Turkey's İşbank elects first female board chair

ISTANBUL

Füsun Tümsavaş has been elected as the board chair of İşbank, Turkey’s largest private lender by asset.

Tümsavaş is the first female to serve as the board chair at the lender, which was founded in 1924.

The bank had 444.3 billion Turkish Liras in assets as of September 2018, according to the data from the Banks’ Association of Turkey.

İşbank had a network of more than 13,000 employees and some 25,000 employees.

Tümsavaş replaced Ersin Özince who stepped down from the post last week. Özince had served as the board chairman since 2011.

Füsun Tümsavaş was born in Ankara in 1957 and graduated from the Department of Economics-Finance at the prestigious Ankara University’s Faculty of Political Science.

She started her professional career at the Ankara branch of the Central Bank of Turkey in 1979.

In 1981, she joined İşbank’s loans department as an officer.

Tümsavaş became the head of commercial loans department in 2004. She was elected to the bank’s board of directors in March 2008.

İşbank also announced in a filing with the stock exchange that the board of directors elected Ertuğrul Bozgedik as vice chairman.