Guests

Spent fifteen years across the agency, brand and technology sides of digital marketing. Started in search engine marketing and SEO, moved into measurement, programmatic and affiliate. Now responsible for strategy, partnerships and customer success at a retail media technology company.

• 10Cemil Toksöz on retail media and the AI overpromise

Born in Antakya, read International Relations at METU. Started his career at a startup in a technology park and was let go, with the suggestion that sales might not be for him. He went on to specialise in SaaS sales and worked at Criteo. He now advises Hardal on sales and growth.

• 11Fırat Berber on discovery, rejection and telling people not to buy

Years in e-commerce and digital marketing across ad networks, agencies and brands, with Hepsiburada, Beymen and Bilyoner among the names. He was at Hepsiburada when Turkey’s Black Friday equivalent was created. As of June he has left corporate life to advise companies from the outside.

• 12Selim Tekay on planning a year ahead for Black Friday

Works in marketing at a home textiles and decoration retailer, across everything from collection planning to digital campaign structure. Her focus is trend-watching and consumer behaviour. She was on the team behind category-opening campaigns such as the men’s trousseau.

• 13Gözde Elönü on trends, Labubu and who furnishes a home now

Works in regulation and legal technology: consent management, privacy notices and compliance auditing. He argues for using AI to audit rather than to act. A collector of records and books.

• 14Şefik Özcan on the AI bubble, regtech and what gets cheapened

Close to twenty years in software, starting with SAP projects, moving into systems and servers, then back into digital. He approaches measurement as a developer and hires his team from software backgrounds. Known for a measurement setup that joins offline and online data.

• 15Samet Yıldız on order before tools, and learning how to learn

Has worked since his first year at university, across creative agencies, marketing agencies and influencer marketing. He specialised in conversion rate optimisation and says he became full stack because nobody was managing the gaps between disciplines. He now builds data-led campaigns in travel.

• 16Emre Ertaş on CRO, and being multidisciplinary by necessity

Runs digital marketing for İpekyol, Twist and Machka. He introduces himself as a father of a daughter first and a digital marketer second, and spends his days on the question of which brand gets to lead.

• 20Ertuğrul Yıldız on running three brands at once

Started out on the corporate side at Turkcell and has run his own software company for fifteen years, focused on mobile applications and e-commerce, with a structure in Germany as well. One of the closer witnesses to decisions made out of FOMO.

• 21Ozan Uysal on AI decisions made out of FOMO

After Analytics House and Hepsiburada he started his own agency with Fatma Yalçın, a friend from university. He argues for a holistic approach: being an expert in a single vertical is no longer enough.

• 22Özgür Mert Sarıgül and Fatma Yalçın on going into business with a friend

Joined Analytics House on Özgür Mert Sarıgül’s referral, then moved to another agency and to Hepsiburada. She explains how a friendship of ten years survives becoming a business partnership, and keeps a deliberate distance from AI.

• 22Özgür Mert Sarıgül and Fatma Yalçın on going into business with a friend

Runs a fund investing in early-stage startups. She started with angel investors in Turkey, worked at several funds, and met her current partners in 2019. Her focus is B2B software and fintech.

• 23Günce Önür on how a VC fund actually works

Came into marketing technology from performance marketing. He argues for working tool agnostically and for going deep where marketing meets psychology, sociology and economics. He talks about what agentic commerce does to measurement.

• 24Rıza Doruk Ercan on 15,000 martech tools and agentic commerce

Nine years at Arçelik and a career spent inside digital marketing. She has built several functions from scratch, from media communications to marketing technology, data and personalisation. She shares her AI experiments on her own YouTube channel.

• 25Ayşegül Göktaş Eroğlu on AI inside a large company

One of the better known early-stage investors in the region. He reads between eighty and a hundred applications a week and says that is where the motivation comes from. He points out that a fund runs for ten years, which makes this at least a fifteen year commitment.

• 28Ali Karabey on burn, hype and what actually motivates founders