With almost 17 years of experience at Turkish Airlines, Prof. Ahmet Bolat has been responsible for Fleet Planning, Investment Management, International Relations and Alliances, and Innovation as the Chief Investment & Technology Officer before being appointed as the Chairman of the Board and the Executive Committee.

During his tenure, he managed the strategic growth plan of Turkish Airlines and lead the team for procuring around 550 aircraft to Turkish Airlines fleet. Being responsible for International Relations & Alliances, Bolat has managed commercial agreements with airline partners, ensuring partnership & network development with enhanced bilateral relations. He was the
leading executive at Turkish Airlines for the feasibility study of the Alliance election project.

Prof. Ahmet Bolat has played an important role in the growth strategy of Turkish Airlines. He was a Board Member of SunExpress, a joint venture of Turkish Airlines and Lufthansa, and is currently a Board Member of Turkish Cabin Interior Inc. and Deputy Chairman of Turkish Aerospace Industry.

After graduating from Istanbul Technical University in 1981 as an Industrial Engineer, Bolat enrolled in M.Sc. Operations Research program at Stanford University, graduating in 1984. He obtained his Ph.D. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1988.

He started his career in 1981 as a Design and Production Engineer. Between 1985 and 1988, he held various roles at the University of Michigan including Teaching Assistant, Research Assistant and Assistant Professor. From 1988 to 2005, he worked as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor at Industrial Engineering Department of King Saud University. He also continued teaching at various universities in Istanbul.

Besides supervising projects in logistics areas such as Aircraft-Gate Assignment, Oil Tanker Transportation and Intercity Bus Operations, he advised many doctoral and master’s theses, contributed to academic literature with papers on the subjects of optimization, sequencing and scheduling, as well as automobile assembly lines.