The stars above the lake taught me to find order in chaos.
I've done it by building data departments from the ground up, and by fixing the reporting systems at companies like Dojo and Beauty Pie.
My work is guided by a simple philosophy, born from a childhood spent looking at the stars by a vast lake in Turkey. I learned to find a sense of calm and order in the massive, interconnected systems above.
Today, I bring that same focus to the systems within your business. It's why I named my company NorthStar: to be a clear, reliable guide through chaos.
Where calm waters and vast skies became my first lesson in systems thinking.
My path wasn't exactly straight. I started as an Industrial Engineer, obsessed with algorithms and optimising systems. My first real job was as a Web Analyst for Turkey's largest online flower company.
Back then, "web analyst" was a new and abstract title. The first time I met my wife's father and he asked what I did, Ebru just smiled and called me "the florist". Easier than explaining data. It taught me early: your work is only as good as your ability to make people understand it.
After a few years as a Product Manager in start-ups, I got the chance to build something from scratch.
From one person to fifteen: building Turkey's most trusted data department.
I joined Hype, a leading agency in Turkey, to build their data department. I started as a team of one. Over five years, we grew to a team of 15.
We became the data partner for some of Turkey's biggest names in e-commerce, FMCG, and tech. It taught me how businesses actually run: how different companies work, their workflows, and the real problem behind each data request, which is rarely the one on the ticket.
After Hype, my wife Ebru and I wanted to build something new for ourselves. We moved to the UK with our daughter to launch NorthStar Analytics. It was a huge leap of faith.
Two weeks after we landed, the world shut down. Suddenly we were in a new country, our savings dwindling to our last £1,000. I reached out to hundreds of companies, proposal after proposal into the void. I got two replies.
But two was enough.
Those first two clients were the start of everything. Over the next two years, I partnered with over ten companies across the UK, Europe, and the US, building their foundational data systems on referrals and results, nothing else.
Landing in London during lockdown: when resilience became our compass.
In the engine room: transforming data chaos into trusted clarity at scale.
I wanted to take everything I'd learned inside fast-growing companies, in the engine room again, building systems from within.
At Dojo, I dove into payments. I partnered with nearly every department, turning their needs into data they could act on: acquisition analysis for Sales & Marketing, churn signals for Customer Success, trade tools for Management.
Then at Beauty Pie, the complexity was physical products and global supply chains. I partnered with over 9 teams, from Supply Chain to Finance to Member Happiness, as the translator creating a common data language. We cut 140 confusing dashboards down to 30 the whole business trusted.
Feedback from clients and colleagues I've worked with, via LinkedIn, Clutch and direct references.
"Zek is an absolute pleasure to work alongside. He possesses a remarkable ability to patiently explain complex data processes in a way that is easily digestible, replicable, and memorable. He consistently does this with a positive attitude, making data and data access feel attainable for all teams, regardless of their technical expertise. I highly recommend Zek to any business looking to significantly enhance their data reporting capabilities, empower self-service analytics, and gain a deeper understanding of the diverse use-cases across different business units. He truly adds significant value in this space."
"Zek was invaluable during his time at Beauty Pie. He contributed so much expertise on data visualisation and self-serve strategy. He really embedded himself within the team and the wider company which resulted in efficient and exponential improvement of our self-serve platform. He built a lot of trust from stakeholders which is really representative of his working values. He aimed to really understand the business and the stakeholders needs, his success was obvious in his output. Zek is so hard working and really prioritised the business in his time here. He is a great communicator but also has lots of technical knowledge. I learnt lots from him during our time together and I hope we can work together again one day!"
"Zekeriya was a key part of the team that migrated our BI stack from Looker to Lightdash. What stood out to me was how self-directed he was. He needed very little steering and just got on with it. For a migration of that scale it landed remarkably smoothly, and the disruption you'd normally expect never really showed up, which tells you how carefully it was run. He has a strong bias for the practical solution, and for building things that let the wider team help themselves rather than depend on any one person. Easy to work with, calm under pressure, and focused on the outcome. I'd happily have him back."
"Zek was my teammate during our migration from Looker to Lightdash. He did an amazing job at handling the idiosyncrasies of our Looker environment, dealing with a varied group of stakeholders (Analysts, Engineers, Operations), and on driving everything forward for the migration to go smoothly. He didn't just excel at the technical parts but was also great at keeping track of everything that needed doing and creating great documentation for all levels of the organisation. Even when things got complicated he always stayed calm and focused on solving the problems. We would not have been able to do this without him. He is not just good at his job but is also a treat to work with, always friendly, and with a great attitude."
"I had the pleasure of working alongside Zek at Beauty Pie, and I can confidently say he was an absolute powerhouse for the business. Zek's vibrant energy and unwavering professionalism were not just present, but truly transformative, elevating the atmosphere and output around them. He consistently went above and beyond, proactively identifying needs and offering support to everyone."
