Mehmet Gerz

Mehmet Gerz, who has been serving as the CEO of Ata Portföy Asset Management for 13 years, previously worked as the General Manager responsible for Turkey, the Middle East, and Central Asia investments at the American fund management company, Drake Capital. With 27 years of experience in the finance sector, Mehmet Gerz held positions such as Deputy General Manager at Yapı Kredi Investment, as well as research management roles at Bayındır Securities, Oyak Investment, GFC Securities, and Sparx, a Japanese fund management company.

Gerz, who studied Electrical-Electronics Engineering at Boğaziçi University as a Vehbi Koç Foundation scholar, completed his dual master's degree (MBA/MS) in finance at the University of Maryland in the United States with a scholarship from the Turkish Education Foundation. Alongside his professional career, Gerz paused his doctoral studies in Business Administration at Istanbul Technical University during the thesis stage. He currently serves as the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors at FODER (Financial Literacy and Access Association), as well as a board member at the Investment Professionals Association ("CFA Society of Istanbul") and the Rize Cultural and Social Assistance Foundation.

Contributing to education, Gerz teaches financial literacy courses at various universities and has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Turkish Education Foundation. He has been serving as a jury member for the CFA Research Challenge in both Turkey and the United States for the past 10 years and has been part of a team aimed at contributing behaviorally to the financial decisions of the middle/lower-income groups in society through an international project conducted in collaboration with FODER and Duke University for the last three years.

Mehmet Gerz, who writes an economics column called "Markets" in the monthly business magazine, Capital, is proficient in English and has intermediate proficiency in German.