Istanbul, Türkiye
With a decade of experience in design, I drive teams to build relevant solutions and guide growth-minded people to do the same. After concluding my tenure as Senior Manager at Akbank in 2025, I’m now shaping the next chapter of my career through principal, individual contributor roles and fractional leadership engagements where I help organizations to scale design/ research capability and build product experiences that work. I am also the founder of UXR Playground, a leading platform for practical insights and hands-on learning in UX. We empower product and design professionals to elevate their craft through dialogue, workshops and structured training programs. Beyond my roles, I host Playground Buluşmaları where I share conversations that bring design, technology and product people together in collaboration with Design Council Turkey. Past few years highlights: ▪Scaled research into a strategic capability and introduced a data-driven design culture across multiple business units at Akbank, one of the Turkey's largest banks ▪Executed 200+ UX/ CX design projects, leading design initiatives that demonstrably increased engagement and conversion metrics, especially in Finance. ▪Empowered design professionals through delivering lectures, workshops and structured training programs, partnering with leading institutions and academia. ▪Founded UXR Playground, a leading hub for UX, guiding professionals on how to approach design beyond the buzzwords and fancy visuals. ▪Partnered with 20+ startups to leverage design for scalable growth, mentoring entrepreneurs on transforming product visions into meaningful user experiences. I’ve always been captivated by the idea of designing product-based narratives, which led me to build a career where I could lead teams in transforming intents into seamless experiences. It's the challenge I'm still obsessed with and lucky enough to call it my work.
Partnering teams to scale the way they build, collaborate and deliver value. The focus is on enabling teams to elevate their design and research capabilities from reactive tasks to a strategic force for growth. A partnership model designed to deliver value where you need it most: elevating in-house capabilities through structured training programs and workshops (The Coach) or taking direct, hands-on ownership of critical design initiatives (The Player). The ultimate goal is always the same: scale impact. Either by improving internal capability or by co-piloting a solution from intent to roadmap. ▪Enable teams to scale their design/ research practices through workshops and structured trainings. ▪Guide design teams to scale their impact by introducing new ways to collaborate and co-create. ▪Facilitate founders and leaders to scale their products by clarifying what truly matters for their users. ▪Hands-on ownership for high-stakes projects to de-risk major bets and build impactful solutions. ▪Long-term partnership for research through a combination of strategic guidance and direct execution.
Established a platform to empower design and product professionals through workshops, structured training programs and resource-sharing. It has become a go-to hub for practical insights and hands-on learning, engaging 7000+ active followers across various mediums. ▪Built a repository of tools and 500+ original resources to support local UX community. ▪Designed and executed 8+ specialized training programs from foundations to expert-level growth ▪Conducted 10+ closed-group training on design facilitation and UX practices for corporate clients. ▪Provided 300+ hours of mentorship about how to approach design beyond cliches and fancy visuals. ▪Hosted 50+ industry leaders to share their reflections about design process in different mediums.
Developed a robust curriculum and led the mandatory graduate course called UX507, equipping students with globally relevant skills for Turkey’s first UX master program by bridging the gap between academic theory and industry practices. ▪Led mandatory project courses, guiding students through real-world UX projects. ▪Implemented comprehensive kits into lectures to help students through the end-to-end UX process. ▪Provided mentorship, facilitating effective learning for the international student base.
Took an intentional six-month pause for reflection and recalibration after ten years of continuous execution. This break was less about resting and more about a strategic reset. A rare opportunity to deconstruct the habits of the last decade and thoughtfully rebuild my approach to design, leadership and value creation for the years ahead. ▪Synthesized a decade of learnings, best practices (originally designed for various corporate contexts) into a toolkit of facilitation formats and playbooks that empower teams to align, co-create and build successfully. ▪Established an autonomous operational structure and an upgraded infrastructure for UXR Playground, securing its future as a leading go-to hub for UX, independent of my daily involvement. ▪Restructured my entire design/ research execution process by integrating AI-powered tools and custom micro-agents, resulting in a more efficient framework fit for the pace of modern product teams. ▪Leveraged this break from the corporate track to transform long-held intentions into two concrete initiatives: Play2Scale & Small Declarations.
Introduced an evidence-based design culture that aligned UX with business goals and leadership vision, resulting in improvements in design efficiency. Established a core internal UX Research & Design Strategy team with new standards and led pivotal design initiatives in high-impact product developments that drive engagement, growth. ▪Scaled an in-house UX Research team. Elevated design process with data-driven strategies. ▪Led research/ design strategy for 9 domains, overseeing 50+ projects and generating 1000+ insights. ▪Set user-driven strategies aligned with business by collaborating with directors, C-level executives. ▪Drove diverse teams to craft solutions, increasing interactions by 42% and driving 21% growth. ▪Earned five prestigious international recognitions, including iF Design and UX Design Awards. ▪Recruited/ mentored a new internal team, establishing job frameworks and measurable indicators. ▪Drive continuous improvements, enhancing analytical capabilities and defining scalable practices. ▪Oversaw a 20M+ budget, maximizing ROI through optimizing partnerships and fund allocation.
Took the responsibility of restructuring research processes and design strategy initiatives. I redesigned research work flows, implementing structural changes that delivered tangible results and led to promotion to Senior Manager within eight months. ▪Quadrupled the volume of research projects by introducing ReOps to structure research processes. ▪Redesigned research workflows, completing 20+ projects across multiple product domains. ▪Conducted workshops to promote data-driven design, upskilling teams on human-centered design. ▪Built research repositories and contextual insight tracking systems to ensure long-term impact. ▪Spearheaded key initiatives, ensuring that insights translated into impactful actions. ▪Guided product managers to align user lens with business objectives and shape product direction. ▪Oversaw a 2M+ budget, optimizing resources while elevating the organization’s research maturity.