Consultants & Mentors

Selin Sertel

Coach & Trainer

As a life long learner and practitioner Selin started her education with a BSc Honours degree in Chemical Engineering, in Istanbul Technical Univ. She received a Higher National Diploma in Business & Finance and Certificate in Management Studies from BTEC Exeter, UK. She holds a MSc in Industrial Biotechnology, from Liverpool John Moores Uni., UK and a MA in Applied Psychology, İstanbul Trade Uni.

Starting her career as a product manager, she then had diverse experiences in the Pharmaceuticals sector, taking on national and top level managerial roles. She then founded and acted as Leading Facilitator & Executive Coach in CoachPro_ serving corporate programs in diverse industries and sectors, focusing on organizational development with instructional system design, talent assessment and management, coaching and HR projects and university lecturer in Executive MBA on ‘ Strategic Leadership’.

Currently she holds Area Leadership and Talent Development Manager position and performing systematic evaluation, performance management and coaching. Selin has over 2500 hrs of Executive Coaching and served as a previous ICF Turkey Charter Chapter Board Member.

Much of her focus is around personality psychology to anticipate leadership behavior through Cognitive Behavioral approach, NLP and Spiral Dynamics. Passionate about driving insights into the dynamics between individuals and organizations to provide concrete information on change in the culture and structure of the organization. Believes in the path of Educational Data Mining with psychometrics and applied psychology tools in transition processes and strategic interventions.

She is a Hatha yoga trainer and advanced scuba diver.

Melda Özer

Platform Art Co-Founder

Melda graduated from Istanbul Technical University, Faculty of Electrical and Electronics and then worked as an Electrical Engineer at Honeywell between 1984-85 and Teletaş between 1985-87. Between 1987-1991, she received her master’s degrees in Electronics and Business Administration at the Technical University of Berlin. In 1991, she was selected as a consultant for foreign students and continued her educational activities as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Berlin Technical University between 1991-1993. Simultaneously she worked in the mobile phone department of Siemens company in Berlin.

Moving back to Turkey, between 1997 and 2001, she was an education consultant for TMI/Turkey (Time Manager International) Company in Istanbul. During this period, she participated in various adult education programs in Turkey, Denmark, Germany and France. Melda is an ICF accredited Certified Coach, and provides training and consultancy services in the fields of Communication Skills, Customer Satisfaction, Teamwork, Emotional Intelligence, Service Quality and Presentation Techniques. In addition to these, her articles were published in the journals of Smile and Kafa around these topics. Born in 1960, Melda Özer is married and has one child. She is interested in windsurfing, pilates, cycling, swimming, reading and literature.

Hakan Urhan

Platform Art Co-Founder

Hakan graduated from Izmir Bornova Anatolian High School and Middle East Technical University, Department of Business Administration. Between 1988/7 and 1997/8, he worked as a middle and senior manager in the fields of sales and marketing at Unilever and UNICA-Unilever Central Asia / Turkic Republics. Then, Hakan worked in sales and marketing at Boyner Group Network Textile Merchandising Company between 1997/8-1998/2, and in the packaging factory installation projects planned to be realized in Turkic Republics within the body of Nuh Holding in 1998/6-1999/4.

Rising in his management career, Hakan served as Assistant General Manager and General Manager in 3 different companies of Ülker (Yildiz Holding) between 1999/4 and 2004/10. From 2004/11 to 2017/1, he served as a Member of the Board of Directors, Chairman of the Executive Board, and CEO at Doğan Media Company, Doğan Dağıtım-Yaysat. He also served as a member of the Smile Holding Executive Board, and in 2009, he merged Smile Holding and Doğan Dağıtım. Following 2017/2, he founded the consultancy department of Platform Art Education and Consulting, of which he was a founding partner and where continues to offer his consultancy and advisory services. He was born in 1964 in Izmir and has 2 children. Windsurfing, kitesurfing, sailing, volleyball, golf and tennis are his interests.

