FCI has finished a succession it announced in February. Betül Kurtuluş is now secretary general of the factoring industry association, replacing Neal Harm after an eight-month transition. Harm said in February he would retire in September, and she became deputy secretary general that same month.
Kurtuluş has more than three decades of experience in factoring and receivables finance. She joined FCI in 2018 as regional director, covering Central and Eastern Europe, South-Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Europe, and later became director of strategic marketing and business development. Before that she spent over 14 years as general manager and board member at Turkish factoring company Strateji Faktoring, according to her LinkedIn profile. She sat on the board of Türkiye’s Association of Financial Institutions (Finhurk) from 2016 to 2019, and served on FCI’s supply chain finance and marketing committees.
Chenyue Mao, FCI’s chairwoman, said: “Betül’s appointment represents the successful completion of the leadership transition we began earlier this year.”
Kurtuluş said: “FCI has been part of my professional life long before I joined the organisation.” Her ambition, she said, is “to protect what has made FCI strong for 58 years.” She described her aim as protecting FCI’s strengths while keeping it relevant and creating value for members and the industry. She will lead the secretariat and work with the executive committee, senior leadership team, regional directors and technical committees.
FCI was founded in 1968 and is based in Amsterdam. It has more than 350 members in over 90 countries, and says its members’ transactions account for almost 60% of the world’s international correspondent factoring volume.
Digital Trade Outlook’s View: Continuity, With Room to Grow
Few associations manage a handover this orderly, and Kurtuluş knows the member side as well as the secretariat. Receivables finance sits close to supply chain finance, and the same push toward liquidity and working capital efficiency covered on DTO affects factors too. Her marketing and business development background suggests that visibility and membership growth will be part of her agenda, though she has not said so.
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