Defne Aşkar Şekkeli was born in Ankara in 1989. After completing her primary and high school education at M.E.T.U. Development Foundation Schools, she entered Bilkent University Department of Industrial Engineering in 2006. In 2010, after completing her undergraduate studies, she received an Erasmus Mundus scholarship and was accepted to the master’s program in Complex Systems Science, a joint program of Chalmers University and Warwick University. In October 2012, she received her master’s degree.
In 2013, she started her career and worked as a business analyst and project manager in various companies for 10 years. In 2019, she received her PMP (Project Management Professional) certificate and specialized in project management. Finally, Defne Aşkar Şekkeli joined EY Turkey in 2020. She is currently working as a Senior Manager at the same organization. She also worked as a project manager in Konya and Eskişehir Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans Preparation Project. Her areas of expertise include sustainable mobility, policy design, process analysis, process improvement, project management and data analysis.