Leadership

Kasım Garipoğlu is the Founder and Chairman of Trive.

As a seasoned entrepreneur and astute investor, he established the Group's foundations and envisioned its future growth over the years. He laid the foundation for the company that grew to prominence in the finance industry.

Kasım is an active philanthropist who supports the arts, culture, and education.

Özer Burhan has an impressive track record of nearly two decades in the realm of finance.

As the CEO of Trive Investment, he spearheads the endeavor of delineating and executing the company’s overarching strategy and visionary pursuits, encompassing the brand's unwavering commitment to relentless progress.

Özer started his professional career at Ericsson and subsequently took on roles at various pioneering companies. Between 2005 and 2009, he worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers as an auditor. In 2009, he joined Turkcell, where he held senior management positions for more than 5 years.

Prior to joining Trive, he worked as Senior Director, Chief Financial Officer and member of the Board of Directors respectively at Aktif Bank Group between 2014 and 2020.

Özer holds a BS degree in Economics from Boğaziçi University.

Ozan Eryavuz has a strong track record of setting-up consumer finance, retail banking, risk and payment businesses, and building automated lending and payment platform in several financial services markets.

Within Trive, Ozan built the credit business, which operates in eight countries, a P2P lending brand and a payments brand. The credit business serves primarily in the EU and Asian markets.

Prior to his role at Trive, Ozan was the Head of Financial Services of Peppers & Rogers Group, a consumer-centered management consulting firm.

In her role, as a board member of Trive, Defne is responsible for internal audit, internal control and corporate governance structures to ensure that the Group operates in line with international standards and good industry practices.

Defne started her career as a financial auditor at Deloitte. She then worked for Akbank, where she was an internal auditor, participating in the audits of different functions of the bank and its subsidiaries. She joined PwC in 2005, where she acted as the financial industry leader in risk assurance services for many years and created value for its clients both in and outside of Türkiye.

With an aim to enhance social and economic sustainability through the inclusion of women in work life, she played an active role in the development of a gender equality program, named “Equal Opportunities Model”, sponsored by The Women Entrepreneurs Association of Türkiye (KAGİDER) and worked in the certification of a number of corporations.

Defne graduated from the Middle East Technical University, Department of Civil Engineering, later she completed the MBA program at Bilkent University. She is a member of the Internal Audit Institute of Türkiye (TİDE) and holds Certified Internal Auditor (CIA) and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) certificates.

Orkun Güncan is a highly accomplished legal expert and has practiced law since 1998, focusing on banking finance, capital markets and compliance.

Orkun worked for a United States-based law firm between 1997 and 2003 and later for a multinational law firm between 2003 and 2014, as a corporate and M&A partner. He has represented international clients and private equity firms in their acquisitions of Turkish entities, privatizations in major industrial corporations and financing of such acquisitions.

He continued his career as an in-house lawyer at Petrol Ofisi as the head of compliance, regulations and internal audit department for six years.

He received his LL.B degree from Istanbul University, Faculty of Law in 1997 and earned his LL.M degree from Columbia University, School of Law in 2003.

Orkun is a member of the Istanbul Bar Association.

After joining our group as the Global Tax Coordinator in 2020, Barış Yalçın took part in planning and developing the tax strategy with his sound background in the finance of taxation and international tax laws.

Barış started his career at PwC in 2002 and took various roles in the company, based in Istanbul and London, respectively. His most recent position was Tax and Legal Services Director at PwC as a Certified Public Accountant in charge of managing tax due diligence projects.

With his comprehensive knowledge of tax laws and legislation, he helped financial institutions and non-financial companies set up fund structures. He also played a crucial role in their pricing projects. Barış is also well-versed in international stock lending and investment funds.

When the OECD rules were incorporated into Turkish tax legislation in 2007, he assumed responsibility in several transfer pricing projects related to financial institutions.

Barış Yalçın graduated from Istanbul University with an Economics degree. He obtained his master’s degree in Financial Decision Management at the University of Bedford in 2002.

Hugo Berkhout started his career in 2001 at Delta Lloyd Bank NV in Amsterdam, where he traded FX, interest rates/derivatives, and fixed income/structured credits products. From 2007 he began focusing on treasury/ALM, managing the bank’s balance sheet, and wholesale funding via money markets and securitizations.

In 2012 Hugo was hired by Amsterdam Trade Bank NV part of Alfa Bank Group as head of trading/ALM where he also became ALCO member. From 2018, Hugo set up a treasury department for Regtech/Fintech PSP and Neobank ISX Financial plc in Nicosia and moved back to The Netherlands at end of 2020.

Hugo was board member and treasurer of ACI, The Financial Markets Association and chairperson of the board of education of Dutch Securities Institute from 2012-2018. He is registered by the Dutch Securities Institute and got his financial markets and treasury credentials with Amsterdam Institute of Finance and Dutch Institute for the Banking and Securities Industry.