Ahmet Ersin Akal has over 25 years of experience in senior financial services and operations leadership roles globally. He has extensive experience leading process improvement, technology management, and change management projects. Currently, he works as a Senior Manager of Business Process Technology and Strategic Operations at MoneyGram International, where he leads projects to automate key business processes and implement new technology solutions.

1. Ahmet Ersin Akal, MBA, BPMP
4857 Windsor Court, Eagan, MN 55122, Home Phone:(651) 686-7 949 e-mail: ahmet.akal@comcast.net
Professional Profile
A Senior Financial Services Operations Leader with div ersified industry experience in leading process
improvement and technology management projects globally.Ihave extensiveglobal experience in business architecture,
business intelligence, contract negotiations, M&A, reporting/analytics, marketing and sales/sales management,
procurement, operational leadership, project/program management, management consulting and change
management. Having managed complex businesses in Milano, Düsseldorf, İstanbul, London, Caracas, Venezuela, Los
Angeles, NYC and Twin Cities, Iam a result oriented,and a focused Global Leader whoadds value toallorganizations.
Professional Experience
MoneyGram International, Inc., Minneapolis, MN 2005 to2016
Senior Manager, Business Process Technology and StrategicOps
Support the Global Services and Operations organization in its adoption,implementation and effective use of
business process technology toautomate its key business processes.MoneyGramInternational,Inc.(NASDAQ:MGI) is
a leading global pay ment serv ices company with ov er 360,000 agents worldwide in 200 countries:
- Had a leading role in a corporate Oracle ERPdev elopment initiative.Built product awareness for Oracle
E-Business Suite (AP, AR, GLand HR modules) for successfulrequirement gathering,functional design
and rollout. Responsible for organizational readiness for EMEAAP (Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia
Pacific) Sales Region. (a $45 MM program)
- Re-engineered core enterprise “as-is” Partner on-boarding processes and deployed a Business Process
Management Suite (BPMS)tool toautomate a “to-be” process along with other state of art new technology.
(a $2.00 MM program)
- Led the end-of-life (EOL) activ ities for sev eral enterprise legacy sy stem applications.
- Dev eloped training content, selected platforms and trained cross-functional global business groups on
new ERP, BPMS, CRM and other platforms.
- Identified and built process metrics and implemented end-to-end Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for
operational groups based on these metrics. Adopted technology to publish sustainable
reports/dashboards for the enterprise.
- Structured a new outsourced product support and dev elopment team to support BPMS.
- Successfully managed BPMS product driving at least four releases annually; improved application
efficiency/productivity and ROI by developing and executing a robust product roadmap. (annual budget
$250K - $47 5K)
- Cooperated with Sales tohelp launch a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool (Salesforce.com)
for the U.S. based retailsales force and alignedthe BPMS tool with the CRM application. This integration
helped theorganization with value added intelligence and leveraged both CRM and BPMS for operational
excellence.
- Gathered business requirements effectively and helped development team understand requirements for
timely and efficient implementation. Resolv ed misunderstandings rapidly and amicably .
- Led and managed User Acceptance Tests (UAT) across the organization for quarterly releases for BPMS
and SFDC (CRM) deploy ments.
- Led lean green belt process improvement projects that resulted in 75% to44% reduction in lead-time for
our internal and external processes which translated into significant bottom line results.
- Communicated effectively and delivered controversialand highly charged business decision opportunities
to corporate leadership.
- Effectively drove change and fostered organizational readiness across the organization. Took a leading
role in a high exposure corporate technology implementation. Supportedthe establishment of governance,
sustainable support, training and development models for three core processes (CRM, BPM and ECM).
- Experienced with Enterprise Software Development Life Cy cle for ECM, CRM, and BPM applications.
- Hav e provided solutions using SFDC platform to launch applications to manage strategic enterprise
processes globally.Have alsohave involved in managing projects from end-to-end, including both process
and technology change for budgets totaling up to $3.0 MM.
