Yiğit Kalafatoğlu

About

Kalafatoğlu has packed more than 20 years of his career with firsts and numerous achievements in marketing and technology. He stands out as one of the rare professionals who combines advertising, entrepreneurship, academia, and senior executive leadership in a single career path.

Who is he?

He began his career in 2004. In the same year, he started producing content on yicit.com. In 2009, he became one of the founders of Utopic Farm, one of the first agencies in Turkey to provide services in the field of social media, achieving many industry firsts.

In 2010, he founded and led the Social Media Academy at Kadir Has University for 10 years. In the same year, he completed his master’s degree with a thesis on “Social Media and Reputation Management.” He continued his academic career by teaching MBA courses at Yeditepe University, while also starting his doctoral studies, where he focused primarily on the Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence. Today, he teaches “Marketing Technologies” to graduate students at Nişantaşı University, continuing both his academic and industry work simultaneously.

In his corporate career, he served for many years at Penti as Marketing and Digital Transformation Director. He then worked as Marketing Director at Hopi and as Vice General Manager (CMO) responsible for Marketing at Inspark. He has received numerous awards and created multiple success stories.

As of 2024, he founded Value Venture & Partners, developing a new service model that provides consulting and operational support to brands and agencies. He has also begun to act as an investor and advisor to both local and global artificial intelligence startups.