Meet Our
Leadership
Get to know the members of Commencis leaderhip team.
Fırat İşbecer is the Chief Executive Officer of Commencis, an entrepreneur and an angel investor. He co-founded Pozitron, which was one of Europe’s earliest and fastest growing mobile banking and payments software companies. In 2014, Pozitron was acquired by London-based Monitise, making it one of the largest Turkish enterprise software acquisitions to its date.
After joining Monitise, he oversaw the company’s operations as the EMEA Managing Director. In 2017, Monitise plc was acquired by a Fortune 500 financial services giant Fiserv Inc. Following this acquisition, Firat left Monitise and founded Commencis in 2018. Fırat was also named Turkey’s most active angel investor two years in a row. He currently serves on the board of Endeavor Turkey and was also selected to be on Fortune Turkey’s 40 under 40 list numerous times. Fırat is a graduate of Robert College. He holds a BA degree from Galatasaray University and an MA degree from a joint program by Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
Yasemin Gönül is the CFO of Commencis. In her role, she is responsible for all the company’s financial functions, including accounting, audit, treasury, and corporate finance. She also oversees commercial contracts, legal and regulative compliance. Her career spans more than 15 years of varied experience in financial management, business leadership and corporate strategy.
Prior to Commencis, Yasemin acted as the Finance Director of Monitise MEA for 4 years. Before that, for two years she worked as the Finance Manager of Pozitron, one of Europe’s fastest-growing mobile banking, mobile commerce, and payments software companies. Yasemin began her career at PwC where she held the roles of Audit & Assurance Manager. She holds a BA degree in Business Administration from Boğaziçi University.
Duru Kızılkayak is the CIO at Commencis. She focuses on creating business value through technology and expertise. In close collaboration with highly skilled competency managers, Duru leads software engineering, quality engineering, R&D, information technology, design teams at Commencis. She ensures alignment among multiple teams involved in the delivery lifecycle by continuously improving processes, tools and technologies used to deliver high quality products.
Duru started her career working as a consultant at an SAP Partner, followed by HP, then she moved to telecommunications where she spent 10 years establishing an ISP & Datacentre business from scratch with her Business Development and COO roles. In 2015, with the desire to explore different aspects of the digital world, she joined Commencis. Prior to her CIO role Duru acted as the VP of Engineering & Design at Commencis. Duru has a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University in the US.
Gonca Çetin is the CPO at Commencis. In her role, she leads the HR team in reinforcing strong company culture, creating and leading large-scale employee engagement and development programs, and implementing reward and talent management strategies that support the achievement of business goals and objectives.
Gonca has over 15 years of HR experience. Prior to Commencis in 2018, she acted as HR Manager for Monitise MEA for 4 years. Prior to that role, she also worked in HR management roles for Pozitron and Thames Water. Gonca holds a BA degree in Sociology from Galatasaray University.
Yücel Erbilgiç is the CSO at Commencis. His responsibilities include managing the entire sales department and overseeing all sales-related activities.Yücel started his career in the technology department at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati. He continued as a technology architect and Program Manager at Lexmark International in the USA. He joined Wipro Limited in Finland in 2007 as Director of Sales for Northern Europe Cyber Security and Risk Services. He established the Northern Europe structure of Wipro’s Cyber Security and Risk division.
Between 2010-2013, Yücel worked in London as the Cyber Security and Risk Services Sales Director responsible for Europe-based Financial Services clients. After establishing Wipro’s Turkey office in 2013, he moved to Istanbul as Wipro’s Turkey Director. Yücel graduated from Washington University and Hiram College’s faculties of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Computer Engineering simultaneously in 2000. He also received his master’s degree in Finance, Marketing and Entrepreneurship from Chicago Booth University.
Alp Pekin is the CCO of Cloud at Commencis. After completing his BSc degree in Industrial Engineering, he started his journey in 2001 as an ERP Specialist and has gained experience over the years mainly on consultancy and management fields.
Before joining Commencis in 2018, Alp worked for 13 years as Principal Consultant and Business Development Director. At Commencis, he leads strategy programs, and a skilled team of professionals that engineer solutions, create pipeline, and drive revenue in partnership with leading hyperscale cloud providers.
İdil Gülhan is the Senior VP of Client Delivery at Commencis. She is an Electrical & Electronics engineer with more than 14 years of experience in the technology sector. In her role, İdil oversees key account management, new business and project management.
