Chief Information Officer

ALİ ÇÖPLÜ

Tarabya mah Çamlık Cad. No:*/*

Sarıyer/İstanbul Turkey

+90-212-***-**-** +90-533-***-**-**

********@*****.*** AliCopluBT

PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

Managed and led the IT teams, who were in charge of transformation projects in the biggest Turkish and American financial institutions.

Worked as the main responsible leader in charge of analyzing the IT needs and requirements of leading financial institutions: setting up short-term, mid-term and long-term Information Technology strategies.

Completed various large projects including process reengineering and optimization, building systems for new optimized processes in retail banking, investment banking and capital market institutions.

Built a complete, working knowledge of interrelations amongst the financial and economic institutions in Turkey and the USA, such as regulatory agencies, self-regulatory agencies, quasi-governmental and for-profit corporations.

Worked on the data modelling and implementation of various Front-, Mid- and Back-Office applications.

Delivered several projects with very aggressive deadlines on-time, on-budget and with the requisite high quality.

Managed the hiring, performance and career management processes of full-time, consultant and outsourced personnel.

Gained extensive experience with an outsource model for the IT needs of financial service companies.

Applied inter-team communication and coordination skills, such as negotiation, perception management, escalation when and if necessary, at every opportunity.

Created, implemented and enforced policies, procedures and processes in order to maximize IT users’ satisfaction as if they were internal customers. To this end, implemented recommendations of corporate and modern IT governance practices – regular management meetings, status/prioritization meetings and status reports.

As part of IT governance and corporate sustainability, incorporated Enterprise Architecture principles into Borsa Istanbul business and IT processes.

Managed the vendor and product evaluation/selection, RFI, RFP and price negotiation processes.

Gained extensive experience in Corporate Governance Principles mandated by Turkish Banking Regulatory Agency (BDDK) – roles and responsibilities of board members, processes that need to be followed in order to settle on board decisions, committees which have to formed as part of the board.

REVENUE/COST IMPACT

Saved €1 million by implementing FIX protocol completely with internal resources and open source libraries (Borsa)

Saved 2 million TL during data center building project negotiations (Borsa)

Saved $200.000 per year by purchasing new HP hardware instead of renewing the maintenance support (Borsa)

Saved 100.000 TL per month of telecommunication costs by agreeing a common data center with Takasbank and MKK (Borsa)

Saved €3 million by implementing a new generation EFT system with internal resources (Central Bank)

Created a new revenue source (100.000 TL in the first 3 months) by offering insurance products via call center agents (Vakıf)

Saved almost 100 FTE a month by centralizing two of the branch operation processes (Vakıf)

Saved 100.000 TL per month of telecommunication costs by switching to TCP/IP instead of X.25 protocols with ATMs (Vakıf)

Increased ATM usage in pilot branches by 50% in 3 months (via promotions, campaigns and new transaction types) (Vakıf)

Increased Internet Banking unique user base from 170.000 to 240.000 users per month, within 7 months (Vakıf)

EDUCATION

Okan University – Institute of Social Sciences – Istanbul,Turkey 2015 – today

PhD in Banking (part-time)

New York University – Stern School of Business – New York,USA 1999 – 2003

Master of Business Administration (MBA) Major: Finance, Accounting and International Trade (part-time)

University of Pennslyvania – Philadelphia,USA 1994 – 1996

Master of Engineering (MsE) in Computer and Information Sciences

Bilkent University – Ankara,Turkey 1989 – 1993

Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Computer Engineering and Information Sciences

WORK EXPERIENCE

CIO - IT Strategy Consultant, Tacirler Yatırım– İstanbul,Turkey April 2015–Today

Managing the technology team of 10 people including systems and software developers with a total annual budget of $2 million USD. Acting as the Program Management of the IT Transformation project with an Indian software development firm, Intellect Design Arena ( $2 million USD project). Renovating the whole infrastructure of the brokerage house, including the hardware, network, voice recording, database systems.

IT Strategy Consultant (part-time), FinansInvest – İstanbul,Turkey November 2014 – March 2015

Completed an assessment of the IT skills and abilities of the company. Advised the CEO of FinansInvest, which is in the top 10 biggest brokers in Turkey, on various IT projects. Compiled a complete analysis of IT Governance processes, such as IT demand management, vendor usage etc. Advised the creation of MIS reporting platform on top of a new datawarehouse. Selected and introduced vendors who have extensive experience with DWH projects to FinansInvest.

