Veli Murat Celik, Telco Veteran, Appointed as CEO at Defne

Istanbul, Turkey, March 14, 2020 --(PR.com)-- Defne, a leading provider of telecom solutions, today announced that Veli Murat Celik, accomplished telecom veteran with broad management and technology experience, is appointed as the new CEO at Defne. Oguz Haliloglu, former CEO and co-founder of Defne, will continue to serve on the company’s Board of Directors as Chairman.

“We have been planning this change for the last couple of months and Murat Celik has been actively following the operations of Defne, that will ensure a smooth and quick transition period,” said Oguz Haliloglu. “I have had the privilege of leading Defne since its foundation and it’s now time to pass the torch on to fresh blood. For the last couple of years, we have focused on innovation and created a very exciting set of new products for marketing and campaign management, customer value management, public safety and warning, roaming and VAS consolidation. We also adopted new business models that positioned us as a preferred partner to mobile operators and local system integrators in a variety of regions including CIS, Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa (MEA). Murat’s vast industry knowledge and expertise coupled with his proven leadership will help Defne focus further on our strategy execution and accelerate foot-print growth.”

“I’m delighted to join Defne at this new phase of the company’s growth,” said V. Murat Celik. “Defne has an excellent technical and business team, and a very attractive product portfolio that we can bring together to help our network operator customers to solve their problems. I look forward to working with Defne team and the distinguished set of customers during this unique time where limitless intelligent connectivity is changing the telco industry at a very fast pace. With investments made to date in innovation, Defne has great opportunities ahead in helping our customers drive revenue generation and subscriber loyalty.”

Veli Murat Celik has over 25 years of industry experience that includes executive positions in management, sales and business development for wireless and wireline value added services and IP based next generation solutions. Before Defne, he worked in management and technology areas at both vendor, network operator and government institutions including Extunda, Tubitak, TT Mobile (formerly AVEA), ZTE, Huawei and Ericsson. Celik currently serves on the Board of HTK (Communication Technologies Cluster) of Turkey and is committed to the deployment and wide use of 5G technology in the country. Celik holds a Master of Science degree in Electronics Engineering from Bosphorus University in Istanbul, Turkey.

About Defne
Defne, established in 1996, is a leading global provider of telecom solutions, software products and services for communications networks. Defne’s solutions enable network operators and service providers to monetize every potential connection beyond limits while enhancing subscriber experience. Backed up with professional and managed services, Defne offers a differentiated portfolio of innovative value added services, public warning and mass notification, marketing and campaign management, customer value management, and roaming solutions. Today, more than 25 service providers across 20 countries serving over 500 million subscribers are driving revenue growth and increasing customer loyalty with Defne’s solutions and services. Expertise on IN, IVR, and messaging combined with a wealth of skilled resources, allows Defne to provide reliable and scalable solutions that seamlessly integrate with existing customer infrastructure.

Headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey, Defne ranked in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA and the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Turkey programs in multiple years. Defne is an Associate Member of the GSM Association. For more information about Defne and its solutions, please visit the company's website.