Belma Öcal

VP Community Engagement

As someone who has built her life on learning with the philosophy of “Life is a journey and you learn something new in every moment” is a “life student who gets richer by sharing”, she is wide open to innovations with a passion for reading, researching and observing.
Studied in Beşiktaş High School and then in Istanbul University Biology Department, currently she is a student of IU. Sociology. She completed the ‘Human Resources Management’ program with a full grade of 4. At Yildiz University she received a Positive Psychology Education degree. Starting her business life in the pharmaceutical industry, she worked for 17 years in two global companies that have become brand names as sales executive, manager and sales trainer. She took part in the project teams in the birth of many mega-brands.

After her tenure in the Pharmaceutical Industry, she took an active role in all aspects of the establishment of the Istanbul Aesthetic Center clinic, worked as a project leader in Turkey for 3 years at P&G, as a Sales Manager in the real estate industry, and as a Corporate Communications Coordinator.
She received many trainings from experts in his field; Sales/Advanced Sales Techniques, Customer/Personality Analysis, Effective Time Management, Adaptation to Change, Stress Management, Being Result Oriented, Presentation Techniques, Body Language and Negotiation Techniques, Learning Techniques, Presentation Skills… She stepped into the Coaching Profession in 2009, ”Trainers Training” diploma program and Professional Coaching, NLP Master, Hypnosis and Trainer’s Training certificates.
Some of the trainings she considers complementary; EFT(Emotional Freedom Techniques-GeO association member), Chakra Aura Healing, SelfHypnosis.
PCC Belma Öcal is an ICF Accredited Coach Trainer, ICF/AC, EMCC approved Mentor, CPD Certified Trainer, ABNLP Master and the only Integral Relationship Coach Trainer in Turkey.
She refers to herself as a “Personal Leadership Specialist”.

Huda El-Dosougi

Digital Health Applications

Huda has global healthcare experience spanning almost 20 years in pharma, academia and as a consultant with expertise in health systems, cross-sector analysis, integration, and value creation. She is a creative, collaborative and tenacious change agent with depth in process improvement, and solution development for implementation of effective interventions. Her professional skills spanning from various positions in healthcare services include; market access management, multi-sector data and stakeholder dynamics for value proposition, health economics & outcomes research, population health research for value based care, data curation (Informatics), information management via assimilation, synthesis, & inference, digital health innovations, digital solutions & health technology assessments, health system analysis, mapping, assessing, & re-engineering processes.

Currently she is associate professor at the University of Medical Services & Technologies and senior consultant to the National Information Center in Sudan as well as healthcare consultant to the Ministry of Health where she served full-time between 2019-2021. During the time, she was research fellow in the Usher Institute of the The University of Edinburgh. Her pharmacology experience includes her work with Mid-East Pharma, inVentiv Health (Bristol Meyer Squibb, NitroMed, Boehringer Ingelheim, Schering Plough contracts), Innovex (Novartis Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline contracts). Her special interests are biomedical Informatics, data analytics, information management, e-Health, population health, healthcare services, health systems and dynamics, pharmaco-epidemiology, pharmacognosy. Her personal interests are fashion design and manufacturing, arts, aerial yoga.

Cebrayil Cebrayilov

Internal Med./ Nephrology – INTERACT

Cebrayil was born in 1986 in Baku. After receiving his medical doctor degree from Azerbaijan Medical University in 2004-2010, he received his Internal Medicine specialization at Hacettepe University in 2012-2017. In the last year of his specialization in internal medicine, he prepared the training and work programs of assistants, interns and trainee doctors, as the chief assistant. After working in the intensive care unit in Ankara Özer Koru Hospital between 2017 and 2018, he worked as a Nephrology senior specialist at Hacettepe University between 2018 and 2021. He is currently the lead Nephrology consultant of private Ege Hospital in Baku.

In 2020, during the COVID 19 pandemic period, he came to his homeland, Azerbaijan, as a WHO consultant, and served as a team leader in evaluating and strengthening the pandemic preparations of the hospitals here, under the REACT-C19 project. After completing his duty as a consultant, he established and managed the Internal Diseases departments in the country’s largest pandemic hospital on request of the Ministry of Health.

