Hello! I'm Veli (like jelly).
I’m a Turkish-born designer who currently calls Silicon Valley home. Though my career started halfway around the world, as an archaeologist in Istanbul, I honed my design skills at Goodby Silverstein in San Francisco, before uncovering my love of presentation design at the mothership, Duarte Inc., in Santa Clara. I led a presentation design division at Media.Monks, where I worked with a global team of designers and help executives at Google, YouTube, and LinkedIn design compelling, engaging presentations about their businesses, products, and services.
Having begun my presentation career in the era of big, live, events, and successfully pivoted during Covid into an era where digital presentations rule, I’m intimate with the opportunities and challenges of both. I worked on executive presentations for speakers at TedTalk, Google I/O, Dreamforce, Scripps Network and Teradata. I also developed company-wide presentation design systems, standards and best practices. And I'm comfortable collaborating closely with C-Suite leaders (including the CEOs of Google and Salesforce), as well as marketers, strategists, copywriters, and fellow designers.
I’m a maker at heart. I still genuinely enjoy the hands-on creative aspects of my job, and getting to work directly with senior clients and collaborators. When I'm not designing presentations, you'll find me hanging out with my Creative Director wife, Laurel, and playing soccer or drawing with our daughter, Ayla Rose.