Who We Are

Some of our members are profiled below:

Asli Bilgin, Lead of Web Strategy for the Developer & Platform Evangelism in Middle East & Africa, Microsoft

In this role, Asli drives future vision for software development in the Cloud through hosters, partners, and enterprises through programs such as WebSiteSpark and products such as the Web Platform Installer. She is the founder of WomenBuild and iGive, two programs focused on workforce stimulus, specifically geared at developing professional and pre-professional women who possess an aptitude for science and technology .

Prior to joining Microsoft, Asli was employed as a technical manager and developer at Dell and at Xerox. Asli is a recognized presenter at conferences across the globe and she serves as contributing author to various technical publications. She is the author of several books Mastering Database Programming With Visual Basic.NET (Sybex), as well as technical learning series, such as ASP.NET AJAX (Total Training).

Nilüfer Durak, Managing Director, Aon Mergers & Acquisitions Group

Nil is a Managing Director in Aon's Mergers & Acquisitions Group (AMAG) in North America and runs the AMAG team in Boston. Her primary responsibility is to manage a team of project managers who conduct risk and insurance due diligence on the acquisition of a target company by a strategic or financial buyer. Her team is also in charge of post-acquisition (100-day) plans to implement risk management program and operating cost improvements identified during due diligence.

Nil has over 14 years of experience in identifying and treating operational risk exposures and managing complex risk and insurance programs as a former risk manager at GE and a Property & Casualty insurance broker at Sedgwick/Marsh New York.

She joined Aon in 2004 and is a 2008 alum of the Aon Catalyst Leadership Program that annually targets 35 high potential leaders in North America across all Aon business units.

Nil completed the Master of Science in Risk Management and Insurance program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned a MA degree in Banking and Insurance from Marmara University in Istanbul. She holds a BA in Business Administration from Bosphorus University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Melek Pulatkonak, President & COO, hakia.com

Melek Pulatkonak is the President & COO of Hakia, a semantic search technology company. Since 2004, Melek has been dedicated to semantic search and can’t wait to see how its successful implementation will change our lives. Most recently, she was the Associate Partner of Star Venture Group (SVG), a VC firm with investments in the U.S. and Turkey. Prior to her work at SVG, she was the Advisor to the Chairman of the Istanbul Stock Exchange.

Prior to that, she was a Research Associate at the New York Stock Exchange where some of her academic work was published. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a B.Sc. degree from London School of Economics and Political Science. In her play time, Melek co-organizes TEDxGotham, leads the International Committee at the Columbia Business School Alumni Club, advises Girls in Tech NY and Entrepreneurs' Roundtable and plans pitching events for the Turkish Founders' Club.

Melek is the Curator of the Turkish Women’ International Network.

R. Müge Yüzüak, Global Business Executive & Freelance Consultant 

Müge has extensive corporate experience, which spans over 3 continents and more than 25 countries across the globe with Citigroup and Pepsi Cola International.  Müge held many senior roles at Citi. Her last 5 years were completely devoted to generating game changing strategies across the globe working with 42 different countries and in three different businesses in leadership roles.  She is a true believer of the power of partnering and creating opportunities by expanding on each others’ learning and experiences.

Müge has won leadership awards and appreciation of her colleagues for her business acumen and willingness to partner. This approach has enabled her to lead revenue generating strategies to achieve outcomes that completely changed the way businesses behaved.  Specifically, in her last role as part of Growth Ventures Leadership group she led the transit vertical to expand and commercialize emerging Citi Transit ventures internationally and in North America.  She developed comprehensive propositions for municipal transit authorities and customers and prospects who ride public transportation each day, which have generated win-win revenue in implemented markets.

Müge joined Citi in Turkey in 1995 at the start-up of the consumer business before moving  to the EMEA regional office in Brussels, Belgium as the regional marketing manager for the credit cards business in 1998, , where she was a team leader to create a platform for successful growth  and launches across 14 countries, 3 of which she led.  In 2000, Müge transferred to US Cards business where she held various positions including new product management and restructuring of the online acquisitions with a vision for a growth rate of 5MM cards per annum. 

As a result of her successes across all start-up, game changing roles she was offered to lead the International Cards Growth Strategy in August 2005.  In 2007, Müge became the Chief of Staff of International Global Consumer Group where she worked closely with the senior team to guide critical projects, leverage knowledge across businesses and facilitated the effectiveness of the delivery of the strategic priorities. Before joining Citigroup, Müge has held various positions at Pepsi Cola International starting in 1991 both in Turkey and Eastern Europe where she was a brand manager.

Müge has a BA from University of Istanbul, Faculty of Economics. She has been an active alumni and a volunteer for AFS, international-intercultural programs since 1987 where her passion for better understanding of cultures around the world is nurtured.  Müge was selected as a Trustee in January 2008 to serve on the Board of AFS International where she leads the Audit and Risk Committee.