NORTH AMERICA

LEVENT YARAR

Mr. Levent Yarar is one of the founding partners of EMD. Since 2006, Mr. Yarar has been a Regional Director in charge of USA/Canada, overseeing EMD's worldwide networking, consulting and project implementation activities.

Prior to EMD, he spent 13 years with DenAmerica, Inc. as President in charge of U.S. Operations, as well as three years with Harvard Consulting Group as a consultant for business development.

Mr. Yarar holds an MBA with a concentration in International Marketing from Ohio University, and a BS from Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. He is fluent in Turkish and conversant in German and Spanish, and lives in New York City.

 

 

CENTRAL/SOUTH AMERICA

REBECCA FLOR

Ms. Rebecca Flor is the Regional Director of EMD in charge of Central and South America. Prior to EMD, Ms. Flor was the Chief of Export Procedures Centre (CENTREX) of the Central Bank of El Salvador.

Ms. Flor provides consultancy and business development services for SME managers in their development of export readiness for USAID/EXPRO, International Trade Centre (UNCTAD/WTO), Asociación Centroamericana y del Caribe de Consultores en Comercio Internacional (COMPITE), OXFAM–INTERMON, and various other private and higher education organizations.

She holds a BA in Sociology and Economics from  Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas San Salvador, El Salvador. Additionally, she earned a Trade Information Management diploma from International Trade Centre-WTO, Geneva Switzerland and London, England (ITC), as well as another diploma on International Marketing & Trade Promotion Training for Enterprise Advisory on Exports from Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries, Rotterdam, Netherlands El Salvador and Netherlands.

Ms. Flor is fluent in Spanish and conversant in French, and lives in San Salvador, El Salvador.

EUROPE

EMIL VIRAG

Mr. Emil Virag is one of the founding partners of EMD. Since 2006, Mr. Virag has been a Regional Director in charge of Europe, overseeing EMD's worldwide networking, consulting and project implementation activities.

Prior to EMD, he was a Marketing Manager for a Romanian IT company, in charge of Romanian Operations and responsible for market strategy development. Mr. Virag was also a Senior Buyer in the Procurement Department of Kraft Foods International, Romanian Branch, for three years.

Mr. Virag holds an MBA degree with a concentration in International Marketing from Case Western Reserve University, and a BS from Transilvania University, Brasov, Romania. He is fluent in Hungarian and Romanian, and lives in Romania.

EURASIA/MIDDLE EAST

ILKER ACAR

Mr. Ilker Acar is the Regional Director of EMD in charge of Eurasia and the Middle East.

Mr. Acar provides SME training, consultancy and business development services in the areas of Enterprise Management, International Marketing, Foreign Trade Transactions, and Enterprise Export Strategies in cooperation with International Trade Centre, IGEME  (the Export Promotion Center of Turkey), KOSGEB (The Directorate of the Development of SME), TIM (Turkish Exporters Assembly), and Turkish Chambers of Commerce and Industry. 

Mr. ACAR also works as a trainer/consultant and project coordinator in the educational projects developed to train Foreign Trade Specialists and run by ITC in Geneva, Tanzania and Turkey; a Trade Tutor Trainer (Master Trainer) certificate is awarded after having completed a two-year education on Business Management System

He holds a BA degree from Anadolu University from the Foreign Languages department. Mr. Acar earned diplomas in Human Resource Management from Middle East Technical University, Export and Import Transaction Specialist from KOSGEB and International Marketing and Management of Business Information from WIFI/Austria. He is fluent in Turkish, and lives in Eskisehir, Turkey.

AFRICA

DOROTHY TUMA

Ms. Dorothy Tuma is the Regional Director of EMD in charge of Africa. Ms. Tuma is also the Director/Principal Consultant with DMT Consultants Ltd. Uganda, a consulting firm specialising in domestic and international business growth strategies. She has led a variety of marketing strategy consulting projects across numerous sectors and is a national trainer for the International Trade Center’s Access to International Markets for African Businesswomen as well as the Center for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Prior to DMT Consultants, Ms. Tuma worked in Product Management/Strategic Marketing for ten years with the Avery Dennison Corporation, USA where she successfully managed a series of branded product lines ranging in size from US$ 20 million to US$ 80 million in annual revenue.  A technical expert in her field, Ms. Tuma has broad experience in market opportunity identification and investigation, new product launches and consumer marketing strategies. Ms. Tuma also worked as a Training Officer in Development Finance with a USAID/Bank of Uganda funded loan project. Her responsibilities included creating, monitoring and evaluating training programs for loan officers and loan beneficiaries.

She is the Founder of the Women’s Centre for Job Creation, an agency that turns around struggling income-generating projects run by low income women in Uganda. She is also a member of the Executive, Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association Limited.

Ms. Tuma holds an MBA in International Marketing & Strategic Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles and a BS in Economics from Makerere University Kampala, Uganda.

ASIA/PACIFIC

LUZ SUPLICO

Dr. Luz T. Suplico is the Regional Director of EMD in charge of Asia and the Pacific. Presently, she is the President of the Association of Training Institutions for Foreign Trade in Asia and the Pacific (ATIFTAP), the hub of the International Trade Center (UNCTAD/WTO) in Asia and the Pacific. 

Ms. Suplico works as an independent buying agent for foreign importers of Philippine products and teaches international marketing at De La Salle University. As a fellow of the European Studies Program of the Philippines, Ms. Suplico took courses in International Marketing and Environmental Management at the Universiteit van Amsterdam in the Netherlands. She was also a scholar at the University of California in Hayward under the US Information Agency.

Ms. Suplico holds a Ph.D. in Development Studies from De La Salle University in Manila, and lives in the Philippines.