iLab is an internet platform comprising leading marketplaces that offer innovative solutions in key verticals

Mustafa E. Say / Founder & Managing Partner

Mr. Say is the founder of AccessTurkey Capital Group and iLab. He institutionalized his private investment activities in 1999 with AccessTurkey Fund LLC, a hedge fund with an outstanding track record. In early 2000 he diversified AccessTurkey Capital Group operations into venture capital by founding iLab. Under iLab, he has invested in and founded several visionary online businesses with extraordinary growth track records. His vision and entrepreneurial drive have been instrumental for the growth of iLab portfolio companies.

From 1989 to 1999, Mr. Say was at Vinmar International (Houston, USA), a large international petrochemical and plastics trading company. At Vinmar, Mr. Say established and managed the petrochemicals trading division. His responsibilities included trading as well as formation and execution of global strategy and organizational development. During his tenure, Mr. Say built a business with annual revenue more than $300 million and established offices in Turkey, Singapore, Taipei, and China. Prior to Vinmar, from 1983 to 1989, Mr. Say held a variety of positions in GE Trading (New York, USA), a subsidiary of General Electric Co (USA). Mr. Say has been an active private investor in the Turkish and global markets since 1991. Mr. Say has an MBA from Columbia University in New York and BSME in Engineering from Technical University in Istanbul. Mr. Say is a board member of Endeavor Turkey and member of Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association (TUSIAD).

Yüksel Dibekoğlu / Director, CFA

Yüksel Dibekoğlu has 17 years of investment banking experience. Mr. Dibekoğlu joined AccessTurkey Capital Group and iLab in 2003. At AccessTurkey and iLab Ventures he led the LBO of Olgun Çelik - an automotive components manufacturer, buy-out of Kariyer.net, investment in Gittigidiyor.com, buy-out of Hangikredi.com, investment of Neredekal.com, Unnado.com, Dijimecmua.com and Emlakjet.com and exit of Gittigidiyor.com to eBay Inc. Prior to AccessTurkey, Mr. Dibekoğlu served for 5 years at Alternatif Yatırım as an investment banker. He performed a broad range of investment banking activities, including financial advisory services, private placements, merger & acquisition advisory & transactional work, and capital markets projects. At Alternatif Yatırım he undertook key roles in projects such as the initial public offering of Yazıcılar Holding, a dual listing on Luxembourg and Istanbul Stock Exchanges. Mr. Dibekoğlu holds a BS degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from Dokuz Eylül University, and an MBA degree from Koç University in Istanbul. Mr. Dibekoğlu is a CFA charter holder.

Ertekin Peker / Director

Ertekin Peker has been duty for a period of 18 years in various combat squadrons of Turkish Air Forces in his quality of Combat Pilot. After having been graduated from Air Force War Academy in1995 as a Staff Officer, he had been appointed to headquarters services where he took duties within the frame of planning studies of NATO exercises. After having been graduated NATO Defence College in Roma, Italy in 1998, he was appointed to his duty of Squadron Operation Officer and Squadron Commandership. During the continuation of his last duty, he joined Allied Force Operation (Kosovo) from Ghedi Air Base in Italy. He got retired in year 2000 from Turkish Air Forces upon his request and joined iLab. Mr. Peker has taken responsibilities in business development, human resources and administrative affairs. Mr. Ertekin Peker has received education in Air Force College (Aeronautical Engineering), Air Force War Academy (Staff Officer) and Roma NATO Defence College (NATO Senior Headquarters Officer).

Altuğ İnan / CFO

Altuğ İnan joined iLab and AccessTurkey Capital Group in 2008. Prior to Access Turkey, Mr. İnan has worked for 3 years as the Managing Director of Kodak Turkey, where he had led the major restructuring projects of the multi business unit Turkish operations, which included a business unit spin-off and sale to a private equity firm. Mr. İnan joined Kodak Turkey as CFO in 2004. Before Kodak, Mr. İnan has worked for Deloitte & Touche Assurance and Business Advisory department for 10 years in Istanbul and Southampton (UK) offices, where he was a director for the last 2 years in Istanbul office. In addition to his audit experience, Mr. İnan had significant exposure in due diligence, company valuation and privatization projects during his Deloitte period. Mr. İnan holds a BS degree in Business Administration (English) from Marmara University and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Sadi Korman / Director, CPA

Starting his professional career at Gelişim Yayınları A.Ş. in 1980, Sadi Korman had officiated in the Finance and Accounting Departments for his term of office being 7 years. Between the years of 1990 - 1993, he lived in London and worked there as the Branch Manager of the Crystal Palace Branch of Perfect Pizza Limited, responsible for the financial and administrational affairs, operating in the business of fast-food service.

