Meet Our Affiliates

Yalcin Ipbuken is president of the Lean Institute Turkey, which joined the LEI global network of nonprofit affiliates in May 2002.

In July 1998, he organized the Lean Summit Turkey, a two-day conference drawing more than 500 attendees and speakers, including keynoters Jim Womack and Dan Jones.

In his previous thirty-year career with the KOC Group in Turkey, Yalcin led the group’s internal consulting division and its external search for new ideas and trends. He helped develop consulting services to improve the performance of individuals, groups, and organizations.

Earlier with KOC, he managed projects that improved the productivity of Group companies and played a significant role in the formation of KOC human resource policies. He also played a key role in coordinating total quality efforts at KOC for almost 10 years.

As assistant to the president of KOC Holding, he led long-term research projects on the automotive industry in Turkey. This was a natural result of his early involvement in TOFAS, the first mass producer of automobiles in Turkey, as company personnel and industrial relations manager for 12 years.

Ipbuken learned the coal trading and textile raw materials businesses as the Middle East representative for the Kofisa Trading Co. The position took him to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia and gave him valuable experience working with people from different cultures, religions, and backgrounds.

He learned American business methods during the six years he was the personnel and administrative supervisor for the Tumpane Company, which was a contractor to the American military in Turkey.

Ipbuken received a law degree from Istanbul University Law School.

He currently serves on the boards of the Turkish Olympic Committee and the Turkish Quality Association.