Dr. Ayse Ufuk Agar
Chief Business Development and Strategy Officer, Digiturk
"When I look back to the six years that I carried out my studies at Purdue, I realize that they were much more than an academic experience. At Purdue, I built a new life and home 5,500 miles away from my home city and family. My new life was enriched with the cultural diversity of students and faculty. I have greatly enjoyed conducting engineering research, but later decided to continue with a managerial career path. At every challenging point in my career, I have truly appreciated the analytical thinking skills I gained at Purdue. My education at Purdue taught the perseverance to work on a problem as well as the curiosity to continuously seek a better way of solving the problem which I believe is the essence of success in professional life."
Dr. Ayse Ufuk Agar is the Chief Business Development and Strategy Officer at Digiturk, the leading pay-TV service provider in Turkey. She manages the international operations, business development, new-media, and media insight departments. Prior to joining Digiturk, she held executive positions at Vodafone and TTNet in Turkey. At Vodafone, she managed the mobile data and fixed telecom businesses. At TTNet, the leading ISP in Turkey with 6 million subscribers, she led product development and marketing functions.
Dr. Agar enjoys working in the converging world of information technology, telecommunications and media sectors, creating new products and building business models that fuel revenue growth. She also enjoys sharing her business experience with students and young entrepreneurs. She teaches a course on technology and innovation management in the Graduate School of Business at Ozyegin University and serves on advisory boards for the Graduate School of Business of Koc University and the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering of Bosphorous University in Istanbul, Turkey. She also serves on the board of the Turkish Young Businessmen Association.
Dr. Agar holds a graduate certificate in management science and engineering from Stanford University and an executive MBA from Koc University in Istanbul. She was granted a Fulbright scholarship to study in the U.S. where she earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1995 and 1999, respectively. She received her B.S. degrees in electrical-electronics and mathematics from Bosphorous University in Istanbul in 1992.
Dr. Agar enjoys working in the converging world of information technology, telecommunications and media sectors, creating new products and building business models that fuel revenue growth. She also enjoys sharing her business experience with students and young entrepreneurs. She teaches a course on technology and innovation management in the Graduate School of Business at Ozyegin University and serves on advisory boards for the Graduate School of Business of Koc University and the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering of Bosphorous University in Istanbul, Turkey. She also serves on the board of the Turkish Young Businessmen Association.
Dr. Agar holds a graduate certificate in management science and engineering from Stanford University and an executive MBA from Koc University in Istanbul. She was granted a Fulbright scholarship to study in the U.S. where she earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University in 1995 and 1999, respectively. She received her B.S. degrees in electrical-electronics and mathematics from Bosphorous University in Istanbul in 1992.