Based in London, Shanghai and Istanbul, his well-rounded professional career over the past 35 years has included high-level government, international organisation, business, and public diplomacy engagements. Currently, Mehmet chairs Global Resources Partnership, a UK strategic advisory group, serves as Chairman, International Advisory Board, Middle East Institute, Washington DC; Special Envoy of The International Energy Charter for MENA Region; and Chair of The Bosphorus Energy Club and The London Energy Club, exclusive gatherings of the senior executives and leaders in finance, energy and politics across the world. He has recently joined as partner the Brussels-based EuroFocus group, well versed in strategic communications.

Previously, from 1984, he was advisor to the prime minister and a career Turkish diplomat in Ankara, Beijing, Brussels and Paris. In 1994, he joined the International Energy Agency in Paris as a senior international staffer, established its first China, Central Asia, Russia and India programmes of co-operation and collaboration, organised a series of dialogue events and technical assistance programmes on energy security, efficiency, technology deployment and finance, climate change and natural gas market development.

From 2000, Mehmet was the head of OECD’s International Investment Programme.

He designed and managed OECD’s Global Forum, MENA Investment and Governance Programme, the South East Europe’s Investment Compact, the Emerging Asia Investment Initiative and raised substantial funds to implement these programmes. He was instrumental in developing and pursuing several trackable policy reforms across the Gulf countries, Africa, and Central Asia. Until 2011, Mehmet was Director for British Gas (BG) Group, now part of Shell, in London, one of the world’s largest natural gas and petroleum multinationals, managing high-level government engagements across 28 countries in support of the company’s global assets and new business development. Mehmet helped engineer the reverse takeover of Genel Energy, an Iraqi Kurdistan E&P group, by Vallares, a LSE-listed financial shell company owned by Nat Rotschild, Tony Hayward and Julian Metherell and since then served as an independent member of the board of directors, overseeing engagement with Kurdish authorities, new business, refinancing of bonds as well as audit, nomination and health and safety committees, till 2018.

As an entrepreneur, he has created and managed Global Resources Partnership as a boutique strategic investment advisory group with top experts and advisors in the international market and served clients such as Chevron, SOCAR, CNPC, Rosatom, South Stream Transport, Gazprom, KMG, DFID, BG Group, Shell, Gunvor and Petronas on asset due diligence, stakeholder engagement, strategic communications, fund raising, 2011-present. He sat on the international advisory board of APCOWorldwide.

Mehmet is a graduate of Turkey’s “Mulkiye”, London School of Economics (MSc) and College d’Europe (MA), Bruges. As an honorary fellow, he teaches occasionally at London School of Economics’ Enterprise Executive Programme, Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Dundee University, and University of Reading since 2005.