Primary Job Title Founder and CEO Primary Organization Pionr
Location Istanbul, Istanbul, Turkey Regions Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), Middle East, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Gender Male
Investor Type
LinkedIn View on LinkedIn
Yakup Sezer is the CEO of Pionr, where he leads the acquisition, transformation, and scaling of fintech ventures while advising major corporations on fintech operating models. His work fuels the growth of Pionr’s wholly-owned platforms, including Norma—an SME banking experience—and Tahsildar, a payments and collections platform that powers B2B
payment flows.
Before Pionr, he served as Managing Partner at Skyalp (BIST: SYKLP), guiding its evolution from consultancy to technology company and investing in 18 tech startups. He was previously CEO of Aktif Ventures, helping establish the Mindvest corporate venture fund and Apilion, Türkiye’s largest API banking platform, and also served as Executive Vice President at Aktif Bank. Earlier, he was CEO and Board Member at insha Ventures and Founder & Managing Director of insha in Berlin, delivering ethical digital banking services across SEPA. He started at Albaraka Türk, leading business excellence and innovation programs spanning intrapreneurship, agile process improvement, and technology transfer.