CIO – IT Assistant General Manager, Borsa İstanbul – İstanbul,Turkey March 2012 – September 2014

Managed the Information Technology team of Borsa Istanbul, which is at the center of Turkish Capital Markets – directly reporting to the CEO. The team consisted of over 140 technologists.

Designed and implemented aggressive IT human resource growth strategies. The IT team consisted of 62 people when I started. The IT organizaton structure was redesigned according to the best IT practices and the number of IT departments and responsibilites were redefined. The IT reorganization was based on process-oriented structures.

Prioritized, resourced and implemented the relevant and necessary projects based on short-, mid- and long-term strategy planning. Implementing the industry-wide standard FIX protocol for order entry, building a new world-class data center, opening the first Turkish Single Stock Options and Futures market, merging with Turkish Derivatives and Istanbul Gold Exchanges were all high priority projects.

Implemented and supported all relevant infrastructure projects necessary for the transformation of Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE – IMKB) to Borsa Istanbul. Merging Network infrastructure of Turkish Derivatives (VOB AS) and Istanbul Gold Exchange (IAB), order entry connectivity with regional country exchanges, market data vending of other country exchanges such as Sarajevo Stock Exchange (SASE) are samples.

Aligned with Borsa Istanbul’s long term strategy, managed the vendor selection and strategic partnership selection process in order to transform the technology infrastructure behind the core businesses – namely trading, clearing and custody – to a higher level, so that it might compete with regional and global exchanges. As part of this selection process, a comprehensive partnership agreement with Nasdaq worth around $120 million was assigned, which involved equity share swap. After the signature, took on the role of Program Manager for the duration of my employment with Borsa.

Member of the Board of Directors and Audit Committee, Istanbul Takasbank A.Ş. – İstanbul, Turkey

March 2012 – July 2014

As the biggest shareholder of the Takasbank (as of December 2014, 63%), Borsa Istanbul had the right to name four board members. On behalf of Borsa Istanbul, I was a member of the Takasbank Board of Directors for 2.5 years, and a member of the Audit Committee in parallel. As a result, I had the chance to observe and practise the modern corporate governance procedures and inner workings. I experienced the decision-making process and the necessary paperwork bureaucracy in detail.

IT Assistant General Manager, Central Bank of Turkey – Ankara, Turkey June 2011 – March 2012

Managed 110 personnel in the Payment Systems Development and Institutional Software Development teams.

The Payment Systems Development team was responsible for building, operating and governing the money transfer systems for Turkish Lira – a duty dictated by law. There were about 20 software engineers and 10 technicians who have been operating and maintaining the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) system and Electronic Security Transfer (EMKT) systems since 1992.

Planned for the re-engineering of the EFT system and building of a new payment system called Retail Payment System – RPS (Perakende Ödeme Sistemi – PÖS). Hired new IT team members to create the necessary resources. The system was completed in 2012 November after I left.

The Institutional Software Development team was responsible for building the internal automation and information systems for all of the divisions of the Central Bank. The systems were running both on the mainframe and in distributed environments.

Director of Alternative Delivery Channels, Vakıflar Bankası – Ankara, Turkey March 2010 – May 2011

Managed 280 people distributed across two departments and was responsible for the strategy and operation of the Alternative Delivery Channels (ADC) – all delivery channels of the bank beside the branches themselves. Created and implemented strategies to make ADC part of the bank’s culture with several marketing projects. The goal was to increase the awareness and usage of these different channels by arranging events and campaigns. In addition to efficiently completing day-to-day operations, ADC would become a revenue center instead of a cost center.

