I am a finance professional with 14 years of experience. I am currently undertaking the responsibility to head the absolute return products - multi asset portfolio management team at Garanti BBVA Asset Management in Turkey.I started my career in finance with internships during my university education, since then I was sure to have a career in this sector. As soon as I graduated from university, I started to work as a portfolio manager. At that time I was really surprised by the gap between the theoretical framework and real-life exercises in finance. This led me to start my MSc degree in Finance at Sabanci University, with a hope to understand better and bridge the gap. I was very determined and motivated to study theoretical and practical aspects of Finance, and I finished my Ph.D. in Finance and Banking at Kadir Has University.In the first 10 years of my career, I was a portfolio manager focused on fixed income securities. During this period, I successfully managed local currency and hard currency fixed-income funds, money market funds, DPM portfolios, fixed income portfolios of composite funds, corporate sector funds, and capital protected funds. I was responsible for decision making and trade execution of fixed-income focused pension funds and mutual funds at Ak Asset Management.I have changed my desk in 2018 to lead the strategy and asset allocation team at Ak Asset Management. I have managed the strategy and asset allocation team there for 3 years. As the strategy and asset allocation team, we used to provide macroeconomic analyses and investment strategies for our company and clients. We advised corporate and individual clients in a variety of areas including asset allocation, macroeconomic and financial analyses, and investment advisory services with a Robo-advisory focus. We have managed multi-asset funds using quantitative methods and carried out quantitative investment projects by integrating our industrial and academic experience.Now, at Garanti BBVA Asset Management, we are managing the portfolios of multi asset funds and DPM clients, using a quantitative approach, as well as advising other parties in the company, including the sales and product management teams.I continue to gain new skills in this area. I am pursuing an online Micro Masters degree in Statistics and Data Science from MITx, in addition to other programs including machine learning and quantitative portfolio management.I am also a part-time instructor at Istanbul Bilgi University since March, 2021, luckily sparking my ambition and work in the academic field.