Ike Elimsa

Ike Elimsa is a business coach, entrepreneur, marketing and branding specialist, photographer, producer, and TV show host.

Born Aykut Elimsa on September 6, 1982 in California, Ike studied Marketing at UCI before graduating from SSU with a MBA. He began his work experience at just 14, as a sales assistant at the store of the acclaimed diver, Joe Liburdi, whom Ike refers to as “his favorite boss”. Ike also learned how to dive with Liburdi, and assisted him with taking dive teams at locations across Southern California.

Throughout a string of sales-based jobs, Ike displayed a natural knack for selling, and received numerous sales awards despite his young age. Eventually, he joined the banking industry working his way up from a teller, to branch banker, to district sales manager, and then to division manager for Southern California, across various banks including World Saving and Wachovia Bank.

At the age of 26, Ike left the world of banking to partner with the world’s second largest quartz company, Compac, purchasing the distribution for the Western United States. He successfully managed all aspects of the company and tracked growth, even in the midst of the 2008 recession.

After 5 years, Ike had another turn of career when, one day, he was asked by a friend in the film industry to sub-host a lifestyle show for the European network, TRT. Ike was an immediate hit, and subsequently offered a full time position to host, plan, and develop the travel/lifestyle show. Aired for 6 seasons across 20 European countries, the show had a viewer base in the millions, and in 2011, voted the second most watched its category.

During this period, Ike became more heavily involved in the media industry and helped market, sell, direct and produce several more shows. In time, he decided to embody his love of people and passion to help others by starting his own company, twelve12. A branding, marketing, and media company with the vision to be an intuitive voice for brands globally, twelve12 has won numerous awards to date, including a 2016 Telly Award for Best TV Commercial and a 2016 IAC Award for Best Online Advertising.