Telat AYDIN

He was born in 1972 in Gümüşhane Kelkit. In 1994, he graduated from Gazi University, Department of History. During his university years, he took Japanese lessons at the Turkish-Japanese Friendship Association. In 1997, he went to Tokyo to study Japanese language with a scholarship of Aydın Doğan, the founder of Doğan Holding. He attended Japanese language education in Takushoku University and later in Kai Japanese Language School for 2 years. Afterwards, he studied as research student in Keio University Economics Faculty of Business and Management Department for 2 years. He completed MBA program at Bunkyo Gakuin University Business Administration Department. He received “The Best MBA Thesis Award” for his thesis on “Comparison of Properties and Development Process of Turkish Family Companies with Japanese Family Companies”.

As part of professional experience, he worked for private sector in Tokyo in the area of foreign trade for 9 years. His specialization was commercialization of the products for Japanese market and relation management with Japanese suppliers and distributors for the traded products especially in the food sector. He also provided the translation of the import related legislation of Japan into Turkish. He also worked as Management Board Member and Auditor in Turkish Trade and Industry Chamber in Japan for 2 years.

During 2011-2016, he was the Director of the Tokyo Yunus Emre Institute Turkish Cultural Center. He managed and coordinated various Turkish culture, arts and language related activities, events and programs in Japan. In this period, he also implemented and organized various cooperation projects with public institutions, academia, local governments and private sector institutions in Japan in coordination with Turkish partners. For example, cooperation protocol signed with Japan Foundation for cultural, academic and social projects and establishment of sister city relationship between İstanbul Beyoğlu Municipality and Tokyo Bunkyo Municipality are some of them.

Subsequently, he moved to Turkey and started to work for private sector in Turkey the as a Manager in the Sales and Project Department.

He has advanced level of Japanese and English with internationally recognized Japanese JLPT N1 Certificate (highest level of Japanese proficiency). He is also sworn interpreter/translator for Japanese to/from Turkish and English translations.

He is a member of the Japanese Business History Society, headquartered in Tokyo.

Lastly, with together Masayoshi Ito, he completed Japanese to Turkish translation of the biography book “Yume wo Chikara ni” (Power of Dreams- Nikkei Publishing) about life of Honda Soichiro who is one of the famous founders of the automobile industry in Japan. Turkish translation of the book was published in November 2018 in Turkey in the name of “Hayallerin Gücü-Benim Hayatım”.