- Architectured ideal infrastructure platforms that are scalable andeasy toimplement from both an IT and
business perspective. Adopted Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) design pattern for all our process
technology to achieve efficient usage of resources. Implemented Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) for our
infrastructure to enable SOA. Participated in the selection process for an ESB v endor.

2. Lemna International Inc., Minneapolis, MN 1998 to2006
Director, Business Development and Projects
Lemna Internationalis a Twin Cities based leading corporation whodevelops turnkey infrastructure,
env ironmentaland energy projects specializing in emerging and high-growth markets.Managedseveral projects with
Lemna and worked closely with US Gov ernment Agencies such as Department of Commerce(DOC) and Export
Import Bank(Exim Bank).One of my successfulachievements was the negotiation of a $240 million design-build-
finance hydroelectric power plant project in Turkey as a leader of an internationalconsortium of six companies. Ihave
extensivesales experience with high government levelofficials and C-Level corporate officers.
- Increased our hit rate by 70% with US Trade Development Agency (USTDA)by managing proposals and
successfully won fiv e feasibility study grants.
- Led the procurement department and negotiated v endor contracts for projects. By utilizing creative
outsourcing and logistics plans, obtained sustainable savings which improved project profit margins.
Obtained sav ings bey ond 1 5% in v endor negotiations for two infrastructure projects in Slov enia.
- Executed $15million turnkey Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract in a wastewater
sector in Venezuela. Had executive project management and P&L responsibilities; turned around an
extremely low margin by aggressive procurement and logistics plans. Completed the project with 20%
profit margin on time for a successful start-up.
- Participated in product development and management efforts and helped bring cost s down through
effectiv e v endor negotiations and lev eraged procurement efforts.
TransteknoInternational, Inc., Ankara, Turkey 1989 to1997
Executive Vice President of Operations
Transteknois a leading logistics and freight forwarding corporation specialized in globalinfrastructure
project based logistics. Eight years of executive levelmanagement experiencein a service oriented industry. Successful
management experienceand delivered results in P&Loperations, marketing and sales/sales management, business
strategy development,legalaffairs and financialoperations.
- Led all operational aspects of a medium sized priv ate company .
- Obtained and managed $1 0 million financing from local and international banks. Carried full
responsibility for theov erdraft facility obtained from an Italian bank in the amount of $5.5 million.
- Started up company’s services in Italy. Set up a profit center, a consolidation center in Milan for import
and export traffic. Chartered ov er 1 ,000 FTL/LTL of cargo in the first y ear of operation .
- Dev eloped an office automation system and implemented a Global Positioning System (GPS) for trailer
fleet.
- Adapted and implemented “Just-in-Time” delivery sy stem and initiated procedures for ISO-9002
qualification.
- Strategized and managed an arbitration case in London for a significant risk and won the case.
- Created innovative products and rolled them out successfully with global clients such as Delphi Packard
(a GM subsidiary ), FMC, Itochu-Honda, Siemens, GE, Shell and Bechtel.
Education
- Master of Business Administration,1988,Major: IndustrialManagement,emphasize on RetailIT
Pacific States University,Los Angeles, CA
- Bachelor of Science Degree, 1986, Major:Statistics and Operations Research,Minor: Computer Science
Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara,Turkey
Professional Affiliations
- Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification (LSS)– 2012 by PMI, England
- Business Process Management Professional(BPMP) – 2011 by BPM Institute,Boston,MA (fullcourse
curriculum available upon request)
- Attended various Corporate development certification programs: (few select ed from many are below)
o The Strategy - Focused Organization, Robert S. Kaplan, and Dav id P. Norton
o The 360o Leader (Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization), by John C. Maxwell
o The 7 Habits of Highly Effectiv e People, by Stephen R. Cov ey
o Leading Change, by John Kotter
o Good to Great, by Jim Collins
o Now, Discov er Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham