Ekrem Arıkan
Ekrem Arıkan was born in Sivas, Turkey in 1974. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering at Boğaziçi University and his Master of Business Administration degree at Yeditepe University.
He embarked on his career as Support Engineer on 1997 and started to work for Microsoft on 1998. He became Program Specialist on 1999 and then he was promoted as Windows International Program Manager on the year 2000 in Microsoft Windows International Product Group. He took responsibilities in development of many Microsoft Windows products in international projects until 2006 at Microsoft.
In year 2007, he started to held positions at Ziraat Technology - Fintek Financial Technology Services Inc. (the IT company of the biggest governmental Bank of Turkey) as IT Architecture Manager. Then he became PMO Manager and coordinated many of financial technology projects. Afterwards, he became CISO and managed IT security and risk issues. Then, he was promoted as Enterprise Development Director at Ziraat Technology and managed IT Security, Quality and Risk Management as well as Human Resources and Support Services departments.
He then moved at 2014 on to Ziraat Hayat ve Emeklilik A.Ş. which is life and pension insurance company of Ziraat Bank to serve as IT and Corporate Development Group Manager responsible from Information Technologies, Customer Services and Call Center, HR and Support Services.
As of 2015, he started firstly as Advisor to Chairman and then became Strategy Development Director in EPİAŞ (Energy Exchange Istanbul) which was the newly established energy markets operator company of Turkey. He had a role during the establishment of the company and in several projects like organizing Transparency Workshop, building Transparency Platform, international memberships like EUROPEX, and preparation of first Strategic Plan for 5 years.
He has served as Executive Vice President responsible from IT departments and R&D center at Takasbank between 2016-2018. He is currently the CEO of MKK Istanbul. He is married and has three children. He knows English, German and beginning level of Arabic.