He worked as the vice president of the “Association of Azerbaijani Physicians” in Turkey between 2016 and 2021, closely interested in the problems of doctors and medical students living and working in Turkey, writing projects and working to bring them to life.

He constantly improved himself in the history and mechanics of the automobile industry, which he was interested in from high school. At the same time, he took lessons in playing the tar, taking a close interest in music.

Aykut Altın

Managing Partner / VP Communications

Aykut studied Literature at Galatasaray High School between 1975-83 and Philosophy at Bogazici University between 1983-88. He was heavily involved in theater during his high school and university years. He lived three years in the United States taking writing and television classes. He worked temporary jobs in Chicago, Charleston, and Las Vegas, while traveling.

In his advertising career, which he readily started while he was a student in 1986, he worked as a copywriter, creative director and manager at important advertising agencies in Turkey such as Merkez Ajans (Lowe Lintas), Markom (Leo Burnett), Mod Agency. He founded Altın Vanderlee Advertising Agency in 1996 and served Merck Sharp & Dohme as a main client for six years.

He established EM&DM Events and Direct Marketing Agency in 2002, and later created the IMS Platform Group of Companies, which includes CRM, advertising design, call center, research, direct marketing and event organization units and companies serving large customers such as Teknosa, Pepsi, Hyundai, Kalekim and Akbank. In 2011, following a key passion of his and transferring his shares, he opened a restaurant to serve individual customers instead of the corporate.

In 2013, he joined back the advertising industry creative groups. He worked as a campaign manager at the Health Garden Educational Agency, and managed the campaigns of the Turkish Medical Association, Istanbul Medical Chamber and Istanbul Dentistry Chamber. In the last four years of his advertising career, he served as a member of the executive board in charge of marketing in the Wellpoint Human Resources Group, which has a 600 payroll portfolio mainly consisting of physicians and occupational safety specialists. He managed all the brands of the group at the group’s in-house agency, Curative Digital Works, and trained and mentored young advertisers.

He still continues advertising, marketing and brand consultancy. He trains and mentors at the Copywriting Workshop, a program he created. He is back to stage acting and took part in the foundation of the ArtNiyet Performing Arts Ensemble. Inspired by the mentorship he gave to young people, added a new direction to his career by getting a Valuematch / Spiral Dynamics Practitioner certificate in 2021.

Hamza Zeytinoglu MD

Founder & President

Monitoring and delivering competencies in change initiatives in healthcare services, organizations and information systems has been Hamza’s passion for over 25 years. Initially starting out in the policy and public health domain, he participated in the reforms activities of the national Healthcare system in Turkey. Founded the Health and Social research group of Strateji MORI and moved to Boston,MA as the director of the international studies division, a JV with CMB Inc. Next he became post-doc research fellow and co-director of the Clinical Informatics department at Cambridge Health Alliance (Harvard Medical School teaching hospital), he designed and implemented first of its kind patient registries for chronic disease management, other Digital Health Services oriented databases, reporting systems, and various applications for process improvement and prevention of hospitalizations and disabilities.

Moving to UK, following his work as a medical informatics consultant for the NHS, he became a founding partner in Pathway Solutions, which delivered a “National First” cloud-based data validation/ claims management system for NHS-UK General Practitioners.
Hamza’s technical expertise in complex adaptive systems is nicely complemented by a personal passion for social issues addressed structurally. As a researcher with a bias towards evidence based applications that create real change, he participated in high profile EU funded research and innovation projects applying the Social Intelligence Networks™ conceptual framework (the namesake of Social-i), developed together with Prof. Stefano Battistonaround sustainable and social finance, climate policy and social organization towards Industry 4.0. as a research fellow, at the London Institute of Mathematical Sciences, University of Zurich and Senior Advisor at Bogazici University’s Computer Engineering department.
His interest in Developmental and Applied Positive Psychology and studies in human values systems (particularly on the works of Schwartz &and Graves brought insights into designing online architectures geared towards integral individual and collective action. Hamza holds certifications in Ericksonian Psychotherapy / Hypnotherapy and the Optimum Balance Model.
Trainings offered: Spiral Dynamics Integral, Values-driven Change Management, Digital Health Applications, Process Improvement, Data Science in Healthcare, Big Data & Modeling, Social Intelligence Networks, Life Centeredness

