About Ebru Tuygun, Regional CMO, Middle East, Accenture

In Deloitte and Accenture, Ebru led marketing, communications, brand and influenced various country agenda items like diversity & inclusion and sustainability initiatives over 20 years in total. She managed marketing and communications teams for various regional key initiatives such as B20 Turkey and B20 Saudi, Accenture’s partnership with the Louvre Abu Dhabi Museum, Accenture’s Digital Premier partnership with Expo Dubai 2020, Fintech projects in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, developed CEO and CXO programs with region’s leading institutions and media partners. Reputation management, strategic marketing and communications, account-based marketing, building employee branding and digital marketing are just a few of the many areas in which she excels. She had been in charge of various regions like Middle East, Africa, Russia, and Turkey since 2015.

She has been selected to participate in the CMO Accelerator Program at the Cannes Lions Creativity Festival for five consecutive times. She is listed as one of the top 50 CMOs in Turkey, awarded one of the Middle East’s female leaders by Women Leadership Congress, and a winner of the Women in Martech Vibe Awards. Ebru has recently been listed as “Asia’s 100 Women Power Leaders 2023”.

Ebru is one of the founding members of “Women Board of Directors” in Turkey. She enabled WEConnect International Turkey Chapter – gathering women entrepreneurs with international firms, had activated the support by Accenture. Ebru is a member of various women business associations, and supports Women20 (W20) in Turkey when it got established as part of G20 and B20 programs and continued her support in W20 Saudi Arabia, whose main aim is to increase women empowerment. Ebru is the Chairwoman for the Advisory Board of the Intwrnational Women Board of Directors.

Ebru studied Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University. She has Management and Leadership Excellence certificates from Harvard Business School. She was selected for the program of ‘High Potential Women Leaders’ of Stanford University Graduate School of Business. 

About her thoughts for the industry 

2023 will be the year of Sustainability as UAE is preparing for COP 28, we will see more progress in companies, communities and various groups to discuss how we will altogether achieve Net Zero ambition. This is a very important CMO agenda item as  more companies have publicly committed to reaching net zero carbon emissions by around 2050. And a large proportion of companies committed to net zero are putting in place more sophisticated measures.

While the metaverse is poised to help leaders build greater resilience to respond to disruptions in the real world and forecast and prepare for climate change scenarios, today’s digital technologies can provide unique and impactful solutions with decarbonisation efforts across all industries. Technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, blockchain, edge technology and digitaltwins are proven and competitive in reducing significant emissions. For example, migrations to the public cloud can reduce CO2 emissions by 59 million tons annually, equivalent to removing about 22 million cars off the road. Whereas, digital twins can help reduce CO2 emissions by 7.5 gigatonne between now and 2030.

Digital technologies are critical to collecting, integrating and managing organization-wide ESG data, enabling companies to become ‘carbon intelligent’. 

One of the striking examples how technology e.g metaverse actually can change lives and nations is the case of  Digital Nation story that was told at COP27. People have doubts about whether metaverse is the next blurb or for gaming only, actually it can save a nation’s identity. This is an incredible story that makes us feel hopeful when we use technology for good and help people around the world.

The climate crisis is creating an increasingly uncertain future for people in most parts of the world. For the people of Tuvalu, a group of nine tiny islands in the South Pacific, rising sea levels could see their homeland disappear altogether in the next few decades. Tuvalu could be the first country in the world to exist solely in the metaverse – but if global warming continues unchecked, it won’t be the last.

We will see the rise of social responsible companies to grow the communities they live in. This is crucial for CMOs to commit to their brands as responsible organizations and sustain their purpose. Recently I had the opportunity to attend the United Nation’s LDC5 meeting in Doha and saw that even little steps of uplifting digital skills, lowering the cost of access to technology & internet and simplifying the process of receiving funds may create big impact for least developed countries. 

And lastly, we will see the rise of women empowerment and onboarding women in highest leadership roles. Initiatives like  International Women Board of Directors (IWBD) have key responsibilities to accelerate women leadership to impact the business and achieve companies, societies and communities to grow. Proudly chairing IWBD, we will grow globaly, network with women around the world to learn from each other’s experience and commit to create more impact to grow more women board of directors.