After returning to Turkey, between the years of 1993-2000, he had officiated as the Accounting and Financial Manager at MTM A.Ş. As of 2000, he has been officiating as the Group Financial Adviser at iLab.

As of 1997, he had achieved the title of Certified Public Accountant (CPA) as being a member of TÜRMOB (Union of Chambers of Public Accountants of Turkey) Sadi Korman has graduated from Anadolu University, Department of Business Administration (BA) and completed his Master of Business Administration (MBA) in İstanbul University, School of Business Administration, the Institute of Managerial Economics.

Şimal Konanç / Director

Simal Konanc, has nineteen years of audit experience, seven years, at Tekstilbank, as auditor and audit supervisor. Since 2005 she works for Access Turkey and iLab as Director of Internal Audit. At Tekstilbank, Ms. Konanç participated the Core Banking Conversion Project as a member of the Board Of Auditors.

She was the coordinator of the New Turkish Lira Conversion Project. She has a BS degree in Public Administration from Ankara University, Faculty of Political Sciences. She holds the CIA and CRMA certificates.

Özgür Tanrıverdi / Director

Prior to joining to AccessTurkey in 2005, Mr. Tanrıverdi was Vice President in EFG Securities, one of the leading boutique investment houses in Turkey. Mr. Tanrıverdi has total seven years of investment banking experience. He has expertise in telecom, technology, internet, media, utilities and steel sectors. Mr. Tanrıverdi published numerous detailed research reports on these sectors and built valuation and financial models including leveraged buyout (LBO), accretion/dilution, comparable company and strategic analysis. He advised for various M&A deals in Turkey and designed and prepared key transaction materials together with prospectuses, detailed offering memorandum and management presentations. Mr. Tanrıverdi was also involved in many Initial Public Offering (IPO), asset sales, joint ventures and private equity deals in diverse fields. Contributing to the marketing and sales activities, he coordinated and led company evaluation meetings for other fund managers, institutional investors and high net worth clients.

Mr. Tanrıverdi has an MBA from the Terry College of Business School in the University of Georgia (Atlanta, USA) and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Boğaziçi University (Istanbul, Turkey). Mr. Tanrıverdi holds Turkish Capital Markets Board (CMB) Advanced Level and Derivatives Licenses.

Barış Açarı / Operations Director

Barış started his 24 years of professional career in customer experience and customer service management roles, and by adding operations and human resources management to his competencies, he led the companies in effectively managing operations and processes, increasing efficiency and quality, and maximizing operational performance.

He started his career at HSBC Bank Direct Banking team, where he worked as manager in telephone banking and alternative channel management units for 9-years. Between 2009 and 2013, Barış was responsible for the implementation and management of customer services, complaint management and field service models at Turkey's leading telecommunications operator, Türk Telekom. Between 2013 and 2015, he worked as the director responsible for sales and service channels at Webhelp.

From 2015 to 2024, Barış held the position of Senior Deputy General Manager responsible for customer experience, customer service, operations, and human resources at Sigortam.net, one of the group companies of iLab. As of May 2024, he has joined iLab management team as the Operations Director.

Barış is a graduate of the Economics department at Marmara University.

Arda Ayvaz / Director, Strategy

Arda started his career at Bain & Company in Boston, with a focus on large-scale transformation projects for Fortune 500 clients, and Private Equity due diligence and value creation projects.  After his consulting career, he served as VP of Strategy, Corporate Development and Partnerships at Zego between 2018 and 2021.  During his tenure at Zego, he led the growth strategy, acquired and integrated 3 companies, which culminated in Zego’s successful sale to Global Payments for 925 million dollars.

From 2021 to 2024, Arda served as the CEO at arabam.com, an iLab portfolio company, where he lead the successful scale-up of arabam.com operations across multiple business lines, and cemented the leadership position of the company in its vertical. As of 2024, he joined iLab as the Director of Strategy to lead group strategy and value creation across iLab portfolio, new iLab investments and operating model.

Arda graduated from Harvard University with an Honors degree in Mathematics and Economics, and earned his MBA degree from Stanford University.

Ömür Bali / Director, Product & Data

Ömür has been at iLab since 2018 leading product management, data science, web analytics and design teams supporting all iLab brands. After graduating from Sabancı University, Ömür has worked at Doğuş Media Group and Hürriyet (one of the most important daily publications of Turkey) and technology company Commencis. Experienced in media, listing, ecommerce, airline and fintech industries, Ömür has executed several projects in product management, UX and product design. With strong leadership attitude, Ömür works with his team for developing product strategies, driving data & analytics transformation and building data-driven culture across all group companies. He also leads a high performing data science team leveraging Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) technologies to deliver value added projects. Ömür holds master’s degree in data science from Sabancı University and MBA from Bocconi University.