Hamza Zeytinoglu MD

Founder & President

Prof. Dr. Stefano Battiston

Scientific Advisor

Stefano Battiston is associate professor in Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia. He was SNF Professor of Banking at the University of Zurich. He is a leading scholar in the field of network models of systemic risk and sustainable finance. He has made advances in the scientific understanding of the relation between financial interconnectedness, complexity and risk. He has also directed a new and growing stream of research on climate-related financial risk.
He has co-authored 50+ publications including on top journals such as PNAS, Nature Communications, Nature Climate Change and Management Science. His scientific background in complex systems, combined with 15 years of research in economics and finance, put him in a unique position to understand policy issues both from a quantitative and holistic perspective.

He has also been coordinating several EU and Swiss projects on finance and sustainability. In particular, between 2014 and 2018 he has been the coordinator of the EU Future Emerging Technologies projects SIMPOL and DOLFINS investigating how to improve financial stability and how to better channel finance towards sustainability in a networked economy.

Leo Halepli (1981 – 2021 R.I.P.)

Founder

Leo has had an unlikely and varied career. Growing up in an international crafts based family business in the Grand Bazaar in Turkey, he was exposed to the value of design and a no-nonsense approach to trade and business. Graduating proudly with Distinction from an MSc program at London School of Economics, he pursued PhD level research, organised NGOs, and participated in the public dialogue on Political Economy, with a focus on European economics, public policy, and business. He was a researcher in the Anglo German Foundation’s project, Developing Sustainable Growth in Europe.
An avid enthusiast of complex adaptive systems, he became particularly interested in the application of change and transformational methodologies to human systems. Since 2011, he has been associated with Applied Behavioral Technologies and the JS Riggio Institute in Princeton, NJ.

Working very closely with the founder, he has undertaken over 2000 hours of training, development, and supervised application of communication, leadership, and transformational technologies.
Leo’s passion is in shifting human systems towards taking sustainable and integral action. He brings significant expertise in developmental methodologies and organisational development, integrated nicely with a holistic approach balancing system dynamics and societal trends. Leo has been highly influential in shaping Social-i’s core approaches to Adult Development, by introducing and sharing his vast knowledge and experience in applications of the Clare Graves ECLET Model, Spiral Dynamics™ and Brain Technologies Corp. self-assessment tools, as well as the Optimum Balance Model formation.

Aykut Altın

Managing Partner / VP Communications

Belma Öcal

VP Community Engagement

Selin Sertel

Coach & Trainer

She is a Hatha yoga trainer and advanced scuba diver.

Hamza Zeytinoglu MD

Founder & President

Aida Aliyeva

Marketing

As an established scholar, Aida received her Bachelor degree from Azerbaijan State Economic University on International Economic Relations, followed consecutively by a Masters degree from Azerbaijan State Oil Academy on International Economic Relations and a PhD degree from the National Aviation Academy on International Economic Relations. Ms. Aliyeva furthered her studies and certifications through attendance on topics such as “Principles And Practices Of Islamic Economics And Banking”, “The sustainable development of the economy of Azerbaijan” and “Economic Growth”.

Her work experience started with organizational management roles in university settings, and as well as private companies covering all business aspects. With her passion for tourism and promotion of the charms of her beloved country, Aida worked as an economist at Azerbaijan Airlines CJSC, deputy director of Khazar Travel, and as operations director at G5 Travel. Her experience in the field led to launching her own brand A Lines ”MICE And Leisure Travel” where she still works as founder/ director since July 2019. She is a teacher at Azerbaijan State Economic University since September 2020 where she combines effective plans with measures to increase concentration, participation and progress incorporating multimedia learning tools to meet academic, intellectual and social needs of students.