Telephone and Internet Banking Department projects and responsilities:

While the number of call center agents increased from 190 to 250, created a Quality Assurance, Reporting and Training department so that quality processes are sustainable. Pushed for cross-selling opportunities, such as credit card selling, in addition to customer issue resolution with the Inbound Agent team. Started getting applications for personal loans via inbound calls. Started the renovation of the IVR and agent front-end applications with vendors like NCR and VeriPark. Created different toll-free numbers and agent teams behind them in order to serve different customer segments. In order to allow for centrally responding to the non-IT support calls coming from branch personnel, created a separate agent team and support line called DestekŞubem. Started selling insurance products of subsidiaries, Güneş Sigorta and Vakıfemeklilik, in order to capture cross-selling opportunities and increase non-interest revenue of the Bank with a team of 25 agents. In 6 months, generated a premium of 400.000 TL, which in turn generated a commission revenue of 100.000 TL for the Bank. When agents were not dealing with inbound or outbound calls, they helped to clean and update the customer data inside the systems. Created a new team called SorunÇözelim and a web portal in order to record customer complaints centrally, forward them to a proper internal department and chase them untill settling on a resolution. Created a new reporting infrastructure and a review process around the agents and call efficiencies they generated. Standardized the answers given to customers. Managed the contents and the functional list inside the Internet Banking Branch. Added, deleted or restructed menus inside the application based on marketing strategies, customer needs, complaints and competition. Re-engineered the password re-generation process, calling it “Password Now”. Defined and implemented a marketing strategy which included outbound calls, several campaigns, and a project called “Meeter Greeter” to increase the number of active Internet Banking users. The result was fantastic: in 7 months, active users increased from 170.000 to 240.000 users per month – a big operational cost-saving of branch personnel time for the Bank.

ATM Operations Department projects and responsibilities:

With a team of 40 people, managed more than 2200 ATMs spread across all regions and cities of Turkey to provide an uninterrupted service level with minimum cost. The ATM installation and monitoring sub-team worked for uninterrupted and healthy operation. The ATM-BKM reconciliation sub-team worked on the daily matching of the non-Bank ATM transactions and the resolution of related customer complaints and requests. Started several process re-engineering initiatives in order to reduce the operational cost: a centralized ATM request support line, resolution of cards captured by the ATMs, complaints taken by the branch personnel are examples. Requested from IT programmers and coordinated the addition of new functions to ATM function list and reached a high number of transactions with these new functionalities such as paying motor vehicle tax, paying MEB and OSYM fees. Increased the usage of ATMs by 50% via a special marketing campaign called “Meeter Greeter”, which involved selecting a set of pilot branches and sending a set of outsourced personnel whose job was teaching how, and when, to use ATMs.

Director of Front Office Software Development, Vakıflar Bankası– Ankara,Turkey January 2008–March 2010

Managed a team of 55 people who were responsible for the front-end systems of the bank for both internal and external users. There were two software development managers reporting to me: the Branch Front-End Software Development manager and the Alternative Delivery Channel Software Development manager.

Sytems that were maintained by Branch Front-End Software Development Group included Oracle Siebel Retail Finance (Teller) application, Oracle Siebel CRM application, several process automations designed with workflow features of MS SharePoint, several intranet web applications developed in PhP/Linux on MySql, Document Management System (DYS), integration of mainframe core banking with external parties, such as Tedaş, Türkcell, Avea, and several intranet web applications developed with Java and MSSQL such as cheques, promissory notes and credit applications.

Systems that were maintained by the Alternative Delivery Channels Software Development Group included the software running on ATMs – developed with NCR Uptra, internet Banking software developed with C# and .Net, virtual POS applications for e-commerce, maintainance of several websites available to the public such as Vakifbank.com.tr, railanmiles.com, saripanjur.com, call center and IVR systems, datawarehouse, MIS and reporting projects.

Acted as Program Manager of Vakıfbank Front-End Transformation project. IBM Global Services was the external system integrator for this project. This project had a budget of $20 million with hardware, software and services included. The aim was to renovate all of the front-end GUIs used at all branches and customize Siebel Retail Finance and Siebel CRM, build a datawarehouse and an MIS reporting platform. Managed all the relationships with IBM. As part of PM responsibility, created, and executed plans to migrate all functionality from old NCR Unix servers located in branches to Teller, CRM, portals or central mainframe screens.

As part of the transformation project, developed several in-house intranet applications (portals) to support end-to-end cheque, credit and promissory note processes in the branches.

Actively managed and involved in the datawarehouse project. The work included creating a relational data model, designing the ETL jobs which bring data from mainframe Adabas tables to Oracle DB environment, designing and implementing reporting datamarts.