Ferit Büyükkeçeci / Director, Technology

Ferit Büyükkeçeci, with over 10 years of experience, including six years leading IT organization scaling and transformation initiatives in Agile, technology, and advanced analytics across diverse enterprises.

He began his career at ANALOG DEVICES as Team Lead - Artificial Intelligence and later served as Project Manager / Analytics Expert at McKinsey & Company from 2018 to 2021. Büyükkeçeci, who also took part in Artificial Intelligence Transformation programs in Turkey, Azerbaijan and GCC countries, led the development of analytical applications in the fields of M&S, Risk and Operations.

Since May 2021, Ferit Büyükkeçeci has been serving as Chief Technology & Data Officer at Sigortam.net, where he leads the company's technology transformation initiatives. His responsibilities also cover labor, hardware procurement, licenses, and services. In addition to his role at Sigortam.net, Ferit also serves in the iLab management team as Technology Director.

Büyükkeçeci graduated with High Honors from Boğaziçi University in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and later completed a Master's degree in Computer Science at the Technical University of Munich as a TEV-DAAD scholar.

Sibel Ercan / Director, People & Culture

Prior to joining iLab, Sibel worked as an Assistant General Manager in Human Resources at GKG Financial Group. Before that, she held the position of HR Director at Sigortam.net for 5 years. Preceding her tenure at Sigortam.net, she gained valuable experience in the technology sector as an Assistant General Manager at Pronet Security and Alarm Systems, where she was responsible for human resources, personnel, training, and administration functions.

Sibel possesses 30 years of professional experience across diverse sectors, including insurance, industry, logistics, security, and consultancy. Her expertise spans various aspects of Human Resources, including Mergers & Acquisitions, Change Management, and Organizational Development. Additionally, she has extensive experience in HRIS and internal communications.

Sibel holds a BA degree in Business Administration. She pursued her studies at the American College in London and Bosphorus University and continued her master's studies in Business Administration and Human Behavior at Newport University.

Aslı İnoğlu / Director, Corporate Communications

Aslı has 20 years of extensive experience on corporate communications. She started her professional career at IMAGE Public Relations, followed by six years at Starbucks Turkey and Shaya, where she was responsible of implementing communication and marketing plans, social responsibility projects, customer relations, crisis management, sponsorships and digital marketing. Prior to iLab, Aslı has worked at d.ream (Doğuş Restaurants Entertainment and Management) for more than seven years being responsible for developing corporate communication strategies and marketing implementations for d.ream and its brands as well. Aslı has deep know-how in reputation and crisis management along with executing CSR projects. Aslı has joined iLab team in 2021 and leading internal and external communications strategies including media, community relations, event management and corporate digital assets.

Burak Taştan / Director, Government Affairs

Burak joined iLab in 2022. He is responsible for managing and coordinating all group companies’ activities with government institutions. He has more than 12 years of experience in the fields of regulatory affairs, public policy and government relations. He has worked in the telecommunication industry for many years.

Burak has a BA degree in Political Science and International Relations from Boğaziçi University. He rose to the position of Regulatory Strategy and Planning Manager at Türk Telekom Group, where he worked between 2011-17. He then completed his Vodafone journey in 2017-21 as Public Policy Manager. Most recently, he served as Head of Government Affairs in Xiaomi Turkey.

Sonat Yüce / Group Head, Digital Marketing

Before joining iLab in 2020, Sonat started his career at SEM Internet Services gaining experience mainly in search engine and display network marketing ads strategies and campaign development, performance advertising, Facebook and YouTube ads strategies and campaign building. Having deep knowledge on consumer and historical performance data strategies, Sonat adds value for creating the best digital marketing plans for iLab brands. Sonat and his team works closely with brand, data and product teams to increase client satisfaction through cohesive strategies, determine realistic benchmarks and execute campaigns to gain competitive edge.

Rıdvan Özgür / Group Manager, Digital Advertising Sales

Rıdvan has joined iLab in 2016 and now leading advertising sales team with his years of experience in online media. Rıdvan combines his know how with analytics abilities to support growth and maintain a pipeline for new sales opportunities. Having proven experience in generating digital media revenues and meeting targeted goals, Rıdvan leads his team to create and present advertising strategies and ideas for iLab brands. Before iLab he has worked at various companies and digital agencies, building his competencies around marketing and advertising.