Mehmet Simsek served as the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Financial Affairs of Türkiye during 2015-2018.

He previously served as the Minister of Finance (2009-15), and as the Minister of Economy (2007-09). He was elected to the Parliament for three terms (2007, 2011, 2015) representing the ruling AK Party.

Mr. Simsek has formulated the fiscal policy which has helped Türkiye recover strongly from the global financial crisis. He has also undertaken far reaching reforms such as simplifying tax regulations, enhancing taxpayers’ rights, and reducing the size of shadow economy.

During his 11 years of public service as a minister, Mr. Simsek was a strong advocate of structural reforms and prudent macroeconomic policies. The country’s strong fiscal position and reform efforts have helped Türkiye weather multiple (domestic and external) shocks over the past decade. A credit guarantee scheme, enhanced under Mr. Simsek’s leadership, helped the country avoid a recession after the failed coup attempt in 2016.

Mr. Simsek represented Türkiye as a governor at the IMF, the World Bank Group and the IsDB and as the Finance Minister of Türkiye at the G20. He has regularly attended several international forums including the World Economic Forum in Davos, and the Bilderberg Group meetings.

Before entering politics, he worked for Merrill Lynch in London for seven years, initially as economist and strategist, and later as the head of Fixed Income Strategy and Macro Economic Research for the emerging EMEA region (2005-2007). From 1998 to 2000, he was a senior economist and bank analyst at Deutsche-Bender Securities in Istanbul. Earlier in his career, he worked on Wall Street for UBS Securities in New York (1997-1998), and as a senior economist at the US Embassy in Ankara (1993-97).

Mr. Simsek holds a B.S. in Economics from Ankara University and worked as a research assistant in the University’s International Economics and Economic Development Department. He also studied in United Kingdom after being awarded a competitive Turkish State Scholarship. He holds an M.PHil in Finance and Investments from Exeter University. Mr. Simsek is also a member of the Global Economic Symposium (GES) advisory board.

Mr. Simsek was born in 1967, in a small village in Batman, a province in Southeastern Türkiye. He is married, has twin girls, and a boy. He is fluent in Turkish, English and Kurdish.

Mr. Yüzüak is EVP, Finance & Fleet Management at Pegasus Airlines since March 2012. He started his career as a Business Analyst at Turkish Airlines in 1994 and served as Strategic Planning and Investment Manager between 2001 and 2003. He served as Strategic Planning Manager for Havaş Handling Company between 2004 - 2005. He joined Pegasus as Strategic Planning Manager in 2005 and served as Finance and Strategic Planning Manager between 2009 - 2012. Tamer Yüzüak holds a bachelor’s degree in management engineering granted by Istanbul Technical University in 1994.

Yasmina Serghini is a Managing Director in Moody’s Rating's Corporate Finance Group. She manages the teams in Madrid, Milan and Paris that are responsible for investment grade and high yield companies primarily in the TMT, retail, pharmaceutical, healthcare, food, packaged goods, railways and postal services industries.

Since joining Moody’s in 2005, Yasmina has been in charge of the credit ratings of automotive and truck manufacturers, retail, consumer packaged goods companies, including beverages and business services companies. Prior to joining Moody’s, Yasmina worked for Caisse Nationale des Caisses d’Epargne as a credit risk analyst where she had responsibilities for the analysis of companies mainly in the airlines, telecoms and real estate industries as well as aircraft and shipping financings. Yasmina is a CFA charterholder. 

She holds a Postgraduate Diploma (“DESS”) in Finance from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and has a university degree (majoring in Finance) from Dauphine University (Paris). She is fluent in English, French and Moroccan.

Stephen is a Managing Director and Global Co-Head of banking. He is co-responsible for global bank ratings and is based in London where he primarily focuses on banks in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

From 2022-2025 he was the Managing Director and Regional Head of EMEA, Stephen also served as the Country Manager for the United Kingdom for Moody’s Ratings. He was responsible for core business strategy, governance and oversight in the EMEA region.

Before relocating to London, Stephen held the position as Global Co-Head of Banking from 2010 to 2022, based in Hong Kong. In this role, he was responsible for global bank ratings with a primary focus on banks across the Asia-Pacific region.

Prior to joining Moody’s, Stephen worked at J.P. Morgan in London, Tokyo and Hong Kong in various senior credit, research and rating advisory positions. From 1990-1996 he was a bank analyst at S&P Global in London and Paris.

Stephen began his career as a banking regulator at the Bank of England. He is a graduate of the University of Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Rehan Akbar is an Executive Director in Moody’s EMEA Corporate Finance Group, based in Dubai. He currently manages the corporate team responsible for rating coverage of companies in the Middle East, Africa, Turkiye, and the CIS region. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2011, Rehan worked as a credit analyst at Mashreq Capital, focusing on emerging market corporates. He began his career as a software engineer and technology consultant.

Rehan holds a Master’s degree in Management Sciences and Engineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Lahore University of Management Sciences. He is also a CFA charterholder.

Lynn Merhi is an Assistant Vice President with Moody’s Financial Institutions Group and is based in London, covering a portfolio of Turkish and other emerging market banks. She joined Moody's in 2022.

Prior to joining Moody's, Lynn held positions as a risk analyst at Byblos Bank and Lebanon and Gulf Bank in Lebanon. She holds a degree in Business Administration with an emphasis on Finance from the American University of Beirut, a Masters in International Trade and Business from ESIC and is a certified Financial Risk Manager from the Global Association of Risk Professionals.

