Gözde has served as an inhouse counsel in retail sector for Alshaya Group for 15 years. Alshaya is a leading international franchise operator for nearly 90 of the world's most recognised retail brands including Starbucks, H&M, Mothercare, The Cheesecake Factory, The Body Shop, M.A.C, Victoria’s Secret.
Having served as the Head of Legal, Ethics and Compliance Committee, Data Privacy Committee and the Disciplinary Committee in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, she engaged in a wide range of legal areas including but not limited to Retail Law, E-Commerce Law, Property Law, Commercial Law, Corporate Law, Ethics and Corporate Compliance, Intellectual Law, Criminal Law.
During her service in Alshaya, she has led many multifunctional projects. i.e. legal structuring and business launch of e-commerce and mobile application digital platforms for Starbucks, The Body Shop, the Victoria’s Secrets and the Bath and Body Works in Turkey; implementation of the ethics and compliance program of the Company; the expansion of the business to Azerbaijan and Georgia, the structuring of the hospitality business.
Having a seat at the Company’s Executive Leadership Team, she had an effective role to guide the team in dealing with legal and regulatory issues that would have an impact on the Company’s operations and achievement of its business goals.
Prior to this role, Gözde was Attorney at Law for six years in a leading full service law office in Istanbul.
Gözde is also acting as a member of the Retail Legal and Arbitration Comitteee of TOBB (The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey), GPD (Food Retailers Association), KMD (Category Merchandising Association) and TAMPF (Turkey Federation of Shopping Malls and Retailers). She conducted several sectoral studies for law regulators on draft laws and achieved influential outcomes for the sector.
In 2015, Gözde has been listed on GC Powerlist Turkey as one of the most influential and innovative legal in-house counsels of Turkey by The Legal 500.