Duygu Alptekin Gursu, M.A., MCC, ACTC

Keynote Speaker

Speaker Profile

Duygu Alptekin Gursu is a truly global executive and team coach, a sought-after speaker, and a leadership development expert who holds the designation of Master Certified Coach (MCC) and Advanced Certified Team Coach (ACTC) from the International Coach Federation. She believes that leadership begins with leading the self and starts with an internal journey to gain insight, awareness, and a real connection to who you are as a person and the “real you”. She is especially successful and enjoys working with executive presence, communication skills, team
development, and inspiring others.

Since 2012, she has worked with the Financial Times and Forbes magazine-recognized coaching and training firms Center for Creative Leadership, Coach Source and now IMD Business School as one of their first authorized coaches in Turkey and has coached executives and teams in 45 different countries.

Duygu specializes in providing leadership coaching to individuals one-on-one across the USA, Europe, the Middle East, and the Far East and is equally committed to deep executive and organizational team coaching. Inspired by her marketing background, Duygu helps executives become comfortable in their own skin get in touch with their authenticity and internal power to build their unique leadership brand.
She has a customized approach to executive coaching, combining various schools of thought in leadership, coaching, positive psychology, real industry experience, and up-to-date academic work.

She has over 27 years of business experience as a woman leader, starting with Unilever and then for 12 years, she held marketing executive roles at the Coca-Cola Company operating in 50 markets in Turkey, Russia, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Central, and South Asia.

She taught Marketing Communication and Leadership courses at Istanbul Bilgi University MBA Program and Marketing Graduate School during 2010-2016.
She is a graduate of Istanbul Robert College and holds a B.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Istanbul Bosphorus University. She has a master’s degree in organizational psychology from Istanbul Bilgi University with a focus on women leadership.

The World Coaching Congress awarded her with the Global Coaching Leadership Award in 2016 in Mumbai and she was an EMCC-European Coaching and Mentoring Council Nominee for Leadership Coaching in 2018. In 2019, she published her book in Turkish, “İçimdeki Lider” with an aim to reach to people she cannot currently access. The book was nominated for the “Leadership and Management Book of the Year” award by Platin Magazine in 2021. The renewed English edition of the book was released in North America in September 2023 as"Transformational Leadership: Inspire the Excellence Within" and became an International Amazon Bestseller in the USA, Canada, France, Germany, and Turkey.
She is married with one son. She enjoys vocal singing, basketball, yoga, traveling and theater plays.