Executives & Board Members


Executives
Bülent Çelebi Executive Chairman and Co-founder
	Bülent Çelebi co-founded AirTies in 2004 with the vision of becoming the leader of wireless home media networking products that integrate free, purchased and personal content. After working as an engineer, Çelebi joined National Semiconductor in Hong Kong as the Marketing Director for Asia. Later he returned to the US and became the driving force behind the technology that enabled multifunction printer/fax/scanner devices. Çelebi played an active role in making his company the leader in the 10/100 Mbps Ethernet market. After National Semiconductor, Çelebi served as Vice President & GM at Analog Devices running a successful $250 million division. Prior to founding AirTies, he served as the CEO of VC backed Ubicom, a network processor for WLAN applications. Çelebi’s success in technical innovations resulted in his recognition as one of the “Top 10 Innovators” by the Red Herring Magazine, a reputable reference in the IT industry. Bülent Çelebi attended the University of California, Berkeley and studied Electronics and Computer Engineering. He later attended the Stanford/AEA executive program.

Philippe Alcaras Chief Executive Officer
	Philippe Alcaras is an experienced international entrepreneur and CEO with a deep knowledge of digital media and telecom industry players, business models and technologies. Recently, Philippe was CEO of « Home Networks », a $1 billion revenue business unit at Philips Consumer Electronics with branches in all 5 continents. He successfully turned around the business which was later acquired by PACE. In 2003 Philippe was CEO of Nagra France, heading the acquisition and integration of Canal Plus Technology by Kudelski Group, a worldwide leader in Digital TV Encryption Systems. From 2000 to 2003, Philippe was General Manager at Thomson, heading the Satellite and terrestrial Digital TV receivers activities for Europe and Asia. He has founded 3 companies, one of which, IDP, became a leading actor in interactive TV software applications. It went public in 1997. Philippe Alcaras holds a Master of Marseille Business School in France, He later attended the Executive Program at INSEAD.


Metin Ismail Taskin Chief Technology Officer
	After working as a research engineer at the National Metrology Institute of the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), Taskin continued his career in the United States: first, at Hittite Microwave Corporation in Boston MA, designing radar and microwave communications system, and later at Cisco Systems in San Jose CA, in the Wireless Access Business Unit where he developed fixed wireless access devices. Taskin was responsible for system design of outdoor wireless base station and subscriber devices providing wireless Internet access. Taskin then joined the Wireless Networking Business Unit of Cisco and as a system architect. He led team of 25 engineers that developed BR1410, an IEEE 802.11a compliant Wireless Outdoor Bridge. Taskin received the “Cisco Innovator” award for the successful in the design and development of this product. Taskin moved back to Turkey to join the founding team of AirTies and currently works as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Metin Taskin received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from Bosphorus University in Istanbul.


Karl Tempest-Mitchell Executive VP, Sales and Marketing
	Karl Tempest-Mitchell has more than 15 years’ experience in the Set-top-box industry and a comprehensive understanding of marketing and selling innovative solutions. Prior to joining AirTies, Karl served as Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Advanced Digital Broadcast, where he was responsible for business development, sales and marketing and spearheaded ADB`s business development in the EMEA region.

Müjdat Pakkan Executive VP, Engineering
	Müjdat Pakkan has 18 years of telecommunications software experience as a software engineer. He started his career as a software engineer at Netas A.S. in Turkey and continued at Precision Systems and Cisco Systems in the USA. He was one of the founding engineers of Syndeo Corporation where he served as a software development manager and built up his expertise in VoIP systems. After working as the chief engineer for VoIP systems at SS8 Networks, Pakkan moved back to Turkey in 2005 to join AirTies as VP of Engineering. Pakkan received his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering at Ege University in Izmir in 1990 and his Master’s degree in Computer Science from Ankara’s Bilkent University in 1993.

Andre Van Hees Executive VP, Operations
	With over 20 years of industry experience Van Hees has operated in a wide variety of capacities from working with a range of ODMs worldwide to being an expert in outsourced manufacturing and quality systems. Prior to his current role at AirTies as co-founder and VP of Operations, Van Hees was the Director of Operations at Agere/Proxim, where he was responsible for a $50 million budget and led the integration of Agere System’s Operations team into PROXIM. Van Hees has also held several management and technical positions at Lucent, AT&T and NCR. Whilst at Lucent/ Agere, he personally oversaw purchasing in WLAN division grow to over $200 million. Andre van Hees graduated Cum Laude, from IHBO West Brabant – HTS Electrotechniek in Breda, Netherlands, and specialized in Computer Science.

Zeynep Yoğurtçugil HR Director
	Zeynep Yogurtcugil is the Human Resource Director at AirTies. After joining in 2011, she established the Corporate Governance Structures in HR and Procurement. She began her career in Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and assumed increasing responsibilities in the HR department. Prior to joining AirTies, she was a Senior consultant with Odgers Berndtson, where she worked with clients in a wide range of industries including banking, media and entertainment with a specialization in M&A and Executive Headhunting. She holds a BA in Sociology from Boğaziçi University in Istanbul.

External Board Members

Evren Bilimer
	Evren Bilimer is a Managing Director at Invus based in the New York office and focuses on investments in private companies. He joined Invus in 2002. In addition to investments in the US, Bilimer leads Invus’ efforts in Turkey. He has been a board member of AirTies since September 2010. Prior to joining Invus, Bilimer was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York, where he worked with clients in a wide range of industries including financial services, media & entertainment and retail. Bilimer holds a double major BS degree from Yale University in Electrical Engineering and Economics.

Mario Kaloustian
	Mario Kaloustian has 15 years of combined experience in the fields of technology and investment. He started his career in the France Telecom Group, as a program manager for large scale international wireless projects. He then spent five years in management consulting, in particular with Booz & Company, leading various consulting projects for multinational companies in a wide range of countries and industries including telecom and media. He joined Invus’ Paris office in 2008 and has been a Board member at AirTies since September 2010. Mario Kaloustian holds an MS in engineering from Telecom ParisTech in Paris and an MBA from INSEAD.

Ziya Boyacigiller
	Ziya G. Boyacigiller, Investor/Entrepreneur/Mentor, makes early-stage investments in innovative technology-driven start-up companies (in Silicon Valley and Istanbul) and works with the founding teams to help grow their companies. He also teaches MBA students entrepreneurship, at Sabanci University, Istanbul. Until October 2000, he was a Business Unit Vice President / General Manager at Maxim Integrated Products - a NASDAQ 100 semiconductor company (MXIM). Mr. Boyacigiller joined Maxim in 1983 when the company was started, as a founding partner, and served in various technical and executive management capacities for 17 years, helping build the company to over billion dollars in revenues. Prior to Maxim, he worked at Intersil Inc. and designed state-of-art mixed-signal CMOS integrated circuits, including the world’s first digitally calibrated 14-bit data converters. In the late 1970s, he started E/Z CAD Inc., a pioneer in the PC-based electronics design tools industry. Mr. Boyacigiller holds an MSc in Engineering from UCLA, and a BSEE from Bosphorus University, Istanbul. He currently works to help to create and develop a world-class, technology-based entrepreneurship environment in Turkey.

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