Oya ĂśnlĂĽ Kizil

Oya Ünlü Kizil is a top executive of Koç Holding, the largest conglomerate in Turkey and a flagship of the Turkish economy. Serving as Director of Corporate Brand, Communications, and External Affairs, she takes an entrepreneurial approach to positioning the Koç brand vis-à-vis changing local and international trends. Previously, she served as the first woman and the youngest chief of staff to the Turkish Minister of Economy, Kemal Dervi?. Her experience in government, international organizations, and the private sector give her a multifaceted vision of today’s global challenges.

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Hakan Altinay

Hakan Altinay is a distinguished intellectual and promotor of global civics. In April 2022, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a Turkish court, accused of planning to overthrow the government, in Turkey’s crackdown on dissent and freedom of assembly. Amnesty International classified him as a prisoner of conscience. He was released from prison after 18 months by a decision of the Court of Appeals. Hakan is the founding Director of the European School of Politics and the President of the Global Civics Academy. His book, Global Civics: Responsibilities and Rights In an Interdependent World, reflects work done while at Yale and was published in 2011 by Brookings Institution, later…

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Ömür Kula Çapan

Ă–mĂĽr Kula Çapan is a well-known creative strategist and experience designer in Turkey who successfully managed pioneering companies like Tribal WW and R/GA Istanbul, leading the digital transformation of Turkey’s biggest brands and companies, and helped build Turkey’s first and most successful digital-only bank, Enpara. She is also a sought-after keynote speaker, columnist, and a guest lecturer for many universities. Alongside her successful career in the business world, her true passion lies in channeling this creativity for the transformation of societies for a better world. She has participated in the foundation of the Civic Involvement Projects of Sabanc? University, and helped to take the model nation-wide with the Open Institute’s…

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Onur Burçak Belli

Onur "Burçak" Belli is a Syrian-Turkish journalist. For most of her career, Burçak has focused on conflicts in Turkey, where she has been based for the past five years, working for Die Zeit, a German weekly newspaper, covering conflicts and crises in Turkey and the broader region. With 13 years of experience writing for international media outlets, her reporting is often through a lens of comprehensive rights and freedoms, writing in feature, long-form, or non-fiction storytelling styles. In 2010, Burçak was based in Damascus covering Syria’s reform plans and the Sunni-Alawite divergences amongst the ruling elite. She then moved London, working for the BBC as a broadcast journalist, before returning…

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Episode 37: 2019 World Fellow Burçak Belli

Burçak Belli describes growing up in an Arab community in Turkey, why she became a journalist, covering the war in Syria, and the challenges facing journalists.

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