Seher Demirci graduated from Business Administration & Management Department in Bosphorus University in 2004 and has 19 years of business experience at leading and global companies with executive management and leadership roles.

Demirci joined the Çalık Group in 2014, and for the first 5 years she has worked in different senior managerial roles, focusing on financial management of subsidiaries operating in a wide range of sectors. Later in 2019, Demirci has been transferred as Financial Affairs Director in Çalık Enerji Utility Business, overseeing 2 groups in Türkiye and 1 group in Kosovo.

She has been appointed as a Board Member of KEDS since 2020. For the first time, she gave an interview for the Energy magazine talking about her experience as a woman in C-suite and her challenges along the way. Demirci started the interview with this empowering remark: “Every day we encounter challenges that initially seem impossible to overcome.

For women, these challenges are sometimes even more difficult, depending on the culture you grew, but also the sector you choose to be involved in. Therefore, reaching the Boardroom has not been easy for me. It took a lot of work, patience, and quick adaptation to different environments to attain professional development and advancement”.
She highlighted that her former experience before the Board gave her access to some core tools and frameworks to sharpen her critical thinking on corporate governance issues and hone her judgment skills. And that being a board member is a big responsibility. However, she admits that diverse boardrooms are always more effective in leadership, because the more diverse a leading room is, the more chances there are for more perspectives and more points of view to be integrated there. In short, she admits that diversity broadens a board’s expertise, insight, agility, and ability to manage risk.

"The fact that the KEDS Board holds women members, tells a lot about the Company. Fortunately, here equality starts from the highest level of management. The support does not only exist from women but also from man board members, and this takes the Company to another level when it comes to equal treatment, both gender and human-like."

According to Demirci three of the characteristics that make a woman a great leader are hard work, resilience, and quick adaptation to change. Demirci explains that the ladders to success are not easy to climb and it takes a lot of effort and hard work to firstly achieve the first floor: “I’ve always tried to gain the best practices from every experience that I had and I think I achieved this by also taking time to reflect about the tasks that I carried out.” According to her, this can also be tough sometimes because of the energy and dedication it takes but the fact is consistency, persistence, and willingness to do your best in everything you do, advance your skills to new levels: Own every task and master it because those little tasks that you might consider unimportant, elevate you to unimaginable pedestals,” she further adds.

Women in executive levels and decision-making positions need to be really strong, effective candidates with the right kind of resume and the proper communication skills, Demirci adds: “A C-suite woman can be a really strong contributor to the company politics, but also establish a network that manages and eliminates any kind of women bias on the company.

But it takes experience, hard work, planning, and a number of years to gain this experience.” Finally, she had a message for KEDS and KESCO women: Never stop investing in yourself in terms of developing your knowledge, expanding your network, and using the time effectively. Women are capable of completing every task with the best results. Therefore, my message is to work hard because your effort, dedication, and professionalism, can and will make KEDS and KESCO a better place, and in the meantime contribute significantly to the well-being of the people of Kosovo.