Asiyan Suleymanoglu specializes in dispute resolution and practices as a professional mediator, negotiator, trainer and conflict management consultant. She is an internationally trained educator and an independent adviser on mediation policy to international bodies and national governments. She runs a busy national and cross-border mediation practice alongside teaching and trainings. She is the founder of the Akina Consulting, which develops innovative training materials and provides international consulting services on project design, management, and implementation.
She has more than 15 years of field experience working on international ADR projects. She began her international career with the World Bank projects, continued with European Union projects, and then she joined the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative’s (ABA-ROLI) MENA Division in 2009 as a program manager. She is one of the first mediators in Turkey and was selected as a JAMS Foundation International Weinstein fellow. Since 2015, under the FCO grants, she acted as the program consultant and director of the Improving Access to Justice Turkey through the ADR Mechanisms I-II project sponsored by the British Embassy in association with Ministry of Justice, Mediation Department. She directed a negotiation project called “Commercial Mediation at the Grand Bazaar,” where she ran a public awareness campaign and improved the implementation of Turkey’s Law on Mediation for the resolution of disputes over 3500 shops in Istanbul, Turkey. She mediated over 300 civil disputes. During her career, she has worked with the business associations, chambers, lawyers, judges, prosecutors, law faculties, bar associations, human rights clinics and human rights organizations in a number of countries including Turkey, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan and Philippines. Asiyan is also member of the European Network of International Family Mediators and Mediterranean Women Mediators Network, experienced in cross-border negotiations and mediations. She acted as judge in international mediation and negotiation competitions of ICC, Paris and IBA- VIAC, Vienna and presented at mediation conferences in many different countries.
She holds Master of Law (L.L.M) in Rule of Law for Development from Loyola Chicago University and a Diploma in Law from Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey. She was the visiting scholar at Columbia University Law Faculty, Mediation Clinic in New York.
She is a native Turkish speaker and fluent in English.
