Transforming Godiva into A Turkish Delight

He decided that a good general manager should have a good understanding of finance/accounting and at the same time have a global work/life experience. And that’s what he decided he was going to do. He joined Deloitte, Istanbul as an auditor in 2000. He then moved to California and started his MBA at San Diego State University in 2002. During this time he rejoined Deloitte in San Diego and then transferred to Deloitte, New York in May 2004. He moved back to Turkey due to family health reasons and re-joined Deloitte, Istanbul as Audit Manager.

During his tenure with Deloitte he led, planned, managed and participated in audit engagements for public and private companies. His clients included Sotheby’s Auction House ($770 million revenue in 2012), Gateway Inc. ($4 billion revenue in 2006), Science Applications International Corporation ($7 billion revenue in 2004), İş Bankası (a private bank with the largest market capitalization on the Istanbul Stock Exchange) and various other national/multinational companies in chemical, pharmaceutical, consumer goods manufacturing, financial services and other service industries.

In May 2006 he joined Yıldız Holding as Consolidation Coordinator to lead the design and implementation of Yıldız Holding and its Subsidiaries’ Group Financial Management and Reporting System. In addition to this role he also coordinated/led and provided due diligence and valuation services to Group companies in more than ten M&A, IPO and Divestiture projects ranging from $10 million to $2 billion in size in retail, manufacturing, consumer packaged goods and packaging industries. One of the last projects he led was the acquisition of Godiva Chocolatier from Campbell Soup Company for $850 million.

He worked very closely with Godiva Management during the pre and post acquisition process. Godiva Management then offered him an opportunity to join the company as Vice President, WW Controller in December 2008. He was responsible for leading financial integration with Yıldız Holding, Strategic Projects, Global Financial Planning, Strategic Analysis, International Business Units CFO office, Reporting, Accounting, Tax, Internal Controls and Business Intelligence functions and at the same time initiated some of these as global functions.

In February 2013, he moved from a global financial leadership role into a business unit operational leadership role as the VP for North America Business Development. He was responsible for developing the vision and strategy of Godiva NA Retail-Direct Corporate Sales, leading Direct Corporate Sales, Internal/External Customer Care (Call Center) and the Licensing Business Team. In January 2015 on top of the above responsibilities he also assumed CFO and strategy roles at Godiva North America.  He currently lives in New York with his wife and two children.