Alexander Perjéssy is Senior Vice President at the Moody’s Sovereign Risk Group.

Based in Dubai, he has lead analyst responsibilities for a number of sovereigns in the Middle East, including most of the Gulf Cooperation Council member states and several regional multilateral institutions.

Prior to joining Moody’s in November 2017, Alex worked for two years as economist at the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Before relocating to the Middle East, Alex spent more than 12 years covering macroeconomic developments and sovereign risk assessment in the emerging markets of the EMEA region for AllianceBernstein and The Rohatyn Group, both US-based asset management firms in New York, as well as for Goldman Sachs in London.

Alex holds an MA in Economics from the University of Maryland and a BA in Economics from Middlebury College.

Badis Shubailat is a Vice President with Moody’s Financial Institutions Group. Based in Dubai, Badis covers a portfolio of large conventional as well as Islamic banks in the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Morocco. He is the lead analyst responsible for the Bahraini and Tunisian banking systems and also covered in the past financial institutions in Kuwait, Qatar and Turkey. Since joining Moody’s in March 2014, Badis has authored research publications focusing on GCC and North African credits as well as Islamic Banking. Badis holds a Bachelor in Business Administration from John Cabot University (Rome, Italy) and an MSc in Finance from EADA Business School (Barcelona, Spain). Badis speaks English, French, Arabic and Italian.

Iker is an Assistant Vice President in the Moody’s EMEA Corporate Finance Group based in Dubai. He covers a diversified industry portfolio, with exposure in Turkey, Africa, and the Middle East.

He joined Moody’s Dubai office in 2022, and previously worked as an associate analyst in the Moody’s London office covering the leveraged finance industry with exposure to Business and Consumer Services, Healthcare, Airlines and Aerospace & Defense. Before that, he spent 2 years working in the consulting industry in Spain.

Iker holds a Masters Degree in Investment Management from Henley Business School. He also holds a BSc in Business Management from the University of Deusto and is a CFA charterholder since 2018.

Neil Griffiths-Lambeth is an Executive Director in Moody’s Infrastructure Finance team, based in London, and responsible for the rating agency’s coverage of regulated and unregulated utilities across EMEA. Over the course of his career at Moody’s, Neil has acted as lead analyst for a broad range of utilities and transport infrastructure companies. He has followed the UK water sector since 2008, writing extensively on regulatory and other developments and playing a key role in developing the rating agency’s strong reputation in the sector. As an authoritative independent commentator, Neil is a frequent speaker at conferences and other events. Moody’s has a leading global Infrastructure Finance franchise, rating some US$2 trillion of corporate and project finance securities, representing more than 90% of all public bonds issued globally in the sector. 140 analytical sector staff cover more than 1,000 infrastructure issuers globally. Moody’s EMEA team of 50 specialists is responsible for rating around 416 issuers. The rating agency covers more than 11,000 corporate issuers and 135 sovereign nations. Prior to joining Moody’s in 2007, Neil spent 15 years at Lazard. Over this period he advised a broad range of clients on raising finance in the public and private markets. Notable transactions included advising the UK Government on support and funding for Network Rail, Veolia on the acquisition and highly-leveraged financing of Southern Water, and Wind Telecommunicazioni on funding for its network roll-out. Neil read Mathematics at the University of Sussex and pursued postgraduate research at Imperial College, London.

Tom has been working in the field of Sustainable Development for five years. He is an experienced analyst who has been involved in 100+ green, social, sustainable and sustainability-linked Second Party Opinion (SPOs) and net-zero assessments, with a particular focus on the energy sector and the decarbonization of hard-to-abate industries. Tom worked in Moody’s research department as an analyst in the Energy & Utilities sector.

Tom holds a Master’s degree in Corporate Finance specialised in the green bond market from Neoma Business School, and a Master’s degree in Economics in Université Grenobles Alpes where he wrote his master’s thesis about the economics of the French future electric system. He also has been giving lectures about Sustainable Finance and helped build the bachelor on transitions at ESSEC business School for three years.

Burak Cerrahoglu is Vice President and responsible for new rating relationships in CIS region and Turkiye.

Prior to joining Moody’s in 2007, Burak was Operations/Risk Manager with European Housing Finance EHF, which is a mortgage finance company based in Istanbul and specializing in the secondary mortgage market in Turkey. Burak was previously with the Mortgage Acceptance Corp. in the U.S., while structuring MBS and mortgage whole loan sales.

Burak holds M.S. in Finance from Boston College and B.S. in Finance from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Linus Silfverduk is Executive Director, Head of Relationship Management Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. Moody's Ratings maintains approximately 500 existing rating relationships across the region from various sectors such as corporates, financials, sovereign, sub-sovereign, and infrastructure. The coverage teams, based out of Stockholm, Frankfurt and Zurich, as well as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, are responsible for account management, business development and engagement with local rating advisers and other intermediaries.

Linus is also Moody’s Ratings Country Manager for Sweden and Director of the Nordic subsidiary, Moody’s Investors Service (Nordics AB). He is Executive Sponsor for the Nordic Inclusion Group.

Prior to joining Moody’s in early 2017, Linus worked ten years for Nordea Bank, from 2010 in the Corporate & Investment Banking division, covering a portfolio of Swedish global manufacturing companies. Linus has a master’s degree in Business Administration from Stockholm School of Economics.