Sound decisions,sustainable success.
Ali Sabancı
Çağatay Özdoğru
Mehmet Özkaya, PhD
Mustafa Tercan
Bora Subaşı
Chairperson
Ali Sabancı is a Board Member at Pegasus Airlines and Vice Chairperson of MAC which are part of the Esas Private Equity portfolio. He also serves on the Board of Esas Properties.
He is also one of the co-founders of Esas Social, which was established to facilitate sustainable social investment. He focuses on increasing awareness of entrepreneurship in Turkey. As the president of the Young Entrepreneurs Board in the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) and a founding board member of GEN Turkiye (Global Entrepreneurship Network), he has led successful initiatives including Angel Investing Legislation, Global Entrepreneurship Congress, G3 Forum, Global Entrepreneurship Week and TIM Innovation Week – Born Global. He is also an angel investor in over 25 start-up companies.
Ali Sabancı, who is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Entrepreneurship Foundation and a member of the Turkish Family Business Association (TAİDER), was awarded the Légion d’Honneur by the French government in 2018 for his contributions to economic relations between Turkiye and France.
Ali Sabancı earned his M.B.A. degree with a major in International Finance from Columbia Business School and B.A. degree in Politics and Economics from Tufts University.
Board Member
Çağatay Özdoğru is the Group CEO of Esas Holding, responsible for all business lines including real estate, private equity, venture capital, social investment, and portfolio & wealth management, and serves on the investment committees of these divisions.
Prior to joining Esas in 2005, he served as Head of Information and Telecommunication Investments at Sabancı Holding. Before his role at Sabancı Holding, he held various positions within the France Telecom Group, lastly serving as Vice President responsible for the MEA (Middle East and Africa) region at Orange Business Services. He was also a member of the company’s Global Operations Committee.
In 2020, he was elected Chairman of the Turkey-France Business Council at DEİK (Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey). As of April 2022, he serves as a Board Member of TÜSİAD (Turkish Industry and Business Association). He has previously served as Chairman of the Turkey–Sweden and Turkey–Croatia Business Councils, and as a Board Member of TBV (Turkish Informatics Foundation) and TÜBİSAD (Turkish Informatics Industry Association). Between 2018 and 2019, he served as the President of Sigortamnet ITU Basketball, a team in the Turkish Basketball League.
Özdoğru holds a master’s degree in Electronics Engineering from The George Washington University, from which he received the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016, and a bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from Istanbul Technical University.
CEO & Portfolio Manager
Mehmet Özkaya serves as the CEO of Esas Portföy Yönetimi A.Ş., the entity responsible for Esas’s asset and wealth management services. Prior to his current role, he served as the Chief Strategy Officer at Esas, responsible for business development, corporate strategy, and strategic asset allocation
Mehmet started his career in the World Bank in Washington, DC where he held various positions in Pension Fund Investments, Capital Markets, Structured Financing, Derivatives, and Risk Management groups (1996-2006). In his last role, he led the Global Fixed Income team in the World Bank Pension Fund, overseeing more than USD 7 billion of investments in global capital markets.
After his return to Turkey, he joined the BNP Paribas – TEB Group as the Chief Investment Officer, first in the TEB Asset Management (2006-2010) and then in the TEB A.Ş (2011-2022).
Mehmet earned his PhD degree in International Finance (1999) and MBA degree in Decision Science (1994) from George Washington University in the United States, and his B.S. degree in Computer Engineering (1992) from Boğaziçi University in Turkey.He also holds Capital Markets Board of Turkey Advanced Level and Derivatives licenses.
Board Member
Mustafa Tercan, CFO of Esas Holding, leads the finance team.
Mustafa Tercan, started his career in Deloitte, and later became a partner at the international audit company RSM Bentley Jennison, where he took part in mergers and acquisitions, post-merger integration, projects on increasing productivity and profitability and gave consultancy to many local and multinational companies and institutions. Mustafa Tercan has been a part of Yıldız Holding since 2010, respectively acting as the General Manager and Vice President of Financial Affairs and serving as Global CFO of Yıldız Holding for the last five years.
Mr. Tercan, a graduate of Ankara University, Department of Economics in 1996, is also a CPA (Certified Public Accountant).
Board Member & Portfolio Manager
Bora Subaşı serves as a Board Member responsible for Financial Reporting at Esas Portföy Yönetimi A.Ş.
Since joining Esas in 2012, he has been responsible for the establishment, structural organization, and management of the family office.
With over 13 years of experience in family office management, Bora Subaşı possesses deep expertise in developing short- and long-term investment strategies, planning intergenerational wealth transfer, structuring processes professionally, and managing relationships with family members effectively.
Prior to joining Esas, he worked at HSBC Turkey from 2000 to 2010, where he played an active role in the establishment of HSBC Private Banking Turkey and gained significant experience in private banking. Between 2010 and 2012, he served as Senior Private Banking Manager at Citibank Turkey, where he was responsible for establishing the Private Banking Center in Istanbul.
Bora Subaşı holds a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University and is licensed by the Capital Markets Board of Turkey with both Advanced Level and Derivatives certificates.