Ebru Güven is a Turkish finance and blockchain community professional who co-founded the Istanbul Blockchain Women platform. After a long career in corporate and retail banking, she transitioned into blockchain-focused work in 2018, combining operational finance experience with advisory work for banks, corporates, and early-stage crypto projects. Her profile reflects a broader pattern in the digital asset sector, where traditional finance professionals have moved into blockchain initiatives that span education, community building, and project execution.
Overview
Güven is best known for her involvement in the Istanbul Blockchain Women platform, which she co-founded with Başak Burcu Yiğit. The initiative emerged during a period of rapid growth in blockchain interest across Turkey, driven by a mix of fintech experimentation, crypto market participation, and enterprise exploration of distributed ledger technology. In parallel with community work, Güven has operated as a consultant on blockchain-related topics for financial institutions and corporations, leveraging experience from senior banking roles.
History and Background
Güven began her professional career in banking in 1997. Over more than two decades, she held senior positions within corporate banking at established Turkish banking institutions. Her experience included leadership responsibilities in İstanbul, including serving as the head of a retail branch. During this period, she encountered blockchain technology and became increasingly interested in its potential implications for financial services, particularly in areas such as settlement, transparency, and operational efficiency.
In 2018, she ended her banking career and joined an ITO project as chief financial officer. This move marked a shift from traditional banking operations into the tokenization and crypto fundraising landscape, where financial controls, governance, and compliance considerations can differ significantly from conventional capital markets. During this transition, she met Başak Burcu Yiğit, and they went on to found the Istanbul Blockchain Women platform.
Community Work and Istanbul Blockchain Women
Istanbul Blockchain Women is positioned as a community platform that aims to support participation and professional development for women in blockchain and related emerging technologies. While the specific activities of community organizations can vary over time, initiatives of this kind typically focus on creating networking channels, improving access to technical and market knowledge, and providing visibility for women working across product, engineering, legal, compliance, and business roles in the crypto sector.
Güven’s involvement reflects a community-led approach to blockchain adoption, where education and peer networks are treated as practical tools for increasing industry readiness. This is particularly relevant in a market where crypto participation is high, but institutional understanding of infrastructure, risk management, and custody models can lag behind retail adoption.
Consulting and Sector Focus
Alongside community building, Güven has worked as a consultant advising banks and corporations on technical topics related to blockchain and digital assets. Her advisory work has also included engagement with ICO and ITO initiatives and other blockchain projects through Tim Consulting. In these contexts, her background in corporate banking and governance can be relevant for topics such as financial oversight, stakeholder communication, project budgeting, and operational controls.
Her work sits within an ecosystem shaped by major public blockchains and protocols, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, which underpin many of the industry’s use cases and developer tooling. For institutions, understanding how these networks function, and how associated risks differ from traditional financial infrastructure, is often central to adoption decisions.
Use Cases and Market Position
Güven’s career path links traditional finance leadership with blockchain industry participation in three primary ways: institutional advisory work, project-level execution support, and community ecosystem development. For banks and corporates, this combination can be useful when evaluating whether blockchain projects are primarily experimental, operational, or customer-facing. For early-stage projects, finance and governance experience can support more structured decision-making, especially when navigating token launches, budgeting, and accountability.
Risks and Considerations
Work that intersects with ICO and ITO activity can involve regulatory and reputational risk, especially as standards for disclosures, marketing practices, and investor protections have evolved across jurisdictions. Advisory work for blockchain projects may also carry exposure to technology risk, including smart contract vulnerabilities, operational security issues, and custody failures. For community organizations, sustainability often depends on transparency, governance, and consistent value delivery to members, as well as careful separation between education initiatives and any specific token promotion.
