Special Issues - turkofamerica.com

Neslihan Keeps the Christmas Spirit Alive Year-Round

#4 Neslihan K. Hidirligil, 37 ? Founder & CEO, N&F Global Corp.

Perhaps few Americans know that Santa Claus was from Demre, a town and its surrounding district in the Antalya Province on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey. But it’s a well-know story that in major American cities, such as New York, Washington, DC, and Boston, the largest all year long Christmas gift stores are owned by a Turkish entrepreneur. How crazy is that business idea, of selling Christmas gifts all year long at huge retail locations? It’s a seasonal occasion and nobody had ever dreamt about it except one young entrepreneur, Neslihan Kocabaş Hıdırlıgil.

September 2, 2016
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Egemen's Products Are Used by Millions Around the World

#6- Egemen Tas ? Senior VP of Comodo Internet Security

He has developed one of the first antivirus and firewall programs in Turkey, a country which has only recently become familiar with computer technologies. He wanted to give the technologies that he developed a national identity, and so he named the antivirus “Savungan”, and the firewall “Korugan”. He tried to market them, going around to several companies. Some made fun of the names and showed no interest, while some others asked, “Why would I get a Turkish internet security program when there are American ones?” An American company discovered his antivirus and firewall programs, which he had developed in 2003 and tried to earn money with by selling them on his own website.

September 2, 2016
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The Engineer Who Developed Google Now

#5 Baris Gultekin, 38 - Product Management Director, Android

Barış Gültekin, the engineer who developed Google Now, a sort of "personal assistant" for users, imagines a future in which mobile phones "will work" for us and will give us useful information without having to ask for it. Considered to be a rival to Siri, an application by Apple for the iOS operating system which responds to the questions of users and gives recommendations, Google Now is focused on helping in the management of daily tasks, as well as offering travel information and tips on leisure activities such as sports and movies.

September 2, 2016
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Managing BigCompute Initiatives In Facebook

Serdar Bulut has over 15 years of experience in executive and mid-level management, software architecture, system and network design, and team leadership. Serdar took several products from their idea stage on a whiteboard to a living and breathing state, and then built a team and maintained/supported these products. In addition, he has prepared and made presentations to investors. He is an avid follower of the Lean Startup movement.

September 2, 2016
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The Genius of 3D Visual Effects

Coşku Turhan is a filmmaker/visual effects supervisor with over twelve years of experience in the Hollywood film industry. Born in Ankara, Turkey, his talent for visual arts could be traced back to the drawings and animations he did of Disney characters when he was eight years old. Building on his skills, he graduated from an International Baccalaureate program having concentrated on classical painting and music. After his painting mentor Marek Brozozovski convinced him that he would get a rigorous education there, he decided to study graphic design at Bilkent University.

September 2, 2016
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Esra Develops and Leads Global Marketing Initiatives in Silicon Valley

#39 Esra Guler, 37 - Google

Esra Güler is a true technology evangelist with a 16-year marketing and business development career that has taken her from her hometown, Istanbul, to first London and then Silicon Valley. She is a senior marketing executive at Google, where she’s launched and managed a series of business and consumer marketing projects; most notably Google Partners, the company’s global channel program for ad agencies. She is currently the Head of Engagement Marketing for Google Express, one of Google’s latest enterprises in the consumer space.

September 2, 2016
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Coca-Cola's Global Marketing In Her Hands

#10- Hande Aksoy, 35 - Global Marketing Director - The Coca-Cola Company

Hande Aksoy is Global Marketing Director at The Coca-Cola Company HQ in Atlanta,USA. In this role she is responsible for defining and driving the global strategy behind multi-hundred-million dollar investments in key marketing assets. Prior to this, Hande was part of the core team that built The Coca-Cola Company’s largest global marketing program, "2014 FIFA World Cup,” activated in 175+ countries. Graduated from Boğaziçi University with a BA degree in Management, Hande has followed her curiosity in consumer marketing, her passion in discovering new cultures and countries and she has built a progressive global marketing career at Carlsberg Breweries, Unilever and The Coca-Cola Company.

September 2, 2016
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Lord of Visual Effects

#23 Olcun Tan, 39 - Visual Effects Supervisor

Olçun Tan is an award winning visual effects supervisor, software developer and co-founder of Gradient Effects and Secret Lab, where he continues to push the technological and artistic boundaries. His work is mentioned and recognized in many industry magazines and organizations, including Siggraph, HPA, Visual Effects Society, FMX, Intel, NVidia and Trimble and many others.

September 2, 2016
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The Transformer of the Diamond District

#12 MEHMET G

September 2, 2016
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The Entrepreneur that Carried Milas over the Skies to Starbucks

#13 ? Cetin Amato, 33 ? Milas Food

Çetin Amato, the 33-year-old young entrepreneur from İzmir, who got an MBA at CUNY Baruch College after graduating from the Business Department of Galatasaray University, started out in America, to where he states he came for adventure, with 13,000 dollars.

September 2, 2016
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A Refreshing Voices In Film Music

#14 Pinar Toprak, 36 - Composer of Film Scores

Pınar Toprak is one of the most refreshing voices in film music today, and brings her unique cultural background and experience to bear in the more than 30 feature films, video games, documentaries, and other media projects she has scored. She gave the thriller The River Murders (starring Ray Liotta and Christian Slater) an anguished, haunting accompaniment, scored the tenderness and optimism in the period drama The Lightkeepers (starring Bruce Dern and Blythe Danner), and articulated the hard-won triumph of Michael Clarke Duncan’s final screen appearance in the boxing drama The Challenger.

September 2, 2016
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First Turkish-American Deputy Mayor

Derya Taşkın, a Turkish businesswoman living in New Jersey, was appointed to the post of deputy mayor in Paterson, a city where a large Muslim population lives. Paterson Mayor Jose Torres announced the appointment of Taşkın to the largely ceremonial post, saying he was confident it would provide a better link between City Hall and ethnic and religious communities in the city of 146,700 people, where at least 30,000 Muslims live. Taşkın is from a Turkish community consisting mainly of migrants from Turkey's Black Sea region and served as president of the Paterson Turkish American Society association. She was appointed as the Commissioner of the Library and Museum Board for Paterson by the mayor in 2010.

September 2, 2016
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Ceylan Ecer, The Goldman Girl In The Art World

#16- Ceylan Ecer, Art Dealer

Wall Street would seem like an unlikely career choice for a young woman whose parents are sculptors and who put off buying a car so she could acquire her first piece of art. But after college, Ceylan Ecer started at Goldman Sachs, looking for a different lifestyle than that of her family of artists and architects. Yet she could run only so far: as an associate at Goldman Sachs, she found herself advising the bank's partners on their personal art collections. She quickly built up a following and finally left Wall Street to work full-time as an art advisor. "I went from being 'the art girl in finance' to being 'the Goldman girl in the art world,'" she says.

September 2, 2016
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Turkish Coffee Lady

#17 Gizem Salcigil White, 36 - Turkish Coffee Truck Project

Led by Gizem Salcigil White, this all-volunteer, non-profit project has decorated a food truck with images of Turkey and is traveling to Washington D.C.; Baltimore, Maryland; New York City; New Haven, Connecticut; and Boston, Massachusetts to share free Turkish coffee with Americans in order to facilitate ``coffee conversations'' between Turkish and American people.

September 2, 2016
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