"A rather large and complex BI migration project was becoming stale and protracted at my company. It involved multiple moving parts: different teams, stakeholders, sources of errors and incompatibilities, competing priorities, and the challenge of driving user engagement through a disruptive change. Zek was instrumental in taking grip of and managing all of these fronts. From day one he dove deep into the project, helped make sense of the different components, and drove the migration to a successful conclusion. He excelled not only on the project management front but also on the technical side and cross-org communication. He played a key role in meeting what had, at one point, felt like an overly ambitious deadline. I could not recommend him enough."
"We discovered Northstar by reference so reviewed their previous works. After that planned interview and we got clear proposal with details. Firstly we have handshaked on scope & main milestones & estimated timeline. Lastly we have completed every step by iterations. As a result, with help of Northstar expertise in data collection & visualization and our product expertise in designing & building digital products (mobile application & platforms and business know how), we have completed milestones."
"Over the course of a year at Beauty Pie, Zek has become a fantastic part of the data team. He is incredibly hard working, committed and really cares about delivering what's needed. He has deeply integrated into our team and with our stakeholders. I'd highly recommend working with Zek in relation to dashboarding and self serve training and documentation"
"I'm impressed by NorthStar Analytics' communication and understanding of their work. Dashboards can be quite complex, and their team understands the math involved and the business perspective, including what we need to see in them. They really grasped our brief and put forward the solution that we needed. That's number one for me. Additionally, Zekeriya's general attitude towards the work is really great. Plus, he worked quickly and within budget, which is always important."
"Zekeriya was amazing! From the very start he went to great lengths to fully comprehend our complex requirements and to propose a comprehensive solution. He was a fantastic communicator, very detail-oriented, he lead the project really well and gave us confidence every step of the way that we were going to arrive at the desired outcome. There were lots of added complexities to the job that emerged as we progressed - Zekeriya was proactive in finding solutions, offering us guidance on best practice and ultimately delivering an end product that was beyond our expectations. Zekeriya did a fantastic job, delivered on time and to budget on what was undoubtedly a complex and challenging project. I'd have no hesitation in working with him again - in fact we are already thinking about the next project we can work on together."
"Zek did an awesome job. Recommend him to anyone looking for a professional and hard working guy! He took the time to fully understand our requirements and proposed multiple solutions. He worked against a very tight deadline without any problems. He's very proficient in Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics and Google Data Studio. The final solution is extremely robust and ready to be scaled. In addition he provided us with (video) explanations how we can make changes ourselves. He delivered exactly what we needed and went well above and beyond. Next to his professional skills and experience, Zek is a very cool guy and great to have as part of a team. Again, happy to recommend him, and will definitely hire him in the future."
"Zek & I worked together at Beauty Pie to co-develop a category management data dashboard on the data management platform, Light Dash. Zek was incredibly knowledgable, with laser focused attention to detail and went over and above to support on this initiative, delivering this large piece of work despite his many other commitments to the business. We were able to build a tailored dashboard that was intuitive & easy to use for the entire NPD team. Zek was instrumental in helping me successfully deploy this for yearly category strategy planning, allowing informed, data-driven insights and decision-making. I would highly recommend Zek as a partner in any self serve data collaborations in a business. I hope we're able to work together again in the future!"
"We put a number of vendors to a test and NorthStar Analytics clearly stood out from the crowd. Top marks for quality, speed, and accuracy. Beyond that, their dedication and professionalism won us over. NorthStar Analytics was great at knowing where the issues were, resolving them quickly, and helping us move from basic dashboarding to more advanced analytics for our customers."
"I worked closely with Zek for about 9 months on a large and complex BI migration. Multiple teams, a lot of data, and a lot of moving parts. Zek did a lot of the heavy lifting. He debugged data model problems, fixed broken charts, kept content up to date for analysts to review, and wrote great docs along the way. He was always responsive, and when something was blocked he would bring the right people together and get it moving again. Having someone like Zek on a project like this makes a huge difference. I would happily work with him again."
"Great stakeholder management, clear and concise communication, customer-oriented output, detailed project management"
My professional approach is a direct reflection of my personal values. These are the operating principles that guide me.
When I watch a flawless stage performance, I'm drawn to the invisible system that makes it possible: the hours of rehearsal, the choreography, the lighting cues. That is the work I care about: the quiet, reliable system in the background that lets your team do their job without fighting the numbers.
My day is designed around one non-negotiable: being home for dinner with my family. This isn't about work-life balance; it's about focus. It forces me to deliver maximum value with zero waste, respecting both my clients' time and my own.
My day starts not with frantic emails, but with a quiet coffee with Ebru. It's our strategic planning session for life, the moment we align before the day's execution begins. This calm, aligned start is something I aim to bring to every client project.

If you're looking for someone who will take the time to understand the unique operational heartbeat of your business before even touching a line of code, then we should talk.
My process starts with understanding how your company actually works before I touch anything. This isn't just about data. It's about clear, trusted reporting your whole team can rely on.