Araz has five decades of diverse international experience at CEO and board level across numerous business sectors, functions and geographies. His experience and skill set includes corporate and investment banking, finance, strategy, leadership, change management, corporate governance, and consulting across various business sectors.Araz started his banking career with Citibank NA in Istanbul and served twelve years in the global organization of Citicorp as a Corporate and Investment Banking executive, with assignments in Turkey, Greece, Bahrain and New York headquarters. He was one of the main architects of building Citibank’s Turkish organization. His last assignment at Citibank was Credit Deputy for the EMEA Group Head at the bank’s headquarters in New York. After Citibank, Araz joined Interbank A.S. as CEO and led the bank and its subsidiaries to a position of one of the most respected financial institutions in Turkey. The bank introduced many firsts into the Turkish market such as mutual funds, M&A advisory, asset securitization, syndicated facilities, private banking and centralized processing centers. Interbank was identified with the quality of its people, technology leadership. Today, many of Interbank alumni continue to take leadership and CEO & C- Suite positions in the Turkish banking industry and leading corporations.Since 2006, Araz has been with the Ata Group, a leading privately owned group with investments mainly in food and quick service restaurants businesses (QSR) in Turkey and China, investment banking, asset management, technology and real estate development. Araz actively serves on the boards of most of Ata Group companies including Ata Holding, Ata Invest, Ata REIT, Ata Asset Management, TFI Tab Food Investments, Burger King China Development JV, Entegre Construction Materials and Izmir Hilton. On a specific note, TFI is a major global player in QSR business with 3600 stores, six international brands and a comprehensive integrated supply chain system. As Burger King’s largest global Master Franchisee, TFI continues to develop the Chinese market. As an active board member at the China JV since 2012, Araz frequently travels to China and closely follows the Chinese economy. Araz also serves as an independent director Zorlu Holding and Zorlu Renewables Energy. Previously, as independent external director, he served on the board of Enka, a leading EPC and real estate developer; Vestel Electronics and Vestel Appliances, a top Turkish exporter.