Barbaros Ozbugutu
Experts | Leadership ManagementBarbaros Özbugutu started his career in 1999 in the call-center operation of telecommunication giant Telefonica O2. In 2005, he transferred to Firstdata, a world leader in payment processing as Operations Unit Manager. Transferring to Telecash, a subsidiary of Firstdata in 2007, Özbugutu became the sales manager responsible for the SME market. Özbugutu, who constituted 50 percent of the total turnover of Telecash with his team in a short time. 2010 he started to work as the country manager responsible for the German market at Klarna, one of the hottest payment companies in the World. During his two and half years leading Klarna Germany, he created the building blocks that led to the ongoing success of the company. Wishing to bring experience in e-commerce and payment services to the Turkish market, Özbugutu co-founded iyzico, with the vision to democratize financial services in Turkey in April 2013.
Having combined forces with PayU as a result of a $ 165 million acquisition process in 2019, iyzico offers easy and secure payment products that makes life easier for more than 100 thousand online merchants and reassures more than 2,6 million iyzico Wallet users. In August 2022, he relinquished the responsibilities as CEO of iyzico and acts today as the Chairman of the Board. In addition, he is an active Business Angel and holds investments in several startups like Yolda, Silverflow, Payrails, and various others.
Özbugutu has been married to Devrim Özbugutu since 2005 and together they have 2 daughters, Dila (16) and Eda (15). He speaks Turkish, English, and German and enjoys playing tennis in his free time, as well as reading books.