Derya Akalin Uysal

Derya Ayşe Akalin Uysal was born in Salt Lake City, Utah and grew up in Toronto, Canada. She moved to Istanbul, Turkey in December 1998.

Her BA Honors Degree in Sociology and English Literature from York University reflects her passion for analyzing both systems and narratives. After a decade of working in community theatre during her youth and starting her career as a Business Analyst in the telecommunications industry she moved to Istanbul where she worked briefly in banking and then became a training consultant for the telecom and retail industries.

At age 27 she became the Executive Director of The Ozyegin Foundation and the general manager of ACEV two years later. She lead both foundations for almost a decade and had the honor of working with dozens of national/international private and public organizations, academicians and thought leaders as well as a staff of 100 and an army of volunteers.

Personal and professional challenges throughout have taught her valuable lessons about coping with crises, managing human resources, leadership and finding her own voice. All of these lessons served her well after she took a break from her career in 2010 to become a mom of two girls (born 18 months apart), to adjust to her new role as wife and mom and to survive thyroid cancer.

Derya has been consulting, teaching, training, designing and blogging for the past few years. She started her training and consulting firm Etudist in 2014 through which she offers customized personal and professional development programs in English for adults.