Mrs. Barçın Yinanç

• Moderator at Session IV | Women in Leadership

Barçın Yinanç is currently opinion editor of the English language Hürriyet Daily News, where her columns are also published. She also conducts the paper’s weekly interviews.
She studied international relations at the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) in Ankara and started her carreer in journalism in 1990 in Milliyet daily, one of Turkey’s mainstream newspapers.
She worked in Milliyet’s Ankara bureau as a diplomatic reporter, covering Turkish foreign policy issues, mainly, Turkish – EU relations, transatlantic ties, regional developments from the Middle East to the Caucasus.
She travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East, covering Turkey’s presidents, prime ministers and ministers visits to these regions. She conducted numerous interviews with political leaders, including former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Gali, King Abdullah of Jordan, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, former late foreign Minister of Sweden Anna Lindh, foreign minister Joscka Fischer, Greek Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni. Between 2001 and 2004 she worked as a reporter and program editor for CNN türk tv channel.
Since 2004 she lives in İstanbul and she is frequently invited to provide her comments to various international media outlets like BBC Radio, Al Jazeera English, France 24.
In addition to being invited as speaker to several tink tanks, she has also moderated numerous panels, the most recent one being at the UN humanitarian summit in İstanbul in May 2016.
She is one the the co editors of “Unrewarding Crossroads? The Black Sea Region amidst the European Union and Russia.”
She is the Olympic torchbearer of 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.
Barçın Yinanç speaks fluent English and French and very basic German.