She is responsible for building and maintaining effective relationships across all levels of the client’s organization to ensure client satisfaction and retention. In coordination with product management, business analysis and technical engineering teams she focuses on managing the development of business requirements and technical solutions. Previously, İdil held the roles of VP of Account Management, and Key Accounts & Business Development Director of Monitise MEA for 4 years.
Can Yurdakul is the VP of Pre-Sales at Commencis, with over 20 years of experience in the IT industry. A graduate of Işık University in Information Technology, Can has held key roles at companies like Garanti Bank, Nevotek, and Verscom.
In his current role, Can leads presales activities, utilizing extensive expertise in project management and sales to drive innovative technology solutions. Having transitioned into sales leadership over the last eight years, he brings a strong blend of technical and business skills to the role.
Koray Arıkan is the VP of Growth at Commencis. He is responsible for extending Commencis’ services to new customers and geographies. Koray has more than 20 years of experience in international business development and sales. Before joining Commencis, he has led sales and business development in TUBITAK, KOBIL and Flexigo.
Koray has been involved in various international and multinational projects in defence technology, information security, mobility and software development. Koray has a BSc degree for Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering and an executive MBA degree from the Istanbul Technical University.
Mustafa Erşahin is the VP of R&D at Commencis. For more than 10 years, he worked as a software specialist, software architect, project manager, software department manager, and R&D manager at well-known software companies in Turkey.
In his role, he is responsible for planning and supervising the entire R&D team and coaching teams for agile practices. Dr. Erşahin received his B.Sc, M.Sc., and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering from Dokuz Eylül University in 2007, 2009, and 2020, respectively.
Murat Ergun is the VP of Engineering at Commencis. As VP of Engineering, Murat is responsible for leading the engineering team to deliver high-quality outputs through excellence. His leadership involves co-developing the technical strategy with the CIO, for developing and maintaining a technical roadmap that will contribute to innovative digital products. He started his career in 2007 as a Part-time Software Developer, then continued his career in academy as a Research & Teaching Assistant and focused his research on wireless network security.
Before Commencis, he worked in Huawei as a Software Engineer. He started his journey in Pozitron/Monitise/Commencis in 2011 as a Software Developer and took different roles such as Engineering Lead and Engineering Manager. In 2018, he continued his role at Commencis as the Senior Engineering Manager. Murat received his B.Sc and M.Sc degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from Sabancı University in 2007 and 2010.
Murat Özkan is the VP of Cloud Engineering at Commencis. He started his journey in 1995 as a Project and Team Manager and has gained experience over the years mainly in software development and customer-specific adaptations. Before joining Commencis in 2019, Murat worked for 10 years as Head of Sub Domain CRM and Head of Product Development Group in Ericsson.
At Commencis, he leads the cloud engineering team to deliver professional services, provide technical presales support, and enhances Cloud Professional services portfolio. He holds a BSc degree in Computer Engineering from Boğaziçi University.
İpek Akın is the VP of Marketing at Commencis, where she leads the Marketing and Communication Design teams, focusing on brand visibility, stakeholder engagement, and supporting growth.
Before joining Commencis in 2019, she held roles in corporate communications, PR, and marketing across the pharma and tech sectors, including positions at BlaBlaCar as Communications & PR Manager and as Head of Customer Experience at a Turkish ridesharing startup. She holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from Yıldız Technical University and an MA from İstanbul Bilgi University.
Fatih İşbecer is the Chairman of Commencis, an entrepreneur, and an angel investor. Fatih founded Pozitron at the age of 24, a company that went on to lay the foundations of Turkey’s mobile banking, mobile commerce, and digital payments ecosystem. In February 2014, Pozitron was acquired by Monitise plc, a London-based fintech unicorn. This acquisition was one of the largest mobile software company acquisitions in Europe to its date.
Shortly after the acquisition, Fatih was appointed as the CEO of Monitise Americas to run the company’s North and South America operations from San Francisco. In 2017, Monitise Group was fully acquired by Fiserv, a US-based Fortune 500 company. After this acquisition, Fatih left Fiserv to establish a global brand in digital technologies and co-founded Commencis, where he is currently the Chairman. He also runs Commencis spin-off Dataroid, a digital analytics and customer engagement platform. Fatih holds a BS degree in Physics Engineering from Istanbul Technical University.
