Mert Çetinkaya

Ahoy! I am Mert. I am the director of ATÖLYE Academy, where I work on the art of bringing people and ideas together. I am here to help others dream and take action to realize their vision. Supporting individuals, teams, and groups so that they can better adapt to the complex and uncertain world we live in is my motivation. As a generalist, I am interested in every aspect of design, strategy, facilitation, learning, human experience, and existence.

Mert is an experienced facilitator, organizational development consultant, design strategist, and trainer.

Mert joined ATÖLYE in 2015 to establish and manage ATÖLYE’s work on organizational and learning-based design. When these works evolved into ATÖLYE Academy in 2020, Mert undertook the role of Academy’s director. Mert strives for institutions to acquire innovation culture and design skills at Academy. For this purpose, he implements comprehensive learning programs, builds practice-based communities, and acts as a facilitator in design sprints and human-centered design camps. He also demonstrates his expertise in building the strategic framework for ATÖLYE projects and facilitating social innovation processes with multiple stakeholders. He has so far organized more than 300 workshops and training programs.

Mert started his consultancy career in strategic planning and organizational change at Arama, a boutique consultancy company specializing in participatory processes working together with leading companies, civil society, and government institutions in Turkey.

As a learning designer and facilitator, he returned to Koç University to design and implement educational programs for undergraduate students in social innovation, social entrepreneurship, and global leadership. During his time at the university, he taught a highly acclaimed course named “Changemaking in Action” and formed a core community of people leading change on the campus. Since January 2016, he has been working as an assistant professor at Bilgi University, where he teaches design thinking and complex problem-solving in different graduate programs.

Previously, Mert received training on systems thinking, participatory change processes, design facilitation, authentic leadership, and learning experience design. He also enjoys thinking, reading, writing, and talking about the future of complexity, design theory, and consulting practice.