Özgür Erol
Verified Expert in Finance
Growth Expert
Berlin, Germany
Toptal member since May 23, 2022
A business expert with an engineering background, Özgür is highly experienced in business planning, reporting, and finance. Throughout his 7-year career, he worked for high-growth startups and scaleups and co-founded an up-and-coming startup. He acted as an in-house consultant, built departments, partook in strategic decisions, and participated in funding rounds and an exit through a merger. Özgür is willing to work on new projects leveraging his experience to help clients scale their business.
Career Highlights
Education Highlights
Expertise
Work Experience
Head of Financial Planning and Analysis
Market Logic
- Led finance digitalization initiatives, implementing two new software solutions and four new processes.
- Collaborated with C-level executives to build the financial forecast for debt financing.
- Managed commercial and revenue forecasting with the sales team, taking the full responsibility for communicating the figures with board and investors.
Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer
Doctor Kimchi
- Built the business plan and financial model that is currently being used for investment discussions.
- Created the eCommerce structure and set up a direct-to-consumer (D2C) channel.
- Defined the growth, sales, and marketing strategy based on customer personas and forecasts from the financial model.
- Negotiated with local and q-commerce retailers for annual contracts.
Head of Finance
Lemon One
- Created the financial model and business plan for two multi-million fundraising rounds from scratch and actively participated in the fundraising and merger conversations.
- Re-created the accounting process and financial reporting and increased the accuracy of accounting from 72% to 99% based on a monthly EBITDA gap between accounting and operational data.
- Grew the controlling department that covers finance and business intelligence functions from scratch by hiring five employees.
- Built the data warehouse with BigQuery and implemented the business intelligence tool, Google Data Studio.
- Managed the project for invoicing and revenue collection automation and decreased the outstanding (uncollected) revenue from 24% to 4% within four months.
- Introduced a credit note structure and improved the freelancer payment process, ensuring that 100% of the payments were completed within the first five days of the following month.
Manager – Business Intelligence
Applause
- Hired and trained eight employees over three years that created the reporting structure for all seven different departments in the EU division.
- Built and automated weekly and quarterly annual recurring revenue (ARR) sales forecasting, managing it weekly with the sales directors and the global headquarters.
- Managed the rollout of three different sales efficiency and engagement platforms—Highspot, Allego, and outreach.io.
- Developed and automated quota setting and management for the sales department and managed it quarterly, holding four sales directors and 23 account executives responsible.
- Introduced the OKR structure to the EU division in close collaboration with the executive team. Onboarded and trained 10+ team managers to apply OKRs to their teams and led the quarterly reviews.
Sales Business Analyst
Red Bull
- Built the reporting structure for the sales department in collaboration with global headquarters.
- Managed the quota setting with the executive team and four regional directors for all channels within the country.
- Spearheaded weekly and quarterly forecasting with the sales leadership team and kept the 16 sales managers accountable.
Key Accounts Sales Representative
Red Bull
- Managed four key accounts with 27% year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth.
- Closed the first annual deal and listed the Red Bull products for the first time in a new key account that became the fifth biggest customer in the country within two years.
- Built the best practice for sampling on the B2B channels to increase outreach and access to the retail channels.
Key Accounts Sales Executive
Marsh
- Managed six key accounts from mid-large segment with 100% renewal rate and 13% YoY revenue growth.
- Acquired three new customers that are production-oriented and with 1000+ employees with a total of $400k annual revenue.
- Reviewed and redefined account management processes. Kept people accountable for following the best practices.
Enterprise Sales Development
Vodafone Group
- Led a customer relationship management (CRM) system implementation project on the indirect B2B sales channel.
- Introduced and implemented a central CRM system on 57 local subsidiaries and trained 150+ employees.
- Oversaw the rollout of a third-party employee engagement platform to reach employees of local subsidiaries.
- Created and maintained churn and retention reporting for the indirect sales channels.
Brand Marketing
The Coca-Cola Company
- Took part in the core team for a new iced tea product launch in Turkey, from analysis to implementation, where the brand reached 19% market share in its category within four months.
- Created and maintained the management reporting for a new segment in the market.
- Managed the social media campaigns with a marketing agency.
Education
Master’s Degree in Business Administration
Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg - Magdeburg, Germany
Bachelor's Degree in Engineering
Istanbul Technical University - İstanbul, Turkey
Skills
Finance
Financial Reporting, Budgeting, Business Intelligence (BI), Forecasting, Financial Modeling, Fundraising, Market Research, Pricing, Pricing Strategy, Total Addressable Market (TAM), Data Analysis, Startup Funding, Private Equity, Accounting, Revenue Modeling, Microeconomics, Investment Decision-making, Market Opportunity Analysis, Risk
Output Software
Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Microsoft PowerPoint, Google Slides
Industry Expertise
Sales & Marketing, Retail & Wholesale, Venture Capital, Financial Services
Geographic Expertise
EMEA, Middle East, United States
Data & Analysis Software
SQL
Other
Slack, Google Data Studio, Sales Strategy, Reporting, SaaS, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Ad-hoc Modeling, Business Planning, Sales Operations, Process Design, Startups, Business Strategy, Business Models, Go-to-market Strategy, Process Management, Process Optimization, Business Processes, Business Process Optimization, Process Mapping, Market Research & Analysis, Management Consulting, Strategy, Business Development, Pricing, B2C, Enterprise Software, Board Presentations, Business Plan Consulting, Analytics, Data Analytics, Subscription Pricing, Cohort Analysis, Roadmaps, Software as a Service (SaaS), Customer Data, Pricing Models, Consulting, Sales & Channel Enablement, Go-to-market Plans, Growth Strategy, Growth Strategy Consultants, Project Management, Business Analysis, Use Case Analysis, Market Sizing, Market Research Analyst, Stakeholder Mapping, Direct to Consumer (D2C), Market Segmentation, Surveys, Operational Efficiency Improvement, Operations, Data Science, Data Management, Competition Research, Competitive Analysis, B2B Lead Generation, New Business Development, Lead Generation, Deal Closure, Marketing Plans, Fundraising Strategy, Fundraising Consultant, Process Control, Process Flows, Shopify, eCommerce, Sales Growth, IT Services, COO, Microsoft Teams, Domo, Investor Relations, Process Automation, P&L Analysis, Sales, Marketing, Business Modeling, Process Improvement, Business Process Modeling, Business Process Analysis, Business Transformation, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), Omnichannel Marketing, Operating Models, Telehealth, Subscriptions, Agile Product Management, Product Management, Marketing Strategy, Marketo, Lean Product Manager, Pitch Decks, Consumer Health, Customer Success, B2B Partnerships, Sales Effectiveness, Sales Commission Structure, Software Development, Optimization, Production, C++, Human Resources (HR), Management, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Decision Modeling, Investment Decision Support, Statistics, Brand Marketing, Product Launch, Launch Strategy, Marketing Analytics, CRM Systems, Employee Engagement, Key Account Management, Contract Drafting, Margin Optimization, Field Sales, Controlling, Quota Setting, Budget Modeling, Annual Budgets, Automation, Business Intelligence Consultant, Data, Data Warehousing, Data Visualization, Commerce, Commercials, Business, Insurance Broking, Risk Management, Account-based Marketing (ABM), Financials, Debt Financing, Financing, Enterprise Sales
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