Ekrem Imamoglu was born in Trabzon in 1970.He graduated from Istanbul University with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Following his undergraduate studies, he also attended and completed a Master of Science program on HR Management at the same university. He played footbol while he was student. He became a board member of Trabzonspor Club, Football, Basketbal and Beylikduzuspor.

In 1992, he started working for the family business while he was still a graduate student. He then became the CEO of the group companies. Under his management, the company mostly operated on urban planning and the housing projects. While he was building and planning for housing complexes to raise the living standards of the people, he encountered some problems pertaining to the political processes which resulted in a decision to become a public servant and solve problems of political nature.

He joined Republican People’s Party’s (CHP), the main opposition party in years, and became a party member. He worked hard for his party’s field campaigns, and in a short time he was elected the district head of CHP for the Beylikduzu in 2009. In the local elections of March 30, 2014, he became the elected Mayor of Beylikduzu. In the following years of successful management, Mr. Imamoglu captured the attention of society, media and the academia. Thanks to the positive changes he made in social life, infrastructure services and the living standards of Beylikduzu, he received a big support from the citizens of Beylikduzu district.

CHP appointed Mr. Imamoglu as the candidate for the Mayor of Istanbul in the local elections of March 31, 2019. After an inspiring campaigning process of three months, he became the elected Mayor of Istanbul. But this did not last long; in the 18^th day of his mayorship, YSK cancelled the elections and announced a re-election date, June 23, 2019.

Mr. Imamoglu started his re-election campaign with an historic speech. His speech organically became the hope for his disappointed supporters and symbolized a moment of encouragement to fight for freedom and democracy in Turkey. His victory on June 23 with %54,2 support of votes became a milestone for the future of Turkey.

Mr. Imamoğlu is married, have 3 kids and lives in Beylikduzu since 1991.

Ahmet Gülüm was born in 1961, in Istanbul. After his education at Vefa High School, he studied Economy in Marmara University Administrative Sciences Faculty. He concluded his education after graduating from his master’s degree on business management. During his volleyball career, he played for Beşiktaş (1972-1979), Hisarbank Sakarya Karadeniz Spor (1979-1982), Galatasaray (1982-1991) and Arçelik (1991-1993). He was the team captain of Galatasaray for 9 years and Arçelik for 2 years. During his captaincy, Galatasaray Volleyball Team won the Turkish Championship for three times, from 1986 to 1989 successively. He wore the national team jersey for 158 times in different categories like youth, A, military and university. During his captaincy in the national teams, he received many international prizes in the tournaments such as Balkan Championships, Mediterranean Games, Spring Cup and World Military Volleyball Championship. When Turkey won the World Military Volleyball Championship and Galatasaray took in the third position at Balkan tournament, he was elected as the best setter. In 1984, he became the first athlete from volleyball to be nominated for the Athlete of the Year Award by Milliyet Newspaper.

After retiring from volleyball as an athlete, he pursued his passion in the business side of sports. In 1992, Ahmet Gülüm led the group which brought the first international Beach Volleyball organization to Turkey. He had notable impact on the growth of beach volleyball in the country. Later on, he was elected as the president of Turkish Volleyball Federation and Turkish Volleyball Foundation. He was in Beach Volleyball World Council and FIVB Marketing Council as a member. Furthermore, he was on presidential duty of CEV Marketing Commission. In 1998, he was chosen as the sportsperson of the year by two newspapers, Fanatik and Zaman. In 1999, he was selected as the sportsperson of the year once again, according to evaluation of Milliyet. He has been a member of Turkish National Olympic Committee since 1996.

Ahmet Gülüm founded Sportsnet in 2001, which is Turkey’s first and only sports focused marketing and communication agency. Sportsnet turned into a group of companies by specializing and growing in different service areas. First came the event company, Allsports. It was followed by Turkey’s first sports oriented digital agency Vo2. Following Vo2, sportstv was founded which brought Turkey’s most various sports content together with the TV audience. Since its’ inception, The Group has been giving sports related marketing and communication services to leading brands such as Beko, Petrol Ofisi, Vestel, Turkcell, Orkid (Always), Aroma, TEB, Turkish Airlines, P&G, Gillette. It also executed the communication works for important sports organizations hosted in Turkey. İzmir and Erzurum Universiade, Moto GP, Formula 1, World Basketball Championship, TEB BNP Paribas WTA Championships in Istanbul 2011-2013 are some of the notable examples. Last but not least, in 2015 Ahmet Gülüm founded BİLGİSpor, an undergraduate sports business program, in collaboration with Bilgi University. He is an active lecturer in the program.

