Full story with ups & downs on a timeline

Was born in Adana, a city to the south of Turkey. This marks the beginning of a long journey in the coming years moving from city to city including Agri on the east, Kocaeli-Izmit on the northwest, and Diyarbakir on the southeast due to his father’s appointments who is a government officer & a military judge.

Spending time also with his extended family members living in Kastamonu & Zonguldak-Eregli from Black Sea region in the north as well as Burdur-Golhisar & Antalya from Mediterranean / Aegean region in the southwest, he was never able to name a single place when asked about his origin. Instead, he simply preferred to say, “I am from Turkiye”.

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He never complained, though, as this journey gave him the chance to see different parts of the country & cultures therein, meet many people & have friendships from all over Turkiye.

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Later as he moved further in this life & career, the boundaries of the journey also expanded via international engagements, working with people from each continent, and travels across the globe. Combined with his global mindset, this made him turn to say, “I am from the World”.

Was among the top students in class during the entire elementary / primary school period & scored at the highest percentiles in nationwide secondary school examination for both Anatolian & Private High Schools, making him eligible to enroll in some notable ones in Istanbul.

Yet, not feeling ready to be set apart from his family & go to a boarding school at that time, preferred to continue at Anatolian High Schools in Kocaeli-Izmit & Diyarbakir, and continued to live with his family.

Elementary school period also marks his first experience to appear on stage as part of a theatre play. This is when he well-understood that he should not be an actor, yet should be "on stage" for the rest of his life.

Prepared for nationwide high school examinations on his own in Diyarbakir without any additional course support, managed to be qualified in top 100 candidates, and enrolled in his dream school: historically the #1 lycée of the country by all relevant success measures – Izmir High School of Science (Izmir Fen Lisesi), located in Izmir as the name suggests, a city to the west of the country.

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Izmir Fen has simply been the lycée in which the best students enter, receive a collection of medals in national & international science Olympiads & research project competitions during their studies there, and then typically get graduated with the highest scores & enroll at top universities. Being one of the surviving 40 students of the graduating class of 2002 who started as 96 students in 1999, he also tried hard to achieve a similar track record & got graduated with full GPA.

At Izmir Fen, he was initially selected for the team to compete in national science Olympiads in Physics organized by The Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), but then could not make it to the short list.

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After that little joy in Physics, he decided to move onto Math - the mother of Science - and prepared a scientific study / research project on pseudoprimes individually to be submitted to national project competition again organized by TUBITAK. The study was originally a number theory work proposing three new theorems, four corollaries & applications of those.

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What makes it interesting, though, was the method employed in the proofs of the proposals which was based on Group Theory axioms of Abstract Algebra. In other words, not only the results but also the method employed in proofs was innovative. Moreover, the study depicting further characterizations of pseudoprimes might lead to important applications especially in (public-key) cryptography.

Yet, following his submission of the work, TUBITAK's conclusion was: “this is so advanced that it cannot be him who actually completed the study”. This was not going to be TUBITAK’s only encounter with him as they were going to meet again some years later.

Even today, this study & the process in preparing it forms a cornerstone for his mathematical judgment. In the following years during BS & PhD studies, he always wished to publish this work as a side study but never managed to have enough time. Still, for those interested, it can be found in Izmir Fen’s scientific projects database with archive code 91.

Apart from science, setting up a folk music band & giving a concert, a silver medal gain in a sports tournament, and a crash course completion in photography were the extracurricular activities that he was involved in during his high school years.

While preparing for the university exams, he was aiming for the one with the highest nationwide enrollment score – honors (full) scholarship program of the newly established Sabanci University. Indeed, long before the exam, that young, innovative, promising yet a little bit risky world university already became his only ambition.

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Once the exam was over, he managed to score at the highest percentile & had the chance to enroll at Sabanci University with honors (full) scholarship provided directly by Sabanci University – Sabanci Foundation.

