Osman Cevdet Akçay served as the Chief Economist at Koç Financial Services and Yapi Kredi until May 2018. He completed his secondary and high school education at Istanbul American Robert College High School. He received his B.A. in economics from Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Graduate School and University Center at City University of New York. He served at Boğaziçi University as Assistant Professor and as Associate Professor between 1992 and 2001, and was a full-time faculty member at Koç University from 2001 till September 2009. He started as an economist at Koç Yatırım (Investment Bank) in 1998 and became the Chief Economist for Koçbank and Koç Yatırım in 2000. Following the Koçbank-Yapi Kredi merger in 2006, he served as the Chief Economist at Yapi Kredi as well as the umbrella company Koç Financial Services. His research and publication areas mainly include exchange rate determination, debt dynamics, and disinflation with specific emphasis on the Turkish experience in these fields. He currently functions as a freelance economist providing consultancy mostly for foreign banks and their clients regarding their Turkey portfolios as well as for certain state institutions, the Ministry of Finance and Treasury most currently in the Summer and Fall of 2018.