Istanbul, Istanbul, Türkiye
I am a creative marketing leader with 17+ years of experience crafting insight-driven 360° campaigns across culture, entertainment, and brand communication. Currently leading marketing at İKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts), I have built and executed some of Turkey’s most impactful cultural campaigns — from “Sanat için Seve Seve” and “Bir Film İzlersin, Hayatın Değişir”, to İKSV’s 50th-year celebrations, Filmekimi, Salon İKSV, and Gezgin Salon. My work bridges strategy and emotion, creating stories that make people feel before they think. My day-to-day work is a constant balance between the analytical and the creative. On one hand, I’m deep into digital performance: steering Google Ads, optimizing paid media, tracking ROI, and making data-informed decisions to drive audience growth. On the other, I’m guiding creative direction: briefing agencies, shaping key visuals, and ensuring our brand’s voice resonates across every billboard, screen, and stage. What I actually do: • Lead a brilliant team: I manage and mentor a cross-functional marketing team of 5, turning big-picture strategies into focused, day-to-day workflows. • Tell visual stories: I oversee the creative lifecycle of award-winning campaigns, ensuring our messaging is as compelling as the cultural events we promote. • Drive measurable growth: I own the marketing budgets and performance dashboards, proving that cultural marketing can be both creatively excellent and highly efficient. • Build bridges: I work closely with sales, CRM, sponsorship, and senior leadership to align our business goals with genuine audience engagement, while representing IKSV in international partnerships. Alongside my marketing career, I am also the founder of Atelier Merimeri and a practicing collage artist under glueandscissors_ and returnofthesaturn. My art — exhibited in several local showcases — explores layers, textures, and visual storytelling, continuously feeding my creative process in brand building.
At Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV), I lead digital marketing and creative strategies, driving impactful campaigns for Istanbul's major cultural events. My role involved managing marketing budgets, optimizing performance, and leading a talented marketing team to achieve organizational objectives. I focus on audience development and cross-departmental collaboration to enhance brand presence and cultural engagement.
I coordinate all the advertising strategy, creative agencies, creative process and in-house creative teams of İKSV. Working very closely with TBWA/İstanbul, Alametifarika, Muhabbet, Güzel Sanatlar, Federation during stategy, creative and production processes. Enhancing the effect of the final creative with İKSV Marketing, Corporate Identity and Publications and Media Relations and İKSV Studio Teams. Our advertising campaings for İstanbul Film Festival, İstanbul Biennal, İstanbul Theatre Festival won many awards in the most acclaimed advertising competitions in Turkey such as Kırmızı, Kristal Elma, Felis. In 2018, İKSV won "Brand of the Year" award by Campaign Agency Brand of the Year My main responsibilities in the marketing team: • Lead and manage the agencies and in-house creative team that deliver approved creative assets • Lead the prioritization of creative work, ensure the communication and workflow of İKSV's festivals and biennials' work and collaborate closely with both festival and creative teams • Manage and deliver traditional (ATL and BTL) and digital marketing and social media projects on budget, on time, and on schedule • Contribute to creative briefs according to project schedules that communicate creative concepts clearly and reflect the value proposition of sites and concepts • Relay constructive feedback to copywriters, designers and team members in a sensitive and motivating way • Prepare project plans and timeline. • Work closely with other marketing coordinators and the department directors to understand project milestones, and timelines in order to manage resources for various projects simultaneously throughout each project’s lifecycle • Participate in strategic planning and conceptual ideation sessions, and business processes.
Responsible for operating the marketing strategies and leading the creative process of 5 international arts festivals, art biennial and design biennials, a design store (İKSV Tasarim), and 400 person multi-purpose venue (Salon İKSV) Briefing and managing the relationships with creative agencies and in-house creative production. Reporting to marketing manager and marketing director.
Responsible for Dardenia Fish&Bread&Sushi
Managing the clients: 2013-2014 Mars (Chocolate, Petcare) PepsiCo (Yedigün) FritoLay (Lay's) The Famous Grouse Sebit (Vitamin) Also managing new business enterprises. 2010-2013 Procter&Gamble (Gillette, Braun) Erikli (Nestlewaters), Dr. Oetker, Casper, Blackberry, Ariston kariyer.net tatilsepeti.com Brandium Providing all advertising and communication activities in accordance with the brand’s objectives.