Biography: Emin Sazak has been president of the Ankara-based Turkish Contractors Association (TCA) since April 2011. The TCA was founded in 1952 and says almost 70 per cent of domestic and 90 per cent of international contracting work done by Turkish contractors is carried out by its members. Sazak has been on the board of the association since 2002 and was made vice-president in 2004. He is also chief executive officer of local contractor Yuksel Insaat, which is owned by his family. He was appointed to this position in 2004, having been vice-president since 1999. In 1997, Sazak brought all of Yuksel’s firms under one umbrella by forming Yuksel Holding, and has served on its board since 2000. He is also chairman of the Turkish-Qatari Business Council and a member of the Turkish-US Business Council.

Contact Tel: (+90) 312 440 8122

Biography: Hakan Bahceci leads the Turkish Business Council in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, one of the key organisations spearheading Turkey’s export drive in the Gulf. It was founded in 2005 to provide a platform for some of the 500 Turkish companies operating in the UAE and to help facilitate $6bn of Turkish investment in the emirates, as well as Emirati investment in Turkey. Bahceci is chief executive officer of Hakan Agro DMCC, an international agricultural commodities trading and distribution firm with headquarters in Dubai and processing plants in 26 countries. He has more than two decades of experience in agro-commodities supply chain management, having started out by running his company as a small brokerage in 1989. Bahceci has a degree in English literature and a master’s degree in business administration from Wollongong University in Australia.

Contact Tel: (+971) 4 371 3327

Biography: Ghassan Ahmed al-Sulaiman is the co-chairman of the Turkish-Saudi Business Council. Al-Sulaiman is also the owner and president of Ghassan Ahmed al-Sulaiman Trading, which he founded in Dubai in 1992, and is the sole owner of Ikea

Saudi Arabia. In 2010, Saudi Arabia was Turkey’s 10th largest trade partner, with combined imports and exports worth $4.48bn. Al-Sulaiman is from a distinguished trading family, and his grandfather was a minister and an adviser to King Abdulaziz al-Saud when Saudi Arabia was established in the 1930s. He lectures on strategic management for the Maastricht School of Management’s master’s in business administration programme, and is a member of the Davos Economic Forum founding board, the board of the Saudi Arabian Human Resources Fund and the Jeddah Provincial Council.

Contact Tel: (+971) 4 269 8191

Biography: Ergil Ersu is the chairman of one of Turkey’s largest contracting groups, Gama Holding, and its subsidiaries Gama Energy, Gama Power and Gama Trading & Tourism. Ersu also serves as an executive director of Gama Holding and as a director of Gama International. Gama Construction was formed in 1959 and in 1962, its operations were expanded to include mechanical and electrical projects, making it the first Turkish company to operate in that field locally. Gama subsidiaries now undertake the construction of factories, power plants, pipelines, infrastructure facilities, high-rise buildings, housing complexes and commercial centres. From the 1970s, Gama began expanding worldwide and today operates in markets including Russia, Southeast Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. Ersu graduated with a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Middle East Technical University in Turkey in 1964.

Contact Tel: (+90) 312 248 4200

Biography: Mustafa Sani Sener is one of Turkey’s highest profile business leaders in the Middle East. Sener has led TAV since its creation in 1997, developing it to become the dominant local player in airport construction before expanding into the Middle East, North Africa and the surrounding regions. In April, a consortium led by TAV was awarded a $765m contract to build aircraft maintenance facilities at Jeddah International airport. The company has also won a $1.5bn contract to build Saudi Arabia’s first privately funded airport in Medina and is in talks to build Abu Dhabi’s $2.9bn midfield terminal. Before joining TAV, Sener was chairman of the local Sera Construction. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering from Black Sea Technical University in Turkey and has a master’s degree in fluid mechanics from the University of Sussex in the UK.

Contact Tel: (+90) 212 463 3000

Biography: Mustafa Vehbi Koc was appointed chairman of Turkey’s biggest industrial conglomerate, the family-controlled Koc Holding, in 2003, succeeding his father Mustafa Rahmi Koc. The company produces and distributes products ranging from vehicles to fridges and air conditioners globally, and is a major exporter to Middle Eastern and North African countries. Koc owns Tupras, which controls all of Turkey’s oil refining capacity. It has been heavily reliant on Iran for crude supply, importing about 180,000 barrels a day, roughly 8 per cent of Iran’s oil exports late in 2011. That figure has fallen as Ankara has tried to avoid US sanctions on Iran’s trading partners. Koc graduated from George Washington University’s Business School in the US. Among many other posts, he sits on the international advisory board of the National Bank of Kuwait and is a member of the Rolls Royce International Advisory Board.

Contact Tel: (+90) 216 531 0000

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