Country Manager and Trade Commissioner
Business Sweden - The Swedish Trade & Invest Council
Total years of experience :16 years, 6 Months
• Full responsibility for the operations of Business Sweden Türkiye office, including profit & loss, sales targets, key account management, marketing, human resources, compliance, alliance building and diplomatic representation
• Lead a team of four skilled and experienced consultants - team building and leadership.
• Manage, plan, lead and quality assure consulting assignments
• Drive sales and marketing of service offerings/product portfolio to existing and potential clients, both in Sweden, the region and in the local market, and ensuring development of business processes and the organisation
• Evaluate business opportunities for Swedish businesses and investment interest from Turkish businesses and ultimately turn them into trade/invest promotion or business development projects.
• Manage and develop relationships with key clients and stakeholders at the highest level of seniority within the Turkish and Swedish business communities, as well as with Turkish governmental stakeholders.
• Advise on and coordinate trade promotion activities with the Consulate General of Sweden in Istanbul, the Embassy of Sweden in Ankara and the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Türkiye
• Frequent moderator role at business promotion events
Selected projects
• EPC Alliance by Sweden - is a platform promoting Swedish export credit financing to international infrastructure projects. Initiated by me as Construction Summit Turkey in 2019, and transformed into EPC Alliance by Sweden covering EMEA, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Resulted in a Turkish railway project financing (462 MEUR). (www.epc-alliance.se)
• Nordic Sustainable Mining Türkiye - initiated by me in 2019 as a yearly Swedish-Turkish platform and in 2023 transformed into a Swedish-Finnish-Turkish initiative. (https://invitepeople.com/events/ea88f34733)
• 1st Türkiye-Sweden JETCO meeting - prepared Türkiye-Sweden Business Roundtable as part of the 1st TR-SE Joint Economic & Trade Commission
• Business development consulting, trade promotion and governmental affairs management for Swedish companies in Austria, Switzerland, Southeastern Europe (Balkans), Hungary and Israel.
• Consulting primarily within go-to-market strategy, direct sales, partner and key account management, market entry analysis, governmental and public affairs management.
• Role encompassed project management, business development support to Swedish clients, client management, budgeting and project administration.
• Responsible for the management and development of several business promotion initiatives, such as Swiss Nordic Bio in Switzerland 2015-2019 (see below), SymbioCare - Health by Sweden in Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary 2013-2019 (a government initiative to promote Swedish healthcare and life science internationally and to spur collaboration - www.symbiocare.org) and Nordic.Light.&.Design. in Austria and Switzerland 2013-2019 (a platform for promotion of Nordic furniture and lighting design to Austrian and Swiss architects, planners and interior designers)
Selected projects
• Swiss Nordic Bio - is a high-level partnering and investor conference aimed at connecting healthcare innovations, investors and industry. Responsible for the entire project including building strategic national partnerships with Switzerland and the Nordic countries as well as with investors and big pharma. This encompassed comprehensive understanding and involvement in various aspects such as out- and in-licensing deals, as well as capital raising activities - www.swissnordicbio.com
Duties include start-up and market analysis, and partner/client searches, as well as to help with more specific tasks such as the arrangement and holding of business meetings and other assistance to our clients. In addition, I answer export-related questions from Swedish enterprises and am involved in marketing and promoting prioritized Swedish industrial sectors and enterprises.
Recent projects: Medtech and biotech partnering conference: Swiss-Scandinavian Bio-Business Seminar 2012 & 2013 in Zürich (www.ssbbs2013.com)
Swedish Lighting and Furniture networking event SWEDISH.LIGHT.&.DESIGN.2012 in Zürich and Vienna
High-level Investment Summit Croatia-SEE 2012 in Zagreb
Various other consulting projects within medtech/biotech/life science, waste management, defense industry, public adminstration support, etc.
• Assisted & advised the Deputy Head of delegation on all issues.
• Coordinated the 27 EU Member States on management and finance related issues (in particular negotiations on the OSCE budget).
• Assisted in drafting and coordinating the weekly EU statements in the Permanent Council
• Responsible for monitoring the developments in the Western Balkans as well as revamping the procedure for Swedish extra-budgetary financing of OSCE projects.
• Overall responsible for Swedish extra-budgetary contributions in the Human Dimension.
Responsibilities included drafting of legal opinions, contracts, drafting of briefs in courts and arbitral tribunal proceedings as well as representing clients in meetings and hearings. Successful representation, jointly with a partner, of client in an Italian-Russian Arbitration proceeding before the Arbitral Tribunal of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce throughout the whole process.
