• Could you please introduce yourself?

I have been working as a Financial Reporting and Overseas Operations Accounting Control Manager for 6 years. I started to work as a Senior Financial Reporting Specialist, and within the same year I gained my current title. After I graduated from Bursa Atatürk Anatolian High School, I graduated from Bahcesehir University in Istanbul. Afterwards, I completed my education at Temple University in Philadelphia, USA I went for Master’s Degree, I started as an “Intern Auditor” in Deloitte Philadelphia. Although I had the chance to work in many branches of work during my university years, I can say that my actual business life started here. Thinking that my country has more job opportunities, I returned to Istanbul after 2 years. I gained experience in KPMG - Kreston of International companies respectively and then joined ATU. While working at ATU, I graduated from the PhD Program of “Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship” of Istanbul Technical University and I still voluntarily attend to the financial literacy trainings for entrepreneurs in various positions.

• Can you please explain the business process of Financial Reporting Department?

As the Financial Reporting Department, we prepare the financial statements of ATU and its affiliates in accordance with the IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) for the financial statement readers. At the same time, we draft management reports and present the issues that will affect the financial statements. Actually we take the financial photo of the company and we submit this photo to the independent auditors for approval and present it to our stakeholders and all required third groups.

Furthermore, we support all the accounting processes of our international operations as a consultant, and try to establish a bridge with our parent company in Turkey. We plan and manage our domestic and international tax processes during our work flow which is very proportional in as far as I am concerned. We prepare tax planning projects by interpreting the tax laws and present them to the senior management. Thus, we also contribute to the reduction of the company's liabilities through tax avoidance.

In line with the demands of the departments in our company and considering the matters that will affect the financial statements, we conduct researches as a team and submit our opinions to the other departments. Then we get in touch with the consultants and public institutions when deemed necessary and complete our business process with a professional infrastructure.

• With whom do they communicate with?

I consider the Financial Reporting department as the peak point of a pyramid because it has the entire operation completed, the results achieved and presented; hence, there is no other department that we have not got in touch with during this process. Especially the departments we work closely with are the accounting and finance departments which have a direct influence on the financial statements. Furthermore, we are always in contact with procurement, personnel and business development departments.

Moreover, we are in contact with the public and private sector auditors as we also manage the auditing processes. We keep continuous contact with the independent auditors and tax auditors during the independent audits and the audits of tax inspectors. We contact with the auditors, consultants and public institutions, such as independent auditing companies, the Ministry of Finance, tax auditing companies and high-precision institutions such as the Central Bank of Turkey, for the evaluation of the issues arriving from any department that may affect the financial statements.

• What are the qualities required to work in the Financial Reporting Department?

I believe people who want to work in this department should have the ability of analytical thinking first. In my opinion, people with a high knowledge of mathematics, who are patient, have strong human relations, love reading and constantly keep themselves up to date, follow the agenda and like interpreting can be successful in this department.

• What are the most important factors in the workflow?

For us, communication is among of the most important values. When the processes are incomplete and the data cannot be provided to our department as full, the work flow will be disrupted or even stopped. We attach importance to communication in order to ensure an optimal efficiency from the workflow. In case of any situation that may affect the financial statements, we assess all the scenarios and declare our opinions to be limited with our company.

• Is there any interesting situation you have encountered until now? How did you solve it?

The year 2015 was very important for my career, I think, our investments speeded up, and we performed many operations in different countries and different continents in short periods. We used to use different local accounting programs for the operations started until that year; however, I believed that kind of system was not sustainable and started to search for a single program for each operation. In the end, we found a program to work on the costs, it was accessible and controllable from remote and presented it to the senior management, and then decided to use it. Then, we successfully implemented the project, which we first started as a pilot in the Madinah operation, but the other operation was in the United States. Even the time difference would be a challenge. We finally succeeded in implementing a program originated from Dubai in the United States. The most important analysis here is to manage the work of people in different regions and even cultures. I think human beings have a new issue called Connection. Connection is now a destiny for people and the strongest connection and connected people will form our future. “Connectivity is destiny”.

