Born in 1959, Mr. ATEŞ graduated from Middle East Technical University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Business Administration after completing his studies at TED Ankara College. He started his banking career in 1981 as an Internal Auditor at İşbank. After serving at various Interbank units from 1986 to 1993, he worked as a Branch Manager at Elmadağ, Şişli, Bakırköy, İzmir and Central Branches. He established Interbank’s Cash Management System and was promoted in 1993 to Executive Vice President in charge of Central Operations. Mr. ATEŞ worked as Executive Vice President in charge of Financial Affairs and Operations at Bank Ekspres between the years of 1994 and 1996 and led the bank’s restructuring project under the consultation of Bank of America. He established Garanti Bank Moscow in Russia and worked as CEO for one year starting from June 1996. He has continued his duties as the President & CEO at DenizBank, where he started in June 1997 as the Founder President.

During his management tenure, DenizBank shares were offered to public in October 2004 where 5.5 times oversubscription was recorded. His management also ran the process of selling Zorlu Holding-owned DenizBank shares to Dexia S.A. in May 2006 for 3.250 Billion Dollars with 4,7 times its book value which is a record in Turkey, the sales process of 99.85% of DenizBank shares owned by Dexia Group to Sberbank 6 years later in June 2012 for 3.6 Billion Dollars with 1.33 times its book value as well as the sales process of 99,85% of DenizBank shares owned by Sberbank to Emirates NBD for 15,48 Billion TL and 1.0 multiplier despite challenging market conditions. In addition, the transfer of Deniz Emeklilik for 256 Million Euros with 10 times its book value with a 15-year sales agreement in 2011 and taking over the retail Banking of Citi Turkey with about 1500 employees in 2013 also took place under the management of Mr. ATEŞ.

Serving as the Chairman of the Board of Directors at DenizBank subsidiaries Deniz Yatırım Menkul Kıymetler A.Ş., Intertech A.Ş. and DenizBank AG Vienna, Hakan ATEŞ also assumes the duty of Member of Board of Directors at Emirates NBD Egypt as of September, 2020. Granted the “Those who Add Value to Turkey” Award presented by Bahçeşehir University in 2015, ATEŞ is with two children and speaks fluent English.