Gizem Kedici Ozbayrac is a seasoned professional with 20 years of experience, starting her career as a management consultant where she drove transformative business changes across diverse industries and geographies. Over the last decade, she has held leadership roles in various functions, leading transformations and business innovation in pioneering multinational organizations. Gizem is the author of the Enterprise Agility book, published by Taylor & Francis, and is a seminar lecturer at two prestigious universities in Turkiye. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Middle East Technical University and a Master’s degree from the University of Birmingham, UK.
Recently, in an exclusive interview with Digital First Magazine, Gizem shared insights on the future of healthcare, personal role model, significant career milestone, future plans, words of wisdom, and much more. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Hi Gizem. What drives your passion for business strategy and leadership, and how do you stay motivated?
My greatest professional motivation is progress. This can stem from driving new business growth through strategic initiatives or fostering team development through effective leadership. In today’s business environment, leadership involves continuously generating ideas and resolving challenges, whether related to market shifts or customer dynamics, across nearly all industries. What truly motivates me is seeing the successful implementation of business strategies lead to tangible results and continued progress.
What do you love the most about your current role?
My role focuses on driving health transformation by digitizing healthcare services for chronic patients. These solutions bring innovation to the area through digital, robotics, and AI-driven technologies. What I find most rewarding about my role is how these innovations enhance the quality of life for patients managing chronic conditions, streamline clinical practices for healthcare professionals, and reduce the societal burden of disease.
As a solid outcome example, I received a call from the daughter of a cancer patient who lives on a different continent. She needed to monitor her mother’s treatment schedule and overall well-being. Thanks to the digital chronic disease management application that Roche sponsored and helped develop, she was able to remotely track her mother’s treatment progress with her oncologist, despite the vast distance between them.
Can you share your thoughts on the future of healthcare and how you see the industry evolving in the next 5-10 years?
Unlike other industries such as financial services, telecommunications, and commerce, which have rapidly evolved in recent years, healthcare has traditionally experienced slower technological advancement. However, this delayed evolution has allowed for a significant leap in innovation. Today, healthcare is undergoing an accelerated transformation driven by digital technologies and data.
Key advancements include AI-driven clinical trial recruitment, faster drug discovery, and more accurate, error-free diagnoses through image recognition. Digital disease management, powered by treatment sensors and auto-diagnosis tools, is improving patient care, while robotics in surgery is enabling remote operations. Genomic profiling is paving the way for personalized healthcare, ensuring that patients receive the right treatment, with the right diagnosis, at the right time.
These innovations point to a future where drug discovery is faster, diagnoses are automated and error-free, treatments are personalized, and care is remotely tracked and administered at home. Given the challenges posed by an aging population, hyper-urbanization, and the increasing cost of healthcare, enabling healthcare transformation is critical to preparing for the future.
Tell us more about your book, “Enterprise Agility,” and how you’ve applied its principles in your own work.
Since 2018, I had the privilege of leading one of the first large-scale agile transformations, which included designing and implementing an operating model focused on agility. As a pioneer in adapting the entire management structure to agile methodologies, many multinational companies sought my expertise for consultation. Observing the common challenges and similar needs across organizations, I authored Enterprise Agility, a practical guide published by Taylor & Francis Publishing Group in the US.
The practices outlined in the book are drawn directly from the transformations I led in various companies. Key principles covered include how financial planning and P&L management shift to quarterly business review cycles, how marketing strategies evolve through customer-centric design and omnichannel engagement, and how operations are revolutionized through AI-driven automation. I believe these new approaches to business management have become the standard, and I continue to teach these principles in MBA seminar lectures.
How do you see your recognition as a Top 50 Data & Analytics Professional awarding your work and goals moving forward?
It was a great honor to be recognized as one of the global Top 50 in the data field. I firmly believe that leveraging data and analytics through artificial intelligence is a powerful driver of business development and progress. Throughout my career, I’ve witnessed firsthand how AI has enabled risk-free automation of insurance claims, streamlined banking loan approvals through predefined algorithms, enhanced customer service in telecommunications, and, in my current role, how rule-engine-based clinical guidelines empower healthcare professionals to make better decisions. Every industry and field stands to gain immensely by embracing the transformative potential of data and harnessing its full value.
What do you think are the most significant opportunities and challenges facing women in technology and leadership positions today?
I believe the challenge of being perceived as a woman leader in the tech industry is largely behind us. I consider myself fortunate to have witnessed Ginni Rometty’s transformative leadership at IBM during my time as a consultant there. She paved the way for many others, including Sheryl Sandberg, Safra Catz, and Susan Wojcicki. I’m convinced that leaders who combine business acumen with technological expertise bring immense value to any organization
Who has been a significant influence or mentor in your career, and how have they helped shape your professional journey?
I deeply admire self-made leaders who have forged their own path to success. But to be specific, I can name my late grandfather as a mentor: he was brought up in a small community in Turkiye. During the establishment of the Republic, he was granted a PhD scholarship in Engineering from the University of Missouri. He was fluent in English, German and French. He established a corporation as well as giving back to his country by teaching at the university and by being one of the academicians establishing the National R&D Institute of Turkiye Tubitak.
What has been your most career-defining moment that you are proud of?
While I take great pride in all my professional achievements—from implementing complex programs to successfully launching new products and receiving positive customer feedback on newly designed services—nothing has been more rewarding than the leadership feedback I’ve received.
A standout moment occurred when members from my team who were transitioning into managerial roles completed a week-long leadership certification. When I asked for their thoughts on the training, they shared that the trained leadership behaviors were easy to grasp, seeing my approach with them. That moment of recognition brought the highest sense of fulfillment in my career.
How do you prioritize your well-being and self-care amidst a demanding career?
Becoming a mother taught me how to build a healthy work-life balance, where I prioritized my son’s upbringing while fulfilling my professional responsibilities. As he grew older and became more independent, I was able to dedicate more time to my own interests. Today, I strive to balance my time between my career, my family and loved ones, and personal passions like academia, painting, dancing, and movie critique.
What are your long-term career aspirations, and how do you see yourself evolving as a leader over the next five years?
My personal ambition is to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps, just as my parents did—building a successful career, scaling my expertise to wider audiences, earning international recognition, and giving back to my country through academia.
What advice would you give to individuals looking to break into the business or healthcare industries?
For newcomers to the workplace, I highly recommend developing multifunctional expertise by fostering learning agility. The business landscape is evolving faster than ever before. The leaders who will thrive in the near future are those who approach their work with flexibility and a growth mindset, rather than being confined by the limitations of their job descriptions.