• For how many years have you been working in ATU? What have you gained being a part of this structure?

I joined ATU in January 2014 and I have continued my journey as a member of the family since then. I try to spread this view to my team and all my colleagues because the consciousness of acting together for an organization is really a trait existing in the nature of ATU. On this journey I set off with this lesson I got, I am trying to transfer the advantage of working in a global company to people from different cultures. “Travel Retail” is itself a very special sector, I found the chance to work one-to-one not only in Turkey but all over the world both in the aviation sector and the retail sector; therefore, I feel very lucky. As a result, “if experience is the mentor of the mind and the guide of thoughts, ATU has been my greatest guide during my career journey”

• If you had not been employed in this department, which department or work branch would you prefer?

I think I need to formulate some factors here,

- I sincerely believe in team work,
- I really give importance to communication with people,
- I like to acquire different perspectives of view, looking from the other side of the glass,
- I believe that analysis and risks shall always be determined beforehand,

In light of these criteria, I think I can be successful in Logistics or Sales departments. Apart from these, I believe that there will be new developing units in the world, some are already emerging. I think I can succeed in departments such as Innovation Management - “industry 4.0 managing digital transformation”, Data Analysis or Data Mining. Finally, thanks to the “Heinemann Talent Program” which I had the opportunity to participate in 2017, I learned about my talents by living on an international platform, and based on the results I got, my belief that I could be a good candidate for entrepreneurship and put new ideas into practice got stronger.

• How many members are there in your team? Can you introduce your team members?

Necati EJDER:

I would like to start with Financial Reporting Director Mr. Necati. Until his university years, he lived in Mersin with his family and he entered Marmara University Faculty of Economics when his adventure started and still continues 12 years. In the last year of the university, he started his business life with a long term internship at Doğan Holding, and after graduating from university, he worked as an Auditor at PwC Audit Company and then he decided that he should study foreign language in the US America and the adventure of America started for him. He successfully completed his education and returned to Istanbul. Upon his return, he continued to work as an Auditor at BDO Audit Company. At this point, as ATU family, we discovered Necati and achieved in gaining him for ATU structure. Necati who has received a title as certified public accountant in year of 2019, has been working in the ATU family for about 5 years and I believe that he will continue his career and successes as a member of this family for many years.

Aykut DURDAĞI:

Aykut, who is the Tax Director in our team, graduated from the Department of Finance of Istanbul University. During his university years, he went to the USA with Work and Travel program for 3 months. In addition, he realized his internship at Deloitte, the Turkish Airlines and State Planning Organization, and after graduation, worked as a Tax Auditor at Ernst & Young. After completing his military service, we started to negotiate with Aykut and during our negotiations Aykut said “Nothing is certain but death and taxes” which worth remembering by each attendee of the negotiations, Aykut took his place in ATU structure as a member of our family, he is registered in Chamber of Financial Consultants of Istanbul and also a member of the Advisory Board of Istanbul University Career Development Center. My colleague, who has an active website where he publishes his own professional experiences, writes valuable articles whenever he can.

Dilan HALİÇ:

Dilan Haliç is the youngest member of our team who graduated from Istanbul University, Faculty of Business Administration, Department of Business Administration in English. After working at Six Flags Great Adventure in the USA for 3 months with the Work and Travel program during her university years, she continued her overseas adventure with the Erasmus Program at the University of West in Sweden for 6 months. After graduating from university, she started her career as an Assistant Auditor in October 2014 at Ernst & Young Independent Audit Company. After being promoted to be a Senior Auditor in 2016, she resigned from her position in EY in June 2017 and started to work as a Budget and Reporting Specialist at Turkcell / Globaltower. In July 2019, she became the youngest member of our family as ATU Financial Reporting Specialist. In addition to these, Dilan was entitled to become a CPA (Certified Public Accountant) by May 2019 and was admitted to the Master’s Degree Program at the Department of Accounting and Finance (English) at Marmara University.