- Throughout her life, Özge Yılmaz always aimed to find joy in whatever she was doing. Whether it was work, school or her social life, she has always strived to stay present in the moment.
Özge Yılmaz
Entrepreneur
Her love for mathematics led Ozge to Istanbul Science High School and later to the industrial engineering school at Bilkent University. During this journey she hated calculus. However the analytical skills she gained in her early career roles as management consultant and R&D engineer helped her proficiency in puzzle games. When she was a graduate student at METU, she participated at a marketing contest for the lure of a laptop reward and found her dream- to pursue a career in advertising. After she read John Steel’s book, “Truth, Lies and Advertising,” she took the plunge as an intern at Y&R. With luck on her side, she had an amazing four years with great mentors and clients in Istanbul. Her career took her to work at Y&R in New York, where she served global brands like Microsoft, Citibank, P&G, Estee Lauder. Her later adventure through WPP, she worked at Penn, Shoen and Berland followed by Added Value as a Planning Director, responsible from PepsiCo's food and beverage brands, their launch and growth in 13 Latin American countries. Upon her return she worked at Alametifarika as the head of strategic planning team serving Turkish brands - Turkish Airlines, Ulker, Turkcell – become a global player. At the beginning of 2010, she founded Virutic to work with crazy people and impossible ideas in social media and sold it to Dogus Conglomorate. She was responsible for groups online investments where she feels like the mother who looks after a higly calibrated and talented team for 2 years. Currently she is working on IoT projects for connected homes, cars etc in order to serve a better community. In her play time, Ozge organizes TEDxIstanbul, fund raising for foster kids foundation and caring for street cats in her neighboorhod in Tesvikiye.