OUR ADVISOR
Ali Karabey has spent his career focusing on technology and communications investments. After graduating from the University of Michigan in 1999, he joined Arthur Andersen in New York. There, he managed middle-market transactions in technology, media and telecommunications. In 2002, he joined Morgan Stanley Capital International where he led the North American and European finance teams. From 2007 to 2008, he spent a year at Deutsche Bank, where he was part of the bank’s core investment team. In 2008 he shifted his focus to the Middle East, where he had the opportunity to work on helping companies scale. He worked with the Turkish Government and private sector on finance and private equity projects.
In addition to co-founding 212, Ali serves on the boards of Avatao, App Samurai, Fazla Gıda, Insider, Metrobi, Solvoyo and SmartMessage.
Ali is also on the Advisory Board of Endeavour and is a member of the Istanbul branch of the Entrepreneurs Association.
OUR ADVISOR
26 years of entrepreneurship; diverse technology background; imaginer; doer; mentor of many start-ups. Demet is the Chairperson of FINTR (Financial Innovation and Technologies Association) a recently launched non-profit to strengthen the fintech practice in Turkiye. She is also Managing Director and Co-Founder of KOOPHub, a diverse and independent community enabler in financial innovation. Previously, she assumed executive, advisory and entrepreneurial roles in telco industry with a focus on technology and innovation.
She was one of the founders of Turkiye’s first telecom magazine that was published for 20 years upon its debut in 1995. She became engaged in fintech once she led a team in launching the Turkiye’s first prepaid card in 2005. She has taken part in many other firstof-its-kinds gigs in the country including a calling card operator, a co-working space as well as a fashion show of wearable technologies alongside support of a global chip maker. She is an Electronics Engineer by education from Istanbul Technical University.
OUR ADVISOR
He is a 25 year seasoned Fintech/Blockchain executive leading the Global Sales Team at Fordefi since 2022. Currently scaling and expanding a first class seed round startup to over $1M in revenue in the first year, with previous experience in companies like Mastercard, Morgan Stanley, FIserv, Curv and Yodlee. He began his career in Blockchain infrastructure in 2021 working for Curv, the first institutional MPC infrastructure company, until Curv was acquired by Paypal.
He is also an avid crypto investor and fan who has personally been involved in the space since 2016.
OUR ADVISOR
Athina Stantzou is a digital assets and blockchain specialist with a decade of experience spanning enterprise consulting, central bank infrastructure, and institutional capital markets. She led Deloitte Belgium’s blockchain practice, delivered a CBDC pilot embedded at the Central Bank of Nigeria, and served as a capital markets solution architect at Chainlink Labs across the GCC and Europe, working alongside institutions including Fidelity International, JPMorgan, SIX Digital Exchange, and the FSRA in Abu Dhabi.
Based in Dubai for over 5 years, she advises on digital assets strategy, tokenization, and regulatory readiness, and contributes thought leadership on the future of tokenized markets.
OUR ADVISOR
He joined the PayPal in 2012 as part of the Merchant Services team, later started to lead the Middle East and North Africa in 2016. He recently moved to his current role responsible for PayPal’s Sales and Market Development efforts in 81 markets across Middle East and Africa with a large reservoir of untapped online buyers.
Prior to joining PayPal, Emrah co-founded Gourmet Marketing, an online marketing agency in New York, NY. Served as Branch Manager at American International Group, leading the largest AIG branch in the Tri-state area for 5 years and prior to that worked for J.P. Morgan Chase.
Emrah has a BS and a BA in Business Management and Economics from SUNY at Stony Brook.
