Executive Board
Chair of the Executive Board
Executive Board
Prof. Dr. Ali Çarkoğlu
Chair of the Executive Board
Ali Çarkoğlu is currently a professor of political science at Koç University in Istanbul. He received his Ph. D. at the State University of New York-Binghamton in 1994. He previously taught at Boğaziçi and Sabancı universities in Istanbul. He was a resident fellow in 2008-2009 at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS). He was elected as member to the Science Academy (https://en.bilimakademisi.org/ ) in 2013. His areas of research interest include voting behavior, public opinion and party politics in Turkey. He has taken part in teams of researchers conducting several surveys of public opinion on political Islam, philanthropy in Muslim countries, corruption, informality, attitudes towards EU membership and voting behavior in Turkey. His publications appeared in the International Journal of Communication, Political Geography, European Political Science Review, Democratization, European Journal of Political Research, International Journal of Press / Politics, Environmental Politics, Turkish Studies, New Perspectives on Turkey, South European Society and Politics, Middle Eastern Studies, Political Studies and in edited volumes. His book co-authored with Ersin Kalaycıoğlu appeared from Palgrave: The Rising Tide of Conservatism in Turkey (2009). He co-authored a report on philanthropic giving in Turkey with S. Erdem Aytaç which is published by the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TUSEV) in 2016 Individual Giving and Philanthropy in Turkey.
Vice Chair of the Executive Board
Executive Board
Necla Zarakol
Chair of the Executive Board
After she graduated from Ankara University Communication Faculty, she worked in TRT News Center for 10 years. After she left TRT, she worked as a senior reporter and manager in Güneş Neswspaper’s Ankara and Istanbul bureau, which had the highest circulation for a period of time. After leaving journalism, she became the public relations director of a holding company. She served as a consultant/director for Istanbul Television from outside while she was the PR director of the largest advertising company at that time after her five years mission ended at the holding company. She published TÜSİAD’s public media organ GÖRÜŞ while she continued her job at the advertising company. After she left, she worked for TÜSİAD for a little period of time and in 1993 she established her own company. She kept publishing GÖRÜŞ in her own company until 2004. In her 45 years of professional experience in the communications sector, she has also from time to time worked in the area of political communications and to this day also lectures at several universities. She served as a board member for 3 years in both TESEV and Özel Sektör Gönüllüler Derneği and 1 year in TÜHİD. She continues being a board member of Uluslararası Şeffaflık Derneği Turkey.
Vice Chair of the Executive Board
Executive Board
Devrim Çubukçu
Vice Chair of the Executive Board
Devrim Çubukçu joined the Eczacıbaşı Group in 2015. Before his current position as Sustainability, Corporate and Government Affairs Coordinator, he served first as Vice President of Corporate Communications, then Advisor to the CEO and Chairman on Corporate and Government Affairs. He is also a member of the boards of Esan, Eczacıbaşı Monrol Nuclear Medicine – Egypt, and the Dr. Nejat F. Eczacıbaşı Foundation.
Besides his roles at the Eczacıbaşı Group, Çubukçu is the member of the World Economic Forum’s Eurasia Policies Board. In DEIK (the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey), he is Vice Chairman of the Germany Business Council and the board member of the UK Business Council. He also sits on the boards of TESEV, Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation; Kurumsal İlişkiler Enstitüsü, Corporate Relations Institute and OSGD, Private Sector Volunteers Association.
Devrim Çubukçu has 28 years of experience in Turkey and abroad. He studied his undergraduate degree in the Political Science and International Relations Department of Boğaziçi University and master’s degree in the Economics Department of George Mason University, where he focused on electoral systems, public pressure groups and constitutional economics.
Executive Board
Tülay Güngen
She is a graduate of Boğaziçi University, Electrical Engineering BSc in 1977 and Computer Science MSc in 1979.
From 1979 on she worked as a research engineer in Tübitak Marmara Research Institute, Gebze.
She worked at Interbank in various management positions in information technology department/subsidiary between 1985-1994.
She joined Yapı Kredi Bank in 1994 as the programme office director for Yapı Kredi 2000 Reengineering Programme then led the team in the establishment and management of the bank’s call center in 1997-1999. She served as executive vice president for Alternative Delivery Channels, Retail Banking, Information Technology and Corporate Communications departments of the Bank, consecutively from 1999 to 2008.
She has been the board member and general manager of Yapı Kredi Culture Arts and Publishing Company since 2008.
She is on the Board of Trustees of Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı (Health and Education Foundation), on the Board of Directors of Geyre Foundation and a member of International Women’s Forum Turkey (IWF).
Executive Board
Sinan Kurmuş
After finishing Istanbul Saint Joseph High School and Greendale High School in Wisconsin, USA, where he went as an AFS exchange student, graduated from Harvard University with a magna cum laude degree in 1996.
Started his career with advertising, and continued as a manager and sometimes as an entrepreneur in sectors such as market research, food production, fast moving consumer goods, food retail, venture capital, agriculture, telecommunications and real estate.
In parallel with business life, he continued his personal projects such as lecturing at Bilgi University Communication Faculty, programming at Açık Radio, election campaign management, software development, basketball coaching, amateur data scientist and volunteering for civil society.
He still continues his duty as general manager at Nef Global company and his active management duties in the field of civil society as the Chairman of the Board of the Village Schools Exchange Network Association, Member of the Board of Directors at the St. Joseph Society and as a Member of the Board of Trustees at TESEV.
Executive Board
Mert Moral
Mert Moral is an associate professor of political science and international relations. He received his Ph.D. in political science at the State University of New York at Binghamton and joined the faculty at Sabancı University, Istanbul-Turkey, in 2017. His research interests are voting behavior, political participation, democratic representation, political polarization, political and survey methodology, and comparative and Turkish politics. His research has been published at,
among others, the American Journal of Political Science, Political Analysis, Political Behavior, Electoral Studies, Party Politics, and Political Research Quarterly. Dr. Moral has received several grants, fellowships, and honors, including the Turkish Researcher Association, Academic Owl Award (2024), Sakip Sabanci International Research Award (2022), and Outstanding Young Scientist awards of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA-GEBİP, 2020) and Science Academy, Turkey (BAGEP, 2018), and is co-principal investigator of various survey studies including the Turkish Election Studies (2018, 2023) and Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Survey Study (2019).
Executive Board
Selim Erdem Aytaç
He is a faculty member in the Department of International Relations at Koç University. He received his PhD in political science from Yale University in 2014. Dr. Aytaç is the recipient of the Young Scientists Award of Science Academy (BAGEP, 2016), Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award (2018), and TÜBİTAK Incentive Award (2020). Dr. Aytaç’s scholarly work is in the field of political behavior, focusing on how government accountability works and how people participate in politics. His book, “Why Bother? Rethinking Participation in Elections and Protests”, co-authored with Prof. Susan Stokes of the University of Chicago, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2019 and received the 2020 Book Award of the International Society for Political Psychology. The book was subsequently translated into Turkish and Spanish. Dr. Aytaç and Prof. Dr. Ali Çarkoğlu’s reports on Individual Giving and Philanthropic Behavior in Turkey were published by the Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TUSEV) in 2016, 2019, and 2021.