Recommended expert

Merve Salmaz

Product Manager, Corporate Investment Products

Merve Salmaz
Istanbul, Turkey

Experience

May 2025 - Present
9 months

Product Manager, Corporate Investment Products

Garanti BBVA

  • Supervising the development of investment and treasury solutions for enterprise and commercial clients, driving adoption across digital channels.
  • Leading API integrations with the Agricultural Stock Exchange and Central Clearing Institutions to enable EWR trading, collateral management, and automated settlement.
  • Managing domestic and international stock account trading flows across internet and mobile banking, improving corporate clients’ digital experience and transaction efficiency.
  • Collaborating with compliance, legal, investment banking, and engineering to design microservice-based system interactions between internal and external platforms.
  • Developing product KPIs and OKRs aligned with the bank’s digital transformation strategy, supporting a 13% YoY increase in investment transaction volume.
Sep 2023 - Jul 2024
11 months

Product Owner AI ML

Intenseye

  • Managed the development and launch of Chief resulting in a 30% reduction in manual safety report generation time and enhancing decision-making efficiency for enterprise clients
  • Implemented a conversational UI that allowed users to interact naturally with Chief, increasing user engagement by 40% and boosting user satisfaction scores by 20% based on post-deployment surveys
  • Executed Gen AI and LLM Proof of Concept (PoC)’s using the models of OpenAI, Anthropic and Gemini showcasing expertise in integrating cutting-edge technologies into product strategy.
Jan 2023 - Apr 2023
4 months

Head of Product

TalentGrid

  • Successfully managed the complete lifecycle of three products—B2B, B2C, and internal platforms—and led strategic initiatives from initial discovery through to execution
  • Increased sourcing efficiency by 40% by launching a browser extension that streamlined talent partner processes, replacing manual Notion entries with a unified platform
  • Expanded the product team by hiring and mentoring a junior product manager and a UX/UI designer, resulting in a 25% reduction in feature delivery time.
Jul 2022 - Jan 2023
7 months

Product Manager

TalentGrid

  • Spearheaded the development of a B2B platform for corporate clients, which reduced hiring cycle time by 30% by allowing end-to-end management of the recruitment process
  • Collaborated closely with sales and engineering teams to develop a seamless user experience for clients, resulting in a 20% reduction in onboarding time for new users
  • Increased community growth by 66% per user through the successful launch of TalentGrid's first referral program, enhancing user engagement and network effects.
Jan 2021 - Jul 2022
1 year 7 months

Senior Product Manager

4D Sight

  • Increased company valuation by $65 million by leading the development of an ad marketplace platform from scratch, enabling streamers and brands to collaborate seamlessly with real-time ad placements and performance tracking
  • Reduced software bugs by 80% and improved development efficiency by building an in-house product team, transitioning from a low-quality outsourced solution to a high-performing internal software development lifecycle (SDLC)
  • Launched an MVP within 6 months by collaborating with a design agency, conducting comprehensive user research and interviews, and validating key design decisions, ensuring a strong product-market fit
  • Expanded the product team from 0 to 5 members, including developers and designers, which resulted in a 50% faster product iteration cycle and a more cohesive product development process.
Sep 2019 - Jan 2021
1 year 5 months

Product Manager

Kavaken

  • Led an engineering team of 4 data scientists and 4 software developers, collaborating with a UX designer, customer support, and other product teams to ensure continuous discovery and delivery
  • Developed and managed AI-driven modules for predictive maintenance, power optimization, sales forecasting, and outage tracking, addressing critical needs in the renewable energy sector
  • Achieved over 10% improvement in wind energy production forecast accuracy and implemented predictive maintenance with a 2-month advance warning for failures.
Feb 2019 - Sep 2019
8 months

Product Manager

Garanti BBVA

  • Managed and grew the open market & advice domain, overseeing the entire product life cycle
  • Contributed to the success of Digital Onboarding, Know Your Customer (KYC), and customer acquisition projects, demonstrating experience with first-time user experiences and customer lifecycle management
  • Boosted product reach by 12% by leading a successful local expansion strategy.
Jul 2017 - Jan 2019
1 year 7 months

Product Manager

Akbank

  • Led core mobile banking app development, driving digital customer growth from 4.7M to 6.7M and improving App Store rating to 4.8 within one year
  • Managed key innovative features including Face Recognition login, touchless ATM withdrawals via QR code, and AI-powered personalized advice integration
  • Collaborated with cross-functional teams and multiple business units to align vision, prioritize backlog, and ensure smooth project execution across 7 Agile teams.

Summary

Senior Product Manager with 8+years of experience leading cross-functional teams in fintech, AI, and digital banking.Currently driving the development of corporate investment and treasury products at Garanti BBVA, one of Europe’s most technologically advanced banks. Proven success building scalable API-based B2B solutions, AI-enabled analytics platforms, and data-driven decision systems across diverse domains including banking, energy, and SaaS. Known for blending strategic insight with technical fluency, aligning business goals, customer value, and engineering excellence. Outside of work, I enjoy crafting my own clothes and performing improv comedy, bringing creativity and adaptability to every aspect of my life.

Skills

  • Product Vision
  • Roadmapping And Product Strategy
  • User Research And Interview Techniques
  • Data-driven Decision Making & Analytics
  • Okr Setting And Tracking
  • A/b Testing
  • Go-to-market Strategy
  • Market Research And Competitive Analysis
  • User Experience (Ux) And User Interface (Ui) Design Principles
  • Product Lifecycle Management
  • Agile And Scrum Methodologies
  • Mvp Development
  • Sql
  • Api Integration
  • Machine Learning
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Cross-functional Team Leadership
  • Vendor And Outsourcing Management
  • Miro
  • Amplitude
  • Figma
  • Slack
  • Pendo
  • Productboard
  • Jira
  • Ml/ai
  • Mathematics
  • Statistics

Languages

Turkish
Native
English
Advanced
German
Intermediate
Chinese
Elementary

Education

Oct 2015 - Jun 2016

Shanghai University

Chinese · Shanghai, China

Oct 2013 - Jun 2017

Bogazici University

Bachelor's degree in International Trade · International Trade · Istanbul, Turkey

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