Although Sabanci was the only institution in the country allowing students to declare their major at the end of Sophomore year, he knew what to study from the very beginning ever since high school years: Industrial Engineering – Operations Research / Management Science (IE-OR/MS) – the science of the better.

During his undergraduate studies, he managed to publish a few academic studies in the field of IE-OR/MS, and conduct industry-applied / practice-oriented research projects where he acted as a consulting partner from academia together with his supervisory professor.

He also had the chance to instruct math & natural sciences courses at Academic Support Program of Academic Development Unit, and worked as part of TUSIAD – Sabanci University Competitiveness Forum & European Office of the Research Policy Directorate.

His years at Sabanci mark a period of self-discovery not only on the academic front but also in terms of his interests. During those years, he received Extracurricular Activities award five times for his musical performances & compositions, started tango dancing, received a virtual private pilot license (ppl), and learned horseback riding.

In 2007, he received his BS degree in Manufacturing Systems / Industrial Engineering from Faculty of Engineering & Natural Sciences (FENS) with exceptionally satisfactory, high honor & honor standings.

For all the activities he was involved in on the academic & extracurricular fronts, university named him as one of the Extraordinary Story holders. Still remembers those beautiful days with all the learning & joy behind…

Towards the end of BS studies, he was sure to pursue a PhD not to primarily serve at university but indeed to deep dive in his field (IE-OR/MS) & strengthen his know-how. Having applied & either accepted or stood in waiting lists for direct PhD programs with full scholarship of MIT & a few other institutions, once again made an emotional decision to stay in Turkiye close to his family & friends, like he did years ago.

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Then, selected Koc University – the other world university of the country together with Sabanci – and joined the dual PhD program in Industrial Engineering & Operations Management (IEOM) offered jointly by Graduate School of Sciences & Engineering (GSSE) & Graduate School of Business (GSB).

He was the first one in the history of these graduate schools & the second in the history of entire Koc University to be accepted to a PhD program without a Master’s. He received a full tuition waiver directly from Koc University – Vehbi Koc Foundation, and funded by TUBITAK throughout his graduate studies, years after TUBITAK concluded “this is so advanced that it cannot be him who completed this…”

His whole graduate study was a challenge. He independently proposed a PhD thesis topic, which then turned out to be a pioneer in its field. His thesis basically objected to classical operations management & instead proposed a sustainable management alternative.

Apart from the thesis work, he was the first & only one being in a non-Math PhD program who was requested to pass Real Analysis I & II courses. Having received mostly "A" grades & just a few “B”s in his education up until then, failed in the first attempt, received a letter grade “F” & faced the risk to be expelled from the program. Eventually, he passed both courses, but the faculty – realizing that they would not be graduating anyone from the program unless they remove these courses from the curriculum – decided to waive this requirement for IEOM PhD fellows, ongoing & future!

Anyways, it was not just those two courses that put his studies at risk. When he was told he failed by only two points at the 10-day-long PhD qualifier sprint, or when his radical thesis proposal was declined in the first attempt & challenged in successive progress reports, his entire PhD study was always at risk, as any second failure / rejection at any phase leads to being expelled from the program without nothing on hand.   

Finally, the day came, and he finished his graduate studies with high honor standing & received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2011, four years after Bachelor’s, at the age of 26. Even before finishing his PhD, he got a few offers of professorship from several universities in Turkiye & abroad. His academic ancestors go back to scholars from Imperial College London, University of London as well as Carnegie Mellon – the school of legendary Herbert Simon.

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He has international scientific publications. His paper on the revisit of the classical EOQ (inventory) model stood as the most & second most downloaded article of the respective journal for five years in a row following its publication in 2013. After the publication of EOQ paper, the rest of the chapters of his PhD thesis have also been published consecutively.