John Zimmerman is an interaction designer and researcher, and Professor at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. John teaches courses on interaction design, service innovation, design theory, and designing for AI. His research falls into four areas: interaction with intelligent systems; designing for the self;  public service innovation via social computing; and research through design. His research is concerned with the process of making things as the mechanism to explore possible futures. John studies how design inquiry can be integrated with scientific and engineering inquiry. His academic contributions are seminal in the field of HCI, primarily, in matters concerned with research through design and interaction with intelligent system. John is a co-author of the book Design Research through Practice. He’s also co-inventor of the way everyone scrolls their smartphones and tablets.

Feryal Ozel is a Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Department of Astronomy at University of Arizona. She has made pioneering contributions to the physics of neutron stars and black holes, as well as to the co-evolution of black holes and galaxies in the early Universe. Dr. Ozel made the first accurate measurements of the neutron star radii that constrain the ultradense matter equation of state.  Based on her work on accretion flows, she made the first size predictions of the images of nearby supermassive black holes at different wavelengths.

Dave was born in east London, and won a Rockerfeller Scholarship to Pratt Institute in New York to study advertising. He mainly trained at Carl Ally Inc, and came back to London to work at BMP with John Webster. He became Joint Creative Director and, in 1980, he left to found Gold Greenlees Trott (GGT).
GGT was voted ‘Agency of the Year’ by Campaign and ‘Most Creative Agency in the World’ by Ad Age in New York. In 1990 Dave founded Bainsfair Sharky Trott with the Managing Directors of Saatchi & Saatchi. In 1993 he co-founded Walsh Trott Chick Smith. In 2003 this merged with The Gate and in 2005, he became Chairman until 2014.
Dave has been given the D&AD President’s Award, for lifetime achievement. He has also written three books: ‘Creative Mischief’, ‘Predatory Thinking’, and ‘1+1=3’ (to be published in June).
In the 1970s Dave set up the ‘D&AD Creative Workshop’ course. He has trained hundreds of young creatives, many of whom are now London’s top creative directors and teachers.

Çetin graduated from the Physics Department, Boğaziçi University, in 1996. He received his master’s degree in 1998 and PhD in 2003 for his studies at the CERN ATLAS experiment with counsel from Prof. Engin Arık in the field of Experimental Particle Physics. Having been working at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences at İstanbul Bilgi University since September 2015, Çetin founded the Particle Physics Application and Research Centre in March 2016. After holding the office of Vice-Rector at İstanbul Bilgi University from 2017 to 2018, Çetin worked as the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences at the same university between 2018 and 2019. He laid the groundwork for the foundation of Experimental Particle Physics General Committee and Senior Committee in his endeavours to ensure the unification and representation of the Experimental Particle Physics community. He was elected Chair of the Senior Committee in 2016. Çetin took part in the ATLAS and CAST experiments conducted at CERN, and the BES-III experiment conducted at the Chinese Institute of Particle Physics as the national coordinator, and the Turkish Accelerator Centre Project as a university representative. Having authored numerous experimental and phenomenological publications in the journals searched at international citation indexes, Çetin has been cited many times for his publications. Çetin received the “Turkish Physics Association Professor Şevket Erk Young Scientist Award” in 2004, the “Turkish Academy of Sciences High-Achieving Scientist Award” in 2008, the “Turkish Physics Association Professor Engin Arık Scientist Award” in 2015, and the “Turkish Physics Association Honorary Award” in 2017.

Ranked as one of the top ranked “leadership gurus” in the world, Sally Helgesen is a pioneer researcher, speaker, and consultant on women’s styles of leadership and the unique contributions they make to the workplace. She focuses on honing women’s leadership styles, creating inclusive company cultures, and equipping men in senior positions to fully engage women’s talents and potential.

In her bestselling The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership, Sally was the first to focus on what women have to contribute to organizations rather than how they need to change and adapt. She is also the author of the award-winning The Web of Inclusion: A New Architecture for Building Great Organizations, and four other books, the most recent being The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work. Her work has been profiled by Fortune, The New York Times, Fast Company, and Business Week.

Sally has served as a consultant for The United Nations, where her pioneering studies on inclusive leadership and the increasing power of individuals in shaping their own work was the basis for the creation of a group of “Centers of Experimentation” that administer leadership programs in developing countries.

Having read Physics at Oxford, Les took an M. Phil. in Artificial Intelligence at Edinburgh University. His research there focussed on the use of computer models to study the way human beings process language. In 1987, he joined the Account Planning department at BMP, where he turned his modelling skills to the problem of measuring the effects of advertising. He is currently Head of Effectiveness at adam&eve DDB, and runs DDB Matrix, the network’s econometrics consultancy.
Over the years, Les has worked for a wide range of blue chip clients, including AXA, Barclaycard, Heinz, Nestlé, Phillips, Unilever, Virgin and Volkswagen. He has also played an important part in establishing the agency’s reputation for effectiveness, having won more IPA Advertising Effectiveness Awards than anyone else in the history of the competition.