Steering Committee

Tacan İldem
Chairman, EDAM

Ambassador (R) Tacan Ildem, a member of NATO Experts Group that presented a report entitled “NATO 2030: United for a New Era”, is a senior Turkish diplomat. Since the start of his long career in 1978 till February 2021 he held bilateral and multilateral positions including NATO Assistant Secretary General between 2016 to 2020. He served as the Turkish Ambassador to the Netherlands and Permanent Representative to NATO and the OSCE. He also served as Director General for International Security Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Chief of Cabinet, Principal Foreign Policy Advisor and Spokesperson of the President of the Republic. His postings abroad also include those at the Embassies in Washington DC, Athens and New Delhi. Ambassador Ildem is a graduate of Ankara University Faculty of Political Science. He is a recipient of the decoration of Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity and the Medal of Gratitude of Albania.

Sinan Ülgen
Director, EDAM

Sinan Ülgen graduated in 1987 from the University of Virginia with a double major in computer sciences and economics. He undertook graduate studies at the College of Europe in Brugge, Belgium where he received, in 1990, a masters degree in European economic integration. He then joined the Turkish Foreign Service as a career diplomat. In 1992, he was posted to the Turkish Permanent Delegation to the European Union in Brussels where he became part of the team that negotiated the Turkey-EU customs union.

Ulgen is the founder and managing partner of Istanbul Economics. The consultancy specializes in market entry strategies for international companies, political and economic risk analysis related to Turkey and regulatory affairs.

Ulgen is also the director of the Istanbul based think tank, Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM) and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in Brussels. His research and opinion pieces have been published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Center for European Policy Studies, Center for European Reform, the Atlantic Council, German Marshall Fund, Brookings and the World Economic Forum as well as newspapers such as Le Figaro, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, European Voice, Project Syndicate and the International New York Times. He is also the co-author of a book on Turkey-EU relations with Kemal Dervis and a frequent commentator on Turkish affairs in the international press. Ulgen served on the academic advisory board member of the NATO Defence College in Rome. He was a member of the Europe Council of the World Economic Forum. He was also a member of the international policy experts group set up by the NATO Secretary General Rasmussen.

MiTHAT ÖZBEK
Managing Partner, Istanbul Economy

Mithat Özbek graduated in 1988 from the economics department of the Hacettepe University in Ankara. He then attended the University of Indiana and received his MBA in 2000 from the joint program of the Istanbul Technical University and Exeter University. He started his professional career at Sogut ceramics in the export department of the company. He became a Deputy Director General at Puccinelli, a company operating in the food and beverage industry and then the managing director of the UK based paper and packaging company David S. Smith in Turkey. He worked for 10 years for David S. Smith in this capacity. Following the acquisition of the local branch of the company by Sabanci/International Paper owned Olmuksa, he joined the senior management of Olmuksa. He is a member of several NGOs. He is the managing partner of Istanbul Ekonomi.

ASLI AYDINTAŞBAŞ
Senior Policy Fellow at European Council on Foreign Affairs

Asli Aydıntaşbaş is Senior Policy Fellow at European Council on Foreign Affairs, where she primarily works on Turkish foreign policy and external ramifications of its domestic politics. She has joined ECFR after a lengthy career in journalism, which last included being a columnist at Milliyet (2009-2015) and a commentator on regional issues in international publications and networks. In particular, Ms Aydintasbas has used her columns to delve into issues in Turkish foreign policy vis a vis the Middle East but also to probe issues around freedoms and democratization in Turkey. She has written on these issues for publications including the International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Politico.com and Newsweek. Ms Aydıntaşbaş has hosted a popular daily show, Karşı Gündem on CNN Turk during 2013-2014. Prior to joining Milliyet, she has served as a Washington correspondent and later the Ankara bureau chief for Sabah, one of Turkey’s leading newspapers. She covered the Clinton Administration, the United Nations, the Bush Administration, and the Iraq War in 1997-2004 as a Washington and New York correspondent for NTV and Radikal. Ms Aydıntaşbaş is a graduate of Bates College, where she was the recipient of Maung Maung Gyi Award for Excellence in International Relations and holds an MA in Journalism and Middle East Studies from New York University.

CAN SELÇUKİ
General Manager and Member of the Executive Board, Istanbul Economics Research

Can Selçuki holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from the Bilkent University and a MSc degree in Economics from University Bocconi. Currently he works as the General Manager of Istanbul Economics Research which is a market research and online big data analytics company based in Istanbul. Before, Can worked as an economist at the World Bank Ankara Office for 4 years working both with the public and private partners in private sector development. His work at the World Bank focused on regional development, competition and innovation policies. Prior to working at the World Bank, Can worked as an economics researcher at the Brussels based think tank the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) for three years. He is the author of papers and reports on trade competitiveness, regional development and innovation policy in Turkey.