Dr. Gürkan Üstünkar

gürkan üstünkar

WORK EXPERIENCE

Uygulamaliverimadenciligi.com (02/16 - Now) Trainer, Consultant

  • Applied data mining training program via RapidMiner.
  • Clustering, classification, association rule mining, recommender systems, time series analysis on marketing, finance data

 

FORMETRE (02/16 - Now)

Co-Founder

  • Founded mHealth startup on wearable technologies.
  • Algorithm development for calorie calculation and MET.
  • Specified software requirements, system architecture and developed UI design for mobile application.
  • Managed vendor activities for mobile development.
  • Business development activities with various parties (Turkcell, fitness centers, dieticians, manufacturer).
  • Skills: Business development, System Requirement Specification, Project Management, Vendor Management, Data Analysis (mining data from MySQL DB)

 

EMAKINA.TR, European Digital Agency (08/15 – 02/16) Director

  • Designed and implemented performance management system.
  • Improved recruitment process.
  • Recruited high profile managers and software developers.
  • Implemented emloyee engagement survey and directed follow up actions.
  • R&D grants application (TUBİTAK TEYDEB).
  • Initiated weekly employee training sessions.
  • Skills: Performance Management, Recruiting, Organizational Management

 

AVANDEL, Salesforce Certified Partner (03/14 – 07/15) Director

  • Served as the Executive Director of R&D Center of Avandel, Salesforce Certified IT Consultancy Partner
  • Managed daily operations, software development and business development efforts.
  • Implemented QA & standardization to Agile Software Delivery process (daily scrums, sprint planning, sprint retrospective).
  • Project manager for Force.com implementation projects.
  • Acted as escalation manager for EMEA projects.
  • Built out both management layers as well as technical layers of delivery center by recruiting highly capable talent.
  • Skills: Engagement management, enterprise cloud applications, project management, proposal writing, EVM, Agile SW development, business development, SW requirements analysis, Salesforce CRM.

 

VESTEL, Customer Services (10/13 – 03/14) Business Support Manager

  • Managed quality and process management functions in Customer Services Center.
  • Business development and project management for various decision support systems used in center.
  • Skills: Project management, KPIs, business development, quality management, SW requirements analysis, SAP CRM.

 

VESTEL, R&D - Innovation Management (05/11 – 10/13)

Senior Researcher/Project Manager

  • Lead recommendation engine project for Vestel Smart TV that recommends multimedia content and TV programs depending on user profile.
  • Acted as project coordinator for various EU/government funded R&D projects (AppsGate, Global ITV). Proposal preperation and coordination activities.
  • Acted as coordinator for Vestel Technology Academy, a collaborative program with Özyeğin University aimed towards providing graduate education to Vestel engineers onsite. Taught Quantiative Decision Making, Data Mining and Innovation and Technology Management.
  • Skills: Project management, innovation and technology management, business development, proposal management, SW requirements analysis, recommender systems, data mining, MS SQL Server, Perl, MS Office.

 

VESTEL, IT (09/09 – 05/11)

IT Specialist

  • Vendor selection and management for IT projects.
  • Requirement analysis, solution design and project management for SAP projects.
  • Skills: Sourcing, project management, requirement analysis, negotiations, business development, SAP.

 

MOPROMO (07/08 – 09/09)

Co-Founder

  • Created the business idea and prepared the business plan for a company specialized in Bluetooth marketing, which enables companies to distribute advertising/promotional content (image, audio, video files) to bluetooth enabled mobile phones of customers.
  • Sourced the bluetooth server units from a Thailand based manufacturer.
  • Prepared governmental R&D funds applications (TEYDEB, KOSGEB).
  • Successfully implemented the network in Romania (50 different locations including McDonalds restaurants and bars in Bucharest) and launched Carlsberg EURO 2008 mobile advertising campaign.
  • Skills: Project management, risk management, MS Project Server, MS Office.

 

AYESAŞ, PMO (05/04 – 07/08)

Project Management Specialist

  • Assisted technical project managers in project planning, control and performance management for 6 different C4I projects with CMMI Level 3 process maturity.
  • Skills: Project management, risk management, Primavera, MS Office.

 

EDUCATION

MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY, Informatics Institute               Ankara, Turkey

Ph.D., Information Systems, January 2011                                                      2004-2011

  • Research topics: Data mining techniques for massive data sets, algorithm development, decision support systems.
  • Skills: Java, MySQL, RapidMiner, WEKA.

 

TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY, Dwight Look College of Engineering           College Station, TX, U.S.A.

M.Eng., Industrial Engineering, May 2004                                                          2002-2004

  • Research topics: Advanced logistics, supply chain management, algorithm development.
  • Full scholarship awarded during graduate studies.
  • Skills: C++, Matlab.

 

BİLKENT UNIVERSITY, Faculty of Engineering                                          Ankara, Turkey

B.S., Industrial Engineering, June 2002                                                              1998-2002

  • Full scholarship awarded during undergraduate studies.
  • Skills: SPSS, Lindo, SIMAN.

 

AWARDS

  • Ranked 2nd in graduation in class of 1998 Izmir Ataturk Lisesi among 400 graduates.
  • Ranked 56th in university entrance exam in 1998 among 1.5 million.