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Corporate Governance

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Board of Directors

Cevdet Alemdar
Chairman

Between 1993-2002, he worked as Product Leader and then Wire Products Director in Beksa, Sabancı Holding-Bekaert Joint Venture. From 1998 onwards, he additionally took over the role of Bekaert’s Sales Manager for Construction Materials in Middle East. From 2002 to 2005, he worked as Commercial Director in Sakosa.

In 2005, he joined Kordsa Global as General Manager of Kordsa Brazil and as Sales and Marketing Director of South America. From 2007 to 2009, based in Bangkok Thailand, he worked as Managing Director for Thai Indo Kordsa and Kordsa Qingdao Nylon Ent., as well as Sales and Marketing Director for Asia Pacific. In 2009 and 2010, he worked in Shanghai as Global Business Development Director, while maintaining his roles in Kordsa Qingdao Nylon Enterprises and Asia Sales and Marketing. From 2010 to 2013 he took role as Kordsa Global’s Vice President in charge of Technology and Market Development.

Between 2013-2017, he was appointed as General Manager of Temsa Construction Equipment.

May 2017 onwards, he has been CEO of Brisa, Bridgestone Sabancı JV Tire Company which is the leading tire and mobility solutions company in Turkey serving to 80 countries.

Alemdar was appointed as Industry Group President effective as of 1st of April, 2020.

Cevdet Alemdar graduated from Industrial Engineering Faculty of Bogazici University in 1992. He also was granted with an MBA degree in Sabancı University.

Mehmet Yıldız
Deputy Chairperson

Professor Dr. Mehmet Yildiz is the Vice President for Research and Development at Sabanci University. Born in Diyarbakir in 1972, and received his primary, secondary and high school education in Eregli/Zonguldak, Turkey, he completed his undergraduate education in 1996 with the first rank in Metallurgical and Materials Engineering Department at Yıldız Technical University and received his MSc. degree also from Metallurgical and Materials Engineering department at Istanbul Technical University in 2000. Between 1996-2000, he worked in two different companies as an R&D engineer and a project manager in the fields of welding and non-destructive testing. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2005 from Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Victoria, BC, Canada in the fields of computational fluid dynamics and semiconductor single crystal growth and then worked as a research associate and lecturer in the same department until 2007.

In 2007, he joined Sabancı University, Faculty of Engineering Natural Sciences as a faculty member in Materials Science and Engineering Program and since 2013, has been leading the effort of establishing Sabanci University-Integrated Manufacturing Technologies Research and Application Center and its industrial leg, Composite Technologies Center of Excellence with Kordsa. Currently, he is serving as the founding director of these centers. He sits in the R&D advisory board of Kastamonu Entegre. He contributed to the establishment of Manufacturing Engineering graduate program at Sabanci University.

Dr. Yildiz's areas of expertise include advanced composite materials, nanocomposites, structural health monitoring and computational mechanics. He published more than 85 SCI indexed high impact factor journals, 8 book chapters, prepared and presented over 135 conference papers and graduated more than 28 MSc. and Ph.D. students.

Tamer Saka
Member

Tamer Saka completed his undergraduate, graduate and doctoral studies at Istanbul University, Faculty of Business Administration. He served as Manager and Senior Manager responsible for Risk Management Consultancy at Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young. In 2004, Mr. Saka joined Sabancı Holding as Risk Management Director. In 2010 and 2011, he worked at Willis London as Managing Director in charge of business development activities in nearly 20 countries including Turkey. In December 2011, Tamer Saka joined Kibar Holding as Strategy and Business Development Coordinator. He served as Automotive and Corporate Functions Group President and Member of the Board of Directors at Kibar Holding as of May 2012. Tamer Saka served as the CEO of Kibar Holding from 2014 until 2018. He was appointed President of the Cement Group at Sabancı Holding in April 2018.

Currently, Mr. Saka serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Akçansa and Çimsa; Member of the Board of Directors at Kordsa and Carrefoursa; Chairman at Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association, Deputy Chairman at American-Turkish Council (ATC), Deputy Chairman at Corporate Governance Association of Turkey (TKYD). He is also a Member of the Board of Directors at Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA), Member of the Board at CEMBUREAU and Member of TÜSİAD and Federation of Istanbul Industrialists and Businessmen Associations.

Burak Turgut Orhun
Member

Mr. Burak Orhun, having graduated from Bogazici Univerysity Economy, has received his masters degree in Finance from George Washington University and MBA from Univerysity of Pennsylvania – Wharton School of Business. Having started his career at Mercedes Benz Türk in İstanbul as Financial Analyst, after completing his graduate degrees in US, he worked at Thomson Corporation/Reuters, CapitalOne Financial and CadenceQuest, Inc, respectively, at various management positions such as Finance Manager, Director of Portfolio Management, Director of Corporate Development and CFO, respectively. Mr. Burak Orhun, being responsible of all M&A and new investments activities of the Group between 2009- 2018, was the General Manager of Oyak Venture Consulting and Oyak Capital Investment companies, while having executive management, executive director of board and chairmanship roles at chemical and energy companies of the Group, both domestic and global. Mr. Orhun is appointed as Sabancı Holding Strategy and Business Development Director as of 03.09.2018.

Semiha Yaşar
Independent Member

Semiha Yaşar received her BSc and MSc degree and Middle East Technical University, Department of Mechanical Engineering. Starting her professional life in 1984 at Aselsan as Mechanical Design Engineer, she served as a consultant at Republic of Turkey, Ministry of State (1987-1990). Joining FNSS (FNSS Defense Systems) at 1990 as a Senior Engineer, Ms. Yaşar served as Engineering and R&D Supervisor (1994-2007), Project Manager (2007-2009), Development Programs Director (2009-2014) and Product Engineering and R&D Director (2014-2015). She held Vice President position at BMC Otomotiv between 2016-2018. Ms. Yaşar founded Sempro Consultancy and Engineering in 2015 and continues to hold her position.

Mehmet Sami
Independent Member

Mehmet Sami, has 30 years of experience after his studies in BA (Hons) Economics from Kingston University and MSc in Business Systems & Analysis from City University, London. Within the 30 years, Mr Sami has gained deal origination and execution experience in corporate finance and capital markets areas via establishing related business divisions, strategic alliances and offices in New York and Dubai.

Between 1987 - 1990 he has undertaken numerous consultancy assignments in marketing and research studies. Since 1990, he has undertaken various Turkish privatization, valuation and advisory projects, advised foreign and domestic clients in mergers & acquisitions and large international joint ventures in Turkey. Part of this work was via Ata Invest, where during 1994, he founded Investment Banking, Research and Institutional Trading divisions that became one of the largest independent firm in Turkey. (Clients served include; GE Capital, News Corp., Arcelor, Privatization Agency, JBIC, IFC, Trade Partners UK, AIG, Dubai Holding, Emirates Bank NBD). Between 1996-2012, Mr Sami has initiated and executed many Private Equity deals as an Advisor and during 2000 has raised Turkey’s first Private Equity Fund with AIG Capital, during the life of the Fund, Mr. Sami was a member of the Fund’s Investment Committee.

After nearly 19 years at Ata Invest, moved to Deloitte Corporate Finance to become the Lead M&A and Debt Advisory Partner in 2012 and served on the Deloitte Global M&A ExCo. After 27 years of professional life, Mr Sami has founded his consulting and advisory practice in 2015 where Mr Sami advises International banks, IFIs, multinationals and local corporates. Besides serving on the Board of Turkish Corporate Governance Association, he has become the Founding Member of Board Members Association and is restructuring - establishing corporate governance standards in numerous firms while serving as an Independent Director.