Actively managed and involved in the rewrite of the regulatory reporting environments to BDDK and Central Bank. The reporting software from Karash was purchased for the rewrite.

Converted communication protocol from X.25 to TCP between ATMs and central mainframe core banking to realize a cost saving of 100.000 TL per month.

Actively managed and involved in projects for ATM screen redesign to support new institutional identity and colors, renovation of ATM software to support multivendor hardware, writing a new monitoring system for ATM incidents and ATM lifecycles, conversion of YTL to TL project.

Actively managed and involved in the renovation of the Internet Banking application rewrite with C# and .Net, managed the migration of call center systems from Ankara to Istanbul, the conversion of IVR communication from in-house legacy protocol to TCP/IP, defining an effective escalation mechanism for call center technical issues, involved in the RFI and RFP process for renovation of call center agent applications and front-ends, involved in the renovation of a mobile banking project, involved in the rewrite and renovation of the core banking credit card functionality with BankSoft.

Vice President, Morgan Stanley Co. – New York, USA July 2005 – January 2008

Managed a team of 22 people. Worked closely with IED (Institutional Equities Division), Compliance officers, trading system managers, ETRM (Equities Trading Risk Management) group, RCG (Risk Control Group).

Managerial responsibilities included: working with TCS (Tata Consulting Services) to outsource several projects and production support in order to realize cost savings, hiring consultants from another vendor (Keane) to try different models to address domain expertise issues, providing strong leadership by defining sub-teams focusing on different projects during resource turnover and hired four new full-time team members. Also suggested, planned and executed the strategic move of surveillance function to LawIT group, attended several leadership classes and worked on development of others into next generation leaders, spent extensive time on learning, analyzing and proper usage fix tags, ETSDB data model and compliance needs.

New systems built included: rewrote the NASD OATS reporting system from scratch, on top of a new datamart called Hops Data Mart (HDM), rewrote the SEC Rule 606 (formerly 11ac1-6) reporting on top of HDM (Hop Data Mart), analyzed, designed and built the new regulatory reporting channel for NYSE OTS (Order Tracking System), significantly revised the NYSE DPTR and Rule 410b reporting application.

Built a strong process around regulatory and ad hoc data requests to streamline the process. Built a workflow system using SAVVION for the new trading account creation process. Built a new Order Ticket generation from ETSDB to satisfy SEC 17a-4 WORM requirements.

Built over 15 different compliance surveillance reports including Large Order, Buy Short, Marking The Close, Manning exception, Short Sale locate, Employee Trading, 1% report, 5% report.

Vice President, Goldman, Sachs & Co. – New York, USA March 1999 – July 2005

Managed a team of twelve people. Worked closely with Equities Compliance officers, trading system managers and trading desk supervisors on operations identifying problems and opportunities and developing creative, effective solutions. There were four main functional areas in which my team aided Compliance: regulatory reporting, regulatory inquires, surveillance reports and automation/ad hoc projects.

Worked with Infosys to outsource production support and several projects in order to realize cost savings.

Worked closely with Goldman-wide referential data sources like PRIME (product related), AMHUB, ClienLink (account related) to satisfy Compliance needs.

Designed and built a web-based query tool for Compliance use which accessed the Equities Data Warehouse.

Created several Compliance reports to use this data and generate exceptions – suspicious patterns and trading exceptions. The list of reports include: NASDAQ Trading System (TAXI) – FrontRunning Report, .W, .PRP, .SLD reports, Summary Reports, Manning Exception Report, Lock and cross report, Options Trading (SPIDER) – 15-second rule, European ETF trades of GSCO customers. NYSE Trading system (LEXS) – 1% rule, OTC Trading report, Futures Trading – Cross Trade, Trade Ahead, Equity Derivatives Trading – Cross Product Front running, Option Best Execution, Sales Compliance reports – Concentration position, Cherry Picking, Accommodation Account, Short Sale Locate ID.

Software Quality Assurance Engineer, D.E.Shaw & Co. – New York, USA July 1998 – March 1999

Software Engineer, SyncSort Inc. – Woodcliff Lake, NJ, USA August 1996 – July 1998

FOREIGN LANGUAGES

English (Advanced, lived in the USA for 14 years, US citizen)

German (Beginner’s Level)

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