Akin will focus on strategic business development, working alongside Dr Erhan Ermis, one of our co-founders, and Pietro Vecchiato, our other Vice-President of Client Partnerships. A key element of his role will be identifying opportunities in new markets and building new long-term client relationships that can help our growing business scale up. 

As well as expanding our capacity on the client side, he will bolster our executive suite and brings 13 years of strategic business leadership and consulting experience to our growing team.  

“Hyphen is combining the best of an executive search business, a top-tier consulting firm and a tech company – this shows how innovative the company is and is why I wanted to be a part of this,” said Akin, who is based in Istanbul. “The team here is exceptional and I have total confidence in the value proposition. 

“Being able to identify the very best people – in terms of cultural fit as well as talent – for every single project is so important; doing that while offering flexible engagement models and all the additional support services is truly impressive. When you also consider the other ideas the team has that can help it to keep improving, this is a tremendous opportunity to build something special.” 

He added: “There is no company like Hyphen in the market, anywhere, so the potential is huge. There are some things that Hyphen does that no one is doing, it’s unique. I strongly believe there is a big market and a big need for our services and what the company is doing so I think there’s no limit to how global we can go.” 

Akin joins Hyphen from global financial services giant Mastercard, where he has served as Vice-President – High Growth European Market Regional Advisors Lead for four years. Prior to that, he worked for nine years with international professional services giant Boston Consulting Group in Turkey and New York, USA. 

As well as his illustrious professional career to date, Akin also holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, USA, and a BSc in Mechatronics Engineering from Sabanci University, Turkey. 

His connection with Hyphen dates long before his decision to join. As well as working with Erhan at BCG, he also studied and lived with another of our co-founders, Michael Savolainen, while working towards his postgraduate degree in New York City. 

Erhan said: “We are very happy to have Akin on board, his experience and business acumen are going to be huge assets to the company. He has already achieved a great deal in his career with BCG and Mastercard and we are confident his skill set will be a perfect fit here too. 

“So much of our business is based on relationships and we believe our existing ones can help us here as we already know exactly what Akin is capable of. He has shown a real understanding of what we are trying to achieve, and I speak for everyone at the company when I say that we are certain he is the right person to help us go to the next level.” 

Michael added: “Akin is one of the most ambitious people I have ever met and he has an exceptional ability to connect with people on a personal level. I am happy to have such a dear friend join us at Hyphen and I look forward to more adventures together.” 

Welcome to Hyphen, Akin! 

For MEDIA, please see the press release here.