Dr. H. Murat Mercan has served as a member of the Turkish Airlines Board of Directors since April 2026.

Mr. Murat Mercan is both a diplomat and a scholar.

He graduated from the Department of Industrial Engineering, Faculty of Engineering of Boğaziçi University in 1981.

He received his Master's Degree from the same Department in 1984, and completed his Ph.D studies in 1989 at the Department of Decision and Information Sciences of the University of Florida.

He then worked as an Assistant Professor at the Department of Quantitative Business Analysis of Cleveland State University and at the Department of Management of Bilkent University. He became an Associate Professor in 1995 and continued teaching at Bilkent University.

Ambassador Mercan is a Founding Member of AK Parti (the Justice and Development Party). He worked as a Member of the Party’s Central Decision Making and Administrative Board (2001-2009), and was Deputy for Eskişehir during the 22nd and 23rd terms of the Turkish Parliament. From 2002 until 2007, he was Chairman of the Turkish Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Interparliamentary European Defense and Security Assembly, and the Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He served as the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Turkish Grand National Assembly during the 23rd term of the Parliament (2007-2011), as Deputy Minister of Energy and Natural Resources of Türkiye (2012-2014) and as Chairman of the World Energy Council Turkish National Committee (2014-2017).

In 2017, he was appointed as Turkish Ambassador to Japan and held this office until he assumed his duties as Ambassador of Türkiye to the U.S. in March of 2021. He retired on January 12,2024. Currently he teaches at İbn-i Haldun University and serves as a board member of Turkish Airlines.