Expert

Sinem Yüksel

Commercial Growth & Customer Transformation Executive | Fractional Executive & Board Advisor

A graduate of Istanbul University with a degree in Economics and Koç University with an Executive MBA, Sinem Yüksel is a senior executive, board advisor, and fractional executive with over 25 years of experience across banking, telecommunications, technology, and mobility. Throughout her career, she has held leadership roles at leading companies including Citibank, Deutsche Bank, IBM, Turkcell, and TikTak, focusing on commercial growth, customer experience, digital transformation, and P&L management. She currently serves as Chief Customer Officer at TikTak, providing strategic advisory and leadership support to companies in growth, customer transformation, digital and AI-enabled CX, and scale-up strategies.

Sinem Yüksel is a C-level executive with over 25 years of leadership experience in commercial growth, customer strategy, and business transformation. Throughout her career across banking, telecommunications, technology, and mobility, spanning large-scale corporate organizations to technology-driven scale-ups, she has led P&L management, growth strategies, customer lifecycle, and digital transformation.

A graduate of American Robert College and Istanbul University’s Economics Department, Yüksel completed the Executive MBA program at Koç University, sponsored by Citibank, and attended the Global Leadership and Leading the Future programs at IMD Business School.

Yüksel began her career at Citibank Consumer Banking Türkiye, where she held various roles in digital and alternative sales and service channel strategy, product management, and marketing. She subsequently contributed to the establishment of Deutsche Bank Türkiye’s consumer banking operations and advised on customer-centric transformation projects within IBM Business Services.

In 2007, Yüksel joined the Turkcell Group. After taking responsibility for customer operations at Global Bilgi, overseeing more than 1,500 employees and a €75 million budget, she went on to hold senior leadership roles at Turkcell for more than 12 years across sales transformation, customer experience, digital channels, and commercial performance.

On the B2B side, she led sales transformation and segmentation strategies covering 900,000 corporate customers, delivering €7 million in operational savings, a 20% reduction in customer complaints, and a 300% increase in the adoption of a digital corporate service platform.

From 2016 to 2022, Yüksel served as Turkcell Group Customer Experience Director, leading the end-to-end customer experience strategy for more than 36 million customers and managing a €120 million budget and a team of more than 50 professionals. She generated €70 million in value through digital channel and service transformation while leading major initiatives across CX analytics, customer-centric culture transformation, the redesign of the Turkcell app, the loyalty program, and digital service transformation.

In 2022, Yüksel joined TikTak as Chief Marketing & Experience Officer. Over the following four years, her CMO role expanded to include sales and commercial responsibilities, and she led the development of the company’s commercial growth model. As part of her P&L responsibilities, she managed growth and revenue strategy, customer acquisition and retention, customer lifecycle, brand, sales, and strategic partnerships. She also established a cross-functional operating model that brought Product, Technology, Data, and Operations teams together around shared growth objectives. This period combined her corporate leadership experience with the speed of a scale-up, platform economics, and unit economics discipline.

Following TikTak’s acquisition of GetirAraç, she led the end-to-end integration process covering customers, product, technology, fleet, teams, and commercial growth.

Since May 2026, Yüksel has served as Chief Customer Officer and Executive Board Member at TikTak, leading a transformation agenda that positions customer strategy as a core component of growth and business performance. She focuses on transforming critical customer journeys by connecting customer insights, operational data, and technology with business priorities; developing AI, automation, and self-service models; strengthening customer lifecycle and loyalty; and systematically translating customer-driven problems into business outcomes and transformation actions. She leads cross-functional programs that align Product, Technology, Operations, and Data teams around shared customer and business objectives.

Yüksel currently serves as Chairperson of the Türkiye Customer Experience Awards for the 2025–2026 period. She has served as a judging committee member of the International Customer Experience Awards and as an Advisory Board Member of Turkcell Group Companies. She has also completed the YKKD / Women on Board Board Membership Certificate Program focused on board development.

Bringing together corporate-scale, scale-up, and transformation experience, Yüksel can support companies seeking to accelerate growth, strengthen the connection between customer strategy and commercial outcomes, or enter a new phase of growth and transformation through fractional executive, strategic advisory, and board advisory models.

Areas of Contribution

Commercial growth and growth strategies
P&L management and unit economics
Customer-led business transformation
Customer experience strategy and transformation
Customer lifecycle, retention, and loyalty
Digital and AI-enabled transformation
Go-to-market and new growth opportunities
Scale-up leadership and sustainable growth
Post-M&A integration and transformation
Customer analytics and insight-to-action
Sales and commercial transformation
Cross-functional organization and transformation management
C-level strategic advisory and fractional executive support
Board / advisory board perspective

Areas of Expertise

Sinem Yüksel