Simay Akar
Simay Akar is an entrepreneur with reputable corporate industrial background and experience in the energy industry. She specialized in photovoltaic manufacturing, battery storage for electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies, and the clean energy market development.
Akar is currently the Chief Commercial Officer & Co-Founder at Innoses.
Her past roles include Sales & Marketing Director of EkoRE – Eko Renewable Energy and Marketing & Business Development Director of GoodWe Turkey, Head of Overseas Marketing at Talesun Solar
Akar has worked in China and Turkey and mostly focused on international commercial activities and has been employed by CSUN Eurasia, Schneider Electric, Arcelik (BEKO), and Lucida Solar.
In addition to her professional acclimates, she is an IEEE Senior member, acknowledged volunteer since 2007. Simay is a graduate of Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey and she participated Energy Innovation and Emerging Technologies Program at Stanford University.
Simay is a Certified Soft Skills Trainer since 2008. Additionally, She is METU Alumni Association Energy Commission Member, Turkish Women in Renewables North America Liaison & Sailing Team Member, KYSKD(Female Sailors Sports Club Association) member. She is a Licensed Sailor Athlete at the Turkish Sailing Federation and also Swimmer. She participates in open seas swimming races, marathons, and sailing cups across the world.
She is also IEEE VOLT Graduate, IEEE Educational Activities TISP Champion, She has been serving several volunteer membership and leadership positions in different areas including mainly global committees of IEEE Humanitarian Technology Activities ( IEEE SIGHT -Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology and HAC), IEEE Power& Energy Society (Women in Power, Young Professionals, Solar and Wind Committee), IEEE Women in Engineering, IEEE Young Professionals, IEEE Social Implications of Technology Society (SSIT), IEEE Student Activities, IEEE Entrepreneurship Committee and other positions on Regional Boards of IEEE Region 8 (Europe Middle East and Africa) &10 (Asia Pacific).
https://www.simayakar.com/
Simay has been a young female role model as a dedicated IEEE volunteer over years. She is a Young Professional who has significant achievements in her professional experiences in the clean energy industry while being an inspiring IEEE volunteer. Besides her volunteer achievements, she is an advocate and pioneer in the cleantech industry as an entrepreneur and well-recognized industry professional with her accomplishments. She involved in different organizational units of IEEE since 2007 and continually contributes to IEEE vision, mission, and strategic goals with different volunteer roles by creating cross-sectional, regional, and organizational collaboration opportunities for IEEE OUs with several new initiatives over the years.
The IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee (HAC) provides a suite of resources that inspire and enable IEEE volunteers around the world to carry out and support impactful humanitarian technology and sustainable development activities at the local level. She showed a significant performance with the proven number of achievements from the new initiatives within and collaboration opportunities for these IEEE OU’s and her inspirational attitudes and behaviors well-known by many IEEE volunteers and leaders.
IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee: She is current Chair of Partnerships in charge of collaboration with WIE, YP, SAC, HKN and EA and initiatives. She also continually served other roles at SIGHT Steering Committee and HAC since 2015, she started Training and Assessment models and initiatives.
Simay Akar is an entrepreneur with reputable corporate industrial background and experience in the energy industry as a Young Professional. She specialized in photovoltaic manufacturing, battery storage for electric vehicles and other renewable energy technologies and the clean energy markets development Simay makes contributions to the development of global clean and environment-friendly energy.
Akar is currently the Chief Commercial Officer & Co-Founder at Innoses, Lithium -ion battery solution provider for energy storage and electric vehicles, with a key investor behind have a highly vertically integrated supply chain start from the raw material of cathode material to battery cell, pack, modules through recycling. Innoses aims to advance cutting-edge battery technologies by providing top-notch quality products and become a leading lithium battery solution provider, HQ located in Shanghai China and expanded thru overseas sales center and channels and Simay is in charge of global commercial operations.
Simay is volunteering for IEEE since 2007, she served several roles and experienced different levels: from Student Branch Chair towards Section, Region 10 & 8 Committees, MGA Committee roles continuously several years in a row; IEEE Power Energy Society. Simay also currently has relevant responsibilities in other OUs; TAB Diversity and Inclusion Committee member and HAC Partnership Chair (in charge of WIE, YP, SAC, EA initiatives). Simay has passion and deep understanding of the structure and operation of IEEE as a Young Professional Volunteer, also knowledge of all the best practices across the years. In addition, diverse IEEE OU experiences help have wider operational knowledge.
Simay also served other leadership positions in different OUs including IEEE Day (Global Team Lead 2012-14), IEEE Humanitarian Activities Committee & Steering Committees of IEEE SIGHT & IEEE Entrepreneurship (2015-2021), IEEE PES (Chair, YP 2021), IEEE SSIT, IEEE Smart Cities, IEEE Women in Engineering, IEEE Young Professionals (MGA Vice-Chair, Marketing Outreach 2021), IEEE Student Activities (MGA Vice-Chair, Membership, Founder Chair of Virtual Speakers Bureau 2021), and other positions of IEEE Region 8&10. Simay has operational knowledge for Section Executive Committee (Treasurer) and Regional Operations Committee (Region 8 Vice-Chair), additionally she a VOLT graduate. Full list of her volunteer roles is here: https://www.simayakar.com/ieee-volunteer-experiences
Main accomplishments from past experiences:
EkoRE
International business development related to renewable energy projects and investments for EkoRE group of companies in; “Solar, Wind and Biogas” project development. Initiating and creating a new brand to solar industry and relevant total marketing activities 1 GW PV panel manufacturing plant investment granted with “special project” status and the state incentives totaling up to 4.2 billion TL by the Turkish government. The project scope is to build a full chain manufacturing plant processing Ingot, Wafer, Cell, and Module. The key differentiator of such a Manufacturing plant is to address the current and future solar power plant cost optimization requirements by using the bifacial HJT cell technology combined with the Smart Wire Connecting Technology of Module.
Talesun Solar
Through the years of experience as Head of Overseas Marketing Development, Talesun Solar has become one of the global Top 10 photovoltaic manufacturers from a local company, In 2015, the Company innovated and launched “Intelligent Photovoltaic+ Sci-tech Agriculture and PV Farms in Poor Villages”, thus becoming a leader in the global solar power industry, Simay’s team was in charge of the project’s business development.
She received several awards from IEEE and other corporations including:
· IEEE WIE Inspiring Member of The Year 2020 (Honorable Mention)
· IEEE Global Young Professionals Hall of the Fame Award 2018 (PES YP Team)
· IEEE MGA (Global) Young Professionals Achievement Award 2017
· IEEE MGA (Global) Achievement Award 2014 (as IEEE Day Team Lead)
· IEEE Day Leadership Award 2013
· CSUN Outstanding Staff Award 2014