Aida excels in driving community support with proactive approaches and diligent leadership of physical resources and personnel. She has advanced proficiency in English, Russian, Turkish and Azerbaijani.

Rza Huseynov

Country Representative

Rza graduated in 2016 from Azerbaijan State Oil and Industry University (ASOIU) in Baku, Azerbaijan with a Bachelor’s degree in Petroleum Engineering. Courses of ASOIU are enough to bring up a well-equipped engineer; however, taking supplementary courses is better. Therefore, I attempted several courses such as “Drilling Engineering” and “AutoCAD”. Additionally, because of my curiosity, I worked on my own to gain new computer skills such as Excel VBA and C++. Afterwards, from 2019 to 2021, I worked at SOCAR as an engineer. In 2020 I was accepted to the Master of Science program in petroleum engineering at Heriot-Watt University where I am still a student at.

All this learning and working experiences came to a point while crossing each other to clear the vision of my real passion which is coding. Then, I resigned from my job and started to learn programing languages with a different approach to life which made me to realize that no matter how much we are experienced or skilled, it is the brain that sets the limits to evaluate our environment. Therefore, I studied Spiral Dynamics to learn about development of psychological levels in both individuals and communities. As a sign of my endless enthusiasm to learn, I am now a Value Match Certified Practitioner.

Khurshud Huseynova

Pulmonary Med. – INTERACT

Khurshud studied at Nakhchivan High School No. 12 (1996-2007) and then graduated from Azerbaijan Medical University (2013). Following her first years of experience, she worked as a general practitioner at Başkent University Hospital in 2016. In 2015-2017, Khurshud successfully passed the Level Determination, Foreign Language, and Medical Specialization exams and started her specialty training at Hacettepe University, Department of Chest Diseases and continues to work there to date. With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Azerbaijan in 2020, she served as a consultant physician in REACT C-19, a project of the World Health Organization, she was responsible for the follow-up of up-to-date academic publications for the entire project, evaluation of evidence for direct action, daily follow-up of the teams’ activities in the field work.

She took a leading role in the preparation and presentation of training, reporting and health professionals. In the same year, upon the call of the Ministry of Health, she worked at the Yeni Klinika hospital in Azerbaijan within the framework of the pandemic response. The Early Career Task Group of the Turkish Thoracic Society, of which she is a member, is in the MECOR task group. Among her active academic activities, she participated in courses and congresses such as Thorax Radiology Symposium, Cystic Fibrosis Symposium, innovations in ILD, Turkish Thoracic Society Chest Diseases Winter School, Turkish Thoracic Society 23rd Annual Congress (online). “Coronavirus (COVID-19); Where Did It Come From, Where Will It Go?”, “Clinical implications of fungal isolation from sputum in adult patients with cystic fibrosis,” “COVID-19 related: 5 case reports”, presented and published on her particular areas of interest with his papers such as “A Case of Squamous Cell Lung Cancer Presenting with ADH Syndrome”. In 2021, she attended a diction and effective speaking course with Erdoğan Arikan in terms of personal development and received her certificate. He received the Valuematch/ Spiral Dynamics Practitioner certificate in 2021 in order to contribute to his medical career, those who are at the beginning of this career, and health change and transformation projects.

There is the AZAAD working group, where I manage a multi-centered study, which we established with Azerbaijani physicians in 2019.

Thesis location: The prevalence of allergic rhinitis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and affecting factors in Azerbaijan. A study conducted in 4 centers
Evaluation of the prevalence of allergic rhinitis, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and affecting factors in Azerbaijan.
Inauguration of AZAAD –> Azerbaijan asthma and Allergy Diseases. We started it with the mentorship of Ali Fuat Kalyoncu and Ahmet Uğur Demir.

