing in financial institutions. Aisha holds an MSc in Development Economics from
Oxford University, an MBA from Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University)
and a B.A. from Princeton.
Aisha is a dual citizen of the United States and Trinidad & Tobago.
Events in the region
There are currently no events confirmed for this branch. If you are keen to speak to one of IPFA Events Team on future events here, please contact events@ipfa.org.
