Meltem Heper
Global Management Consultant - Strategic Positioning
Founder @ Magnetic Marca | Consulting Partner @ RIES
Meltem’s passion is bringing CLARITY to Chaotic Environments to unleash Healthy Growth.
This passion has led her to focus on Strategic Positioning as a Global Management Consultant.
A strategic positioning expert since 1998, she is a co-author of “Positioning in the 21st Century” with Al Ries, Laura Ries & Simon Zhang.
She helps Companies, Leaders and Cultures formulate their overall strategy in the light of a Clear Positioning to
become a Global Center of Attraction.
Positioning is Owning a word, a concept or a category in the Mind; it defines a brand,
what it is and even more critically, what it is not.
Meltem’s work models developed to Clarify, Strengthen and Sustain a Strategic Positioning are based on a UNIQUE SYSNTHESIS of deep knowledge from extensive research on the subject with more than 25 years of actual in-house experience spanning global companies to local jewels.
Her most important insight is that to create a Magnetic Brand, instead of wasting resources on popular tactics, a Clear Positioning has to be the centerpiece of all strategies.
With this in mind, she established Magnetic Marca | Manyetik Marka while also becoming one of the 5 Consulting Partners and sole Turkish representative of RIES Global, The Positioning Pioneers, to establish RIES Türkiye.
Previously, she served as a top level executive in many different organizations from Fortune 500 companies (Unilever 15 years) to SMEs and Start-Ups, and led leading Global and Local brands.
Besides managing countless brands from Dove to Duru, Dalin, Cistus & Knauf and experiencing both B2C and B2B business models, playing a role in the transformation of family companies has contributed to her perspective today at least as much as her global company experience.
She has received various marketing awards throughout her career and has been named
one of the "Top 25 Marketers of Turkey" by Capital Magazine.
Meltem attended primary school in the USA, Israel & Turkey, spent 1 year in England while attending Üsküdar American Academy (2nd in class), and studied Management at METU (freshman) and Bosphorus University (10th in class, high honor student).
In addition to her formal education, she has attended countless global and local trainings.
“The Passion Test” of which she is a Certified Facilitator, is a key contributor to her models.
An obsessive reader, she is recently getting her feet wet writing, sharing her insights on her blog.
Besides creating concepts even in her spare time, her greatest pleasures are dancing and singing.
Born in 1971 in Ankara, Meltem is the mother of two children.
She hopes to be beneficial to her country by contributing to the Globalization of Turkish brands.
“When You Are Clear, Miracles Happen”, Chris Attwood, Co-Founder of The Passion Test
Work Experience
Sep 2010 - Present
Ankara, Turkey
Founder
Magnetic Marca
Jan 2019 - Present
Ankara, Turkey
Consulting Partner
RIES Global
Nov 2017 - Nov 2018
Ankara, Turkey
Head of Regional Market Management
Knauf, Southern Europe, Africa, Middle East & South Asia
Dec 2014 - Feb 2016
Istanbul, Turkey
Chief Marketing Officer
Kopaş Cosmetics
Feb 2013 - Nov 2014
Istanbul, Turkey
Global Marketing Director
Evyap
Dec 2008 - Aug 2010
Istanbul, Turkey
General Manager
Groupe Bel Turkey
Mar 1993 - Sep 2008
Istanbul, Turkey
Marketing Director
Unilever (Local & Regional Responsibility, Global Brand Team Memberships)
Sep 1992 - Dec 1992
Istanbul, Turkey
Staff Consultant
Andersen Consulting (Now Accenture)
Chris Warmoth
Executive Vice President
Carlsberg Group
I worked with Meltem when I was on the Board of Evyap and Meltem was heading International Marketing.
She did an excellent job especially on Duru. She found a brand which was very fragmented, had no consistent positioning across variants and products, no consistent look and feel — and, despite starting from a very complex situation, she was able to find a way forward which truly created a brand. It’s one thing to create a brand from scratch — difficult in itself. It’s actually much harder to take a highly fragmented and inconsistent brand and create a brand from that. This all required Meltem to leverage her long experience on brands, her creativity in being able to map a way forward and her leadership to make it happen. It all happened in a short period of time. Meltem did similar work on other brands — with similar results.
She was always very good to deal with — had clear opinions, expressed her point of view well, was a good listener and was able to take multiple inputs and reflect them well.
Educational Background
Formal Education
Key Focus Areas
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Business
Global Management Consulting
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Personal Project
Setting Voices Free
Cultural
Brand Turkey Going Global
Qualification Highlights
Awards / Certification / Training
Professional Awards
Performance Coaching
The Passion Test
Life Success Coaching
The School for The Work
Language Skills
Manchester, UK, 1986-1987 School Year
Boston, MA, USA, 1977-1978 School Year
Storrs, CA, USA, 1981-1982 School Year
Bucharest, Romania, 1996-1998, Unilever Expatriate
Istanbul & Ankara, Turkey, Rest of My Life...
Austin, TX, USA, Summer of 1978
Jerusalem, Israel, 1979-1980 School Year First Term
International
Work & Life
Experience
Social Mission
Brand Turkey Going Global
“When You Are Clear Miracles Happen”
Chris Attwood, Co-Founder of The Passion Test
Let’s Connect
Call me at:
+90 532 456 0335
or send me a message directly below: