Governance

Atilla is one of the founders of Azerion and has been Co-CEO ever since Azerion was founded in 2014. He started his career as a business consultant for ICT companies before founding a string of businesses in the information and digital systems. He co-founded Triodor, an international software development company before launching Azerion. Atilla has a strong focus on technology and digital ecosystems and is a specialist in digital ecosystem developments.

Atilla is also founder and chairman of The Dutch Dream Foundation. This foundation focuses on projects to inspire, motivate and coach entrepreneurs. Atilla was already committed to diversity and inclusion, for example by working for Tannet, a Turkish academic network, and by being Ambassador for the National Diversity Commission, organised by the Dutch Ministry of Justice.

 Atilla has a Master’s degree in Management of Information Systems from Tilburg University.

Umut is one of the founders of Azerion and has been co-CEO ever since Azerion was founded in 2014. He is a serial entrepreneur for more than 20 years – founder as well as acquirer of many technological and digital companies such as Triodor Software, Improve Digital, Widespace and SellBranch.

Umut has extensive experience in the field of digital technology creation and development, and organic growth of digital companies. He started his career at Philips Business Communication, where he managed different engineering projects.

Together with Atilla, he founded the Dutch Dream foundation which focuses on projects to inspire, motivate and coach entrepreneurs. He also worked for ACB, an institute for multicultural studies and projects in the Netherlands.

He holds a degree in electrotechnic from the Technische Universiteit of Delft.

Julie has been part of Azerion since 2018 when Adux joined the group. Julie was CFO of AdUX (EURONEXT: ADUX) since 2015 and has been responsible for the operational finance of the Azerion Platform segment as well as continuing her duties as CFO of AdUX.

She has overseen the rapid expansion of the Platform segment in that time.
Julie started in audit with KPMG in Paris before joining AdUX in 2009.

Ben has over 27 years of professional experience in Law, Investment Banking, Strategy and Corporate Venture Capital with an extensive track-record in public and private M&A, equity and debt capital market transactions.

Ben worked as a barrister in London, before joining Rothschild as an M&A and advisory investment banker. From there he joined Barclays Capital, eventually becoming the Head of its Financial Institutions Group for the investment banking division across EMEA, the Chief Strategy Officer for Barclays’ Investment Bank and then Group Head of Strategy for Barclays PLC. He then founded and became the CEO of Barclays Ventures, before becoming an Executive Director and the Chief Investment Officer of EFIC1, a special purpose acquisition company listed on Euronext Amsterdam in March 2021.

Ben has extensive experience as an early and growth-stage mentor, adviser and investor and helped scale Barclays’ Eagle Labs to be one of the largest incubator networks of its kind in UK. Ben has a track-record of identifying, incubating and scaling disruptive strategies and data/technology-led business models.

Gönenç has worked at Azerion for 10 years, and has been responsible for various areas within the holding including data protection, compliance, research & development. Gönenç holds a Master of Science in Electrical-Electronics Engineering from Boğaziçi University and is a PhD candidate at the Industrial Engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology.

Sebastiaan is Chief Strategy Officer and former CEO of Improve Digital, Azerion Group’s proprietary programmatic platform. With over 25 years working in the marketing sector, Sebastiaan has witnessed firsthand how marketing and technology have become intrinsically connected, leading to increasingly complex technology-driven media strategies.

Prior to joining Azerion, Sebastiaan worked as COO for GroupM for nine years. He was also the founder and CEO of Reddion, a company that he later sold to the global media agency WPP.

Sebastiaan has graduated in econometrics from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, and informatics from the Technische Universiteit in Delft.

As Chief M&A and Corporate Development Officer, Joost has been overseeing Azerion Group’s M&A and strategic partnership activities for the past five years. Joost is actively involved in the growth of the global business across the different markets.

Joost is the founder of Yoki, a European leading advertising network specialised in youth, which was merged with Azerion in 2015. Thanks to his previous entrepreneurial experience in the digital industry, Joost knows how to identify organic and non-organic growth opportunities for Azerion Goup’s business.

Joost has a Bachelor’s Degree from the Avans University of Applied Sciences.

Mickael has worked at Azerion for over 5 years and has previously acted as Azerion’s Vice President of Operations after joining the group through the acquisition of AdUx and subsequently growing the French business to be one of the leading actors in digital marketing in France.

Juriaan has been with Azerion for 10 years where, as Vice President of Games & Content, he oversaw both the integration and the successful divestment of Azerion’s Social Card Games portfolio before taking responsibility for the relationships with external content publishers.