“Leadership is about understanding people, motivating teams, and focusing their thoughts and behavior on the realization of a shared goal.”

Semih’s international banking experience gives him an approach to coaching that is rich with global perspective and people savvy. 

Experience

Semih’s coaching is informed by his leadership experience in the banking sector and his deep knowledge of international finance. During a 20-year career that included posts in Citibank and Koç-Unicredit, Semih developed a strong “global finance” perspective. For more than five years, he was a board director of the prestigious Asian Banking Association.

He assumed upper-level executive roles and policy-making positions including executive vice president responsible for international banking—honing his decision-making and negotiation skills through several thousand international meetings with partner banks.

While managing a global, multi-cultural portfolio of clients, he succeeded by understanding people, motivating teams, and focusing their thoughts and behaviors around the realization of tangible, common goals. Semih also worked to acquire the communication skills necessary to thrive in a multi-cultural environment.

Beginning as a Citibank executive trainee in 1988, he did his core banking training at Citibank's center in Singapore. He later worked at Finansbank, and joined Koçbank in 1991.

At Kocbank Semih became skilled in the management of partner relationships, risk, and investment capital. Heading the “financial institutions and international relations” departments as executive vice president, his responsibilities included relationships with local and international banks and financial institutions; fund raising from international capital markets; and the management of country and bank risks.

Following his banking career, he acted as the Deputy President for Economic and Financial Affairs in one of Turkey’s major political parties and also served as Advisor to Deputy Chairman. His most recent assignment has been consulting one of the nation’s largest banks on a major restructuring and talent assessment project.