Cebrayil Cebrayilov

Internal Med./ Nephrology – INTERACT

Belma Öcal

VP Community Engagement

Khurshud Huseynova

Pulmonary Med. – INTERACT

There is the AZAAD working group, where I manage a multi-centered study, which we established with Azerbaijani physicians in 2019.

Hamza Zeytinoglu MD

Founder & President

Aykut Altın

Managing Partner / VP Communications

Selin Sertel

Coach & Trainer

She is a Hatha yoga trainer and advanced scuba diver.

Rza Huseynov

Country Representative

Gulay Topcu MD

Managing Partner, Healthcare Services

Gulay Topcu, Sr.Consultant to “Social-i Health Progress” received her academic education as a medical doctor at the Istanbul University-Cerrahpasa Faculty of Medicine (Turkey). She also holds certifications in Occupational Health & Safety, OH&S Trainer, and Disaster Management. From graduation to September 2007, she worked in several hospitals throughout Turkey for MoH Turkey where she had extensive field experience. Between 1999-2004 She took part in different disaster fields as a field coordinator in Iran (Bam earthquake, coordination / S&R team, Field Hospital), Istanbul (British Embassy and HSBC, Sisli Sinagog terrorist bomb attack) Bolu and Izmit Earthquake (1999 – volunteer )was responsible for the organize and manage field team and coordinate communications.

All these assignments were focused on the impact of medical procedures in improving patient care, enhancing medical workflows, and bringing specialized expertise in prehospital emergency care and disaster management.From 2004 she led a prehospital emergency care team training project. Her key skills lie in the planning of health systems. She has experience in the areas of health reforms, Health Management and Planning, Program / Project Management, as well as management and development of health indicators. She managed healthcare projects as a medical director in different countries, such as Kazakhstan and Turkey, including work on the national and international emergency medical response for humanitarian help.

From 2007 until 2016 September, she was responsible for managing and implementing Occupational Health & Safety, Quality Standards in Corporate Medical Services, outbreak assessment, and management of the emergency response teams. As a part of the disaster management executive team, she organized the emergency response team’s training and drills with different scenarios in emergency response plans for various international companies (Bayer, Pfizer, Nova Nordisk ) Her focus is on integrated health management, occupational health management systems, and quality control in Occupational Medicine. She is a certified internal auditor for OHSAS 18001.During her professional career in occupational health services in Turkey, she taught Occupational Health in academic programs in Istanbul, both in the classroom and field( Acibadem University Public Health intern program, Okan University and ISIK University OH&S training program, etc ) She worked with “Akademedya Software Ltd” and participated in the project of occupational healthcare software for the workplace.

From 2016 to 2021 she worked as Deputy General Director of the Pervaya Pomosh where her responsibilities may be summarized as service development (including the construction of the call center), digital transformation program (development and start-up of a new generation emergency call center and ambulance software program), and she monitored the management team and the operations of the prehospital emergency healthcare quality.

With her mastery of the variations of healthcare services and medical training between Turkey, Europe and CIS countries she co-founded “Social-i Health Progress” and pursues teh design and building of a new multidisciplinary hospitals and primary care settings, emergency and mobile healthcare, specialist trainings, and quality management in Kazakhstan.

Hamza Zeytinoglu MD

Founder & President

Huda El-Dosougi

Digital Health Applications

Cebrayil Cebrayilov

Internal Med./ Nephrology – INTERACT

Mesut Ceylan

Artificial Intelligence Eng.

Mesut Ceylan is a tech-savvy AI engineer with several years of experience in deploying deep learning and machine learning algorithms in Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing, Time Series and Signal Processing. Currently, he is completing his data science postgraduate degree at the University of Zürich and ETH Zürich. He has been specializing in the healthcare domain to leverage the power of artificial intelligence to tackle difficult problems in the field, focusing on scalable patient-oriented and data-driven innovative solutions. When away from the computer, he keeps busy exploring the amazing sceneries that nature offers and experimenting with culinary skills as a foodie.