Şebnem graduated from the American Collegiate Institute, studied psychology at the Aegean University’s Faculty of Literature and continued with her masters in Developmental Psychology. She set up the first Tele-Marketing operation in Turkey after receiving her training at ITT Yellow Pages in the UK. Working at Show TV broadened her vision on the media world.
Her story with the world of high-end jewelry started at Gilan - Turkey’s leading international premium jewelry brand – where she worked hand in hand with the founders and created their initial brand strategy and executed their first significant marketing activity. She then joined the world’s leader in diamonds, De Beers, with a mission to grow the diamond market in Turkey. This was a big challenge as Turkey was very much a “gold country”. The marketing strategies executed with JWT and her team over the course of 13 years greatly expanded the diamond market, an achievement recognized with her being a De Beers Centennary Award winner in 2000 and receiving several other awards from the Turkish Jewelry Association.
“Jewelry is my passion and has been at the heart my career for the last 23 years.”
Her quest for learning in this magical sector has been constant. With a course in Lausanne, she qualified with the De Beers Diamond Marketing Excellence Certificate, and also took several local diamond grading courses. Visits to the South Africa mining operations and jewelry shows in various markets also broadened her insights into the sector.
In 2007 she founded her own boutique luxury marketing communication consultancy firm with her first clients being leading luxury brands such as Christie’s, Davidoff and De Beers, with whom she maintained a strong relationship. She acted as the initial contact and as a consultant in negotiations in building a unique licencee agreement for the Forevermark Diamonds brand with one of Turkey’s leading diamond brands, Zen Pirlanta.
Since 2007, Şebnem and her team have been providing bespoke strategic marketing consultancy and communication services to leading luxury brands in the art, jewelry, watch, lifestyle, hotel and spa sectors. She has shared these experiences in articles in major publications. Her quest for enhancing her coaching and communications skills made her take Fundamental Coaching certificate from Dubai Coaches Training Institute. While her network would talk about her passion for her work , her team would talk more about her constant perfectionism.. Şebnem is married and her most precious diamond is her son.