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He also delivered several seminars & talks at academic conferences including YAEM, IIE, EURO & INFORMS, serves as a reviewer for respected academic journals like International Journal of Operations & Production Management (IJOPM), and is a member of the Operational Research Society, Turkey (ORST).

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Apart from research, he also taught courses at the undergraduate & graduate levels of Industrial Engineering, Computer Science, Operations Research, Management & MBA programs. He also designed three novel courses, one being at the undergraduate level for Industrial Engineering / Management programs (Industry Insights), and two others at the graduate level for MBA / Exec. MBA programs (Sustainable Management; Innovation, Change & Business Transformation).

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Starting with his parents & his elementary school teacher, he is thankful to all his teachers & professors who taught him anything in life.

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While all the above was happening, he also managed to organize & play in a concert with his band at Koc campus.

During his PhD, he did one more thing & took a step towards maybe the most important partnership in life: got married to his dear love Ozge, with whom he was going to build core – their environmental & social responsibilities foundation.

As a coincidence, sent back to where he was born - Adana - Mersin region - to fulfill his national obligation & served in military right after finishing his PhD studies.

Having finished military service surprisingly with some awards, he was back in town, but this time not to academia but to business. He always wanted, and indeed feels like he was born to be a management consultant, yet never ever invited even for a single interview by any of the major management consultancies. He never gave up of course, but instead took corporate roles where he could work as an internal management consultant.

Process development, R&D, innovation, technology, strategy, transformation, change, next, agility, capability, lean, excellence, optimization, modeling, and analytics being the keywords that define his work, always tried to lead the to-be / future agenda of businesses on a global scale. Some of the projects he led during his corporate affiliations include setting up award-winning R&D, innovation & PMO functions, organizational restructuring of supply chain & operations units, planning tool / system deployments across Europe, and radical process development / improvement studies based on optimization, operations research / management science & advanced analytics.

Since his initial engagements with the industry during Bachelor’s years, he had the chance to provide senior executives & board members from multinational organizations in diverse industries with trainings, seminars & consulting. Some of those organizations include Alfa Romeo, Arcelik Global, Aygaz, Beko, Coca-Cola, Danone, Ekol Logistics, Ford Otosan, Frito-Lay, Hyundai Assan, IBM, JLL, Koc Holding, Mercedes-Benz, Numil, Opet, Otokar, PepsiCo, Renault, Temsa, Tofas Fiat, Turk Traktor, and Yapi Kredi as well as several start-ups.

His top-cited paper "EOQ Revisited with Sustainability Considerations" published & stayed as the most / second most downloaded paper of the respective journal for five consecutive years following publication...

Not only his passion for management consultancy & inability to get an offer from major consulting firms, but also his desire to set sustainable management as the standard of managing businesses led him to found his own consultancy which was based on IE-OR/MS.

The managerial framework & the service array he proposed towards sustainable growth, productivity, profitability & competitiveness of manufacturing & service businesses were truly scientific & innovative. However, having mostly heard comments like “what you are proposing is amazing, major management consultancies should definitely have you” or “why would not you work with us internally” from prospects & faced some other constraints, he realized that it was not going to work.

In a sense, it was a quick failure, but as with many other failures, brought also numerous learnings. He decided to step back from the market, but the passion was still there. He was going to stand by for a while to give it a second thought, work for development opportunities, and revamp his brand & reintroduce in the most appropriate time possible while sticking to the core values he introduced at the very first day.

By the way, he still believes that major management consultancies are very nice companies which had been a source of inspiration for him. On the other hand, he also feels little sorry for them as they are at the edge of facing a disruptive alternative.

Nisan, his dear daughter was born, and he thinks the first moment to see her is one of the very few things he will never ever forget in his life...

A friendly advice: fasten your seat belts...

Things change, fundamentals remain the same.

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A one-pager summarizing the fields Turkiye needs to focus on for sustainable development...

Music Composed & Arranged by Mehmet Can Arslan, or simply Mehmet Can Arslan Music...

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