https://www.meldenadvisory.com

Dogus Management Services is a Dogus Holding affiliate in Dubai which identifies the investment opportunities in the GCC region. Beside the primary tasks of a CFO I took active roles in business development processes and investments in F&B and hospitality sectors. After landing these investments I started to lead the new F&B units. I also initiated setting up a shared services company in order to provide services to the F&B units of the Dogus Group in the region.BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & INVESTMENTS• Explore the new business opportunities in the region in line with the global growth strategy.• Involved in the opening process of 7 new restaurants in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.• Completed a JV deal with one of the largest developers of UAE for a new hotel project in Dubai.• Sizing the potential inorganic growth opportunities in the region through operational and financial feasibility studies and present it to the Board.• Develop proposals for any possible merge, acquisition, JV, investments and then finally ensure a smooth integration of closed transaction into the Group System. ACTING MD of F&B OUTLETS• The authorized signatory and acting MD role of all the restaurants in Dubai. • Involved in day to day business in our restaurants and be part of the daily operation.• Responsible for P&L management of the outlets.SHARED SERVICES COMPANY SET UP• Build the structure of a shared services company to provide services to our own F&B outlets and took the authorized signatory and manager role for that company as well. • The new company provided services in terms of finance, accounting, HR, project management and purchasing. The cost of the new company is allocated among these outlets.

Marka is a public joint stock company operating across three verticals Sports, Fashion and F&B. The company target is to be leading retail and F&B operator in GCC region with a primary focus in Dubai and Abu Dhabi in UAE. As Finance Director I had two main roles: M&A projects and set up the structure of the start-up company.BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & INVESTMENTS• Partnered with the M&A team as the head of finance and worked closely Group asset management company Evolvence Capital. • Marka was quite aggressive in M&A projects as the strategy is to achieve the growth targets committed during IPO. The company grew inorganically mainly focusing on Sports and F&B sectors in the region. • We successfully completed 6 acquisitions in 6 months including Retail Corp and Reem Al Bawadi. I was actively involved and led the discussions around business models.START UP COMPANY• Initiated Oracle ERP migration project and led the ERP team in the sense of establishing the infrastructure of the start-up project. • Along with my main role in leading finance, accounting, budget, forecast and reporting I was also managing all cost center operations including logistics and MIS solutions.

Dogus Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Turkey operating across several sectors including financial services, construction, automotive, energy, tourism, media, real estate and retail.Dogus Retail is the representative of Gucci, Hublot, Giorgio Armani, Emporio Armani, Armani Jeans, Armani Junior, EA Ristorante, EA Café, Capritouch, Loro Piana, Porsche Design,Kiko and In-Formal in Turkey.CFO responsibilities :strategic partnership, funding, risk management and operations.BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & INVESTMENTS• Contributed strategic decisions in respect of new partnerships with various brands and network expansion. • Involved in the process of new partnerships with the valuable brands in different business models including JV structures, regional franchise and distribution agreements. • Participated in the whole process of those several point of sales openings for the brands above.FINANCE• Responsible for leading the finance team and finding the best financing tools for new investments and working capital requirements. Funding was crucial for the company due to rapid growth strategy in the market.RISK MANAGEMENT• Risk management is one of the principal tasks of my role where I was responsible to understand and mitigate company’s risk profile. I reported the Risk Committee how the company monitors and manages the risk issues in terms of legal issues, new customs regulations, sector-specific problems, external auditors’ findings, insurance coverage, compliance of new partnerships and any other risk topics.RESTURCTURING & COST CENTER OPERATIONS• Managed finance, accounting, budget, forecasting, reporting, logistics, IT, legal and tax with a team of 19 employees. • In the sense of restructuring process led an ERP project with a local ERP company (Nebim) which is specialized in fashion retail.

Louis Vuitton Turkey is fully owned by LVMH and operating with 4 stores in Istanbul, Turkey.OPERATIONS• The main role of the finance director is to be a business partner of the Country Manager. We run and co-managed the company together with the Country Manager for 11 years.BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & INVESTMENTS• Given contribution for new store openings and relocations in terms of strategic recommendation and feedback from financial and operational perspective.• Achieved 2 new opening and 2 relocations in Istanbul and I took active roles in each phase of those projects FINANCE-LOGISTICS-IT • Finance director’s primary responsibility is to lead business development, finance, accounting, budget & forecast, logistics, reporting and IT functions. • Until July 2001 finance and accounting was outsourced to KPMG and E&Y respectively. We have achieved to establish the finance department and took over the role from E&Y on behalf of Vuitton Turkey with a small internal team. This period gave me the opportunity to gain experience on the entire retail operation; managing the whole logistics processes of the company, handling legal and IT functions, managing recruitments and outsource some functions when necessary, finding the best fit accounting software for our retail system, installing new stock software customized for the company, undertaking reporting, financial policies and cash management requirements of Paris.• In terms of finance and reporting, finance department was responsible for financial reports in accordance with IFRS and group policies, P&L management, statutory accounting, fixed assets, inventory and cost accounting, budget and revisions, tax declarations, cash management and investment payback and feasibility studies for prospect projects. • The entire local logistics process and supply chain issues are managed by finance. Regarding IT, logistics and legal issues Finance Department is the first correspondent for Paris.

Ottoman Bank was one of the prominent commercial banks of Turkey. It was founded in 1856 and operated as the Imperial Ottoman Bank from 1863 to 1924 and carried out the functions of central bank at that period. Ottoman Bank merged with Garanti Bank in December 2001 under the umbrella of Garanti Bank.I was one of two assistant managers who are directly reporting department manager. I was leading a team of two assistants. The responsibility of the financial control department was mainly issue internal financial reports , evaluate and analyze the financial results on these reports and propose necessary actions to be taken based on these analysis. The secondary role on the other hand was compliance check of the actions with internal code of conducts and statutory rules and regulations. In that respect I took roles in the following tasks: • Determine KPI’s to be used for branch ranking reports and issue monthly branch ranking reports prepared based on those KPI’s and efficiency criteria.• Audit and follow the efficiency of different departments within the Head Office (treasury, accounting, and custody) and prepare their separate financials.• Follow up new legislations, rules, requirements set by the authorities ruling banking sector in Turkey. • Lead the process of new periodic internal reports for the Board and for all other related departments in Head Quarter.

I started my career as an associate auditor at PwC in Assurance Business Advisory Services department.• Worked in the audit fields for various clients, such as Türk Motor (production), Milliyet (media), Tefal (retail) and several Hotels & Holiday Resorts in Antalya (hospitality), which were reported in compliance with IFRS, Turkish GAAP and Turkish Capital Market Board requirements.• The majority of the clients that I worked for were mainly from financial services and banking sector such as Akbank, Chase Manhattan Bank, Credit Lyonnais, Kuveyt Turk, EGS Bank, Koc Finans, Ak-Investment, Akfon and Akmenkul. These assignments has also influenced my next career move. I had gained a lot of experience in financial services at PwC. After I got promoted to experienced senior position I decided to continue my career in financial services and joined Ottoman Bank.• Involved for 2 months for Koc Holding consolidation assignment n the largest Group of Turkey. • In the team of Turk Telekom privatization assignment as to review of internal control procedures and conduct memorandum on examination engagements on Turk Telekom (Bolu, Mersin and Adana) as a part of Turk Telekom privatization consortium. • Other assignments are Internal Control Matters reporting and USGAAP reporting project at American Hospital, independent approval engagements for CINE 5 journal circulation, Monitor's report assignment for Nike according to Nike Code of Conduct, Consolidation Package and Status of Exam reports of Tefal..