UMUT KUTLU


He was born in Ankara in 1979. He graduated from Kabataş High School and Marmara University Department of Econometrics, respectively. Then, he completed the Bilgi University MBA Program. In the early years of his career, he worked in Çukurova Media Group and Hürriyet Newspaper on brand management, project management and international marketing. Then he joined and directed Vodafone Turkey marketing team of mobile marketing, mobile advertising, brand loyalty management teams and collaborations established. He took an active role on the creation of Vodafone Turkey loyalty programs underway, the implementation and the management. In May 2013, he joined the Beşiktaş JK family as Assistant General Manager for Marketing and Sponsorships. By re-establishing the Marketing team of the club, he focused on repositioning the Beşiktaş brand, redesigning all the sponsorships of the club, increasing revenues and realizing the new stadium project. With 25 new sponsorships, more than 10 collaborations, new advertisement areas and the opening of the new stadium with a total value of more than 270 million USD, Beşiktaş JK’s revenue grew 2.5 times. Marketing communication work done by the club itself and its business partners received more than 100 awards. Besiktas brand has become Turkey’s most valuable sports brand according to the brandfinance100 report during his period. In October 2017, he was selected by the UK-based Leaders in Sports organization as “One of the 7 Most Successful Marketing Managers in the Sports Industry Under the Age of 40”. In addition to these duties; Umut Kutlu, who has been working as a lecturer in universities for about 9 years and has also been teaching Sports Management at Istanbul Bilgi University for the last 4 years, is married and has 2 daughters.

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