ERDEM
How I Think

Boundlessly
Curious.

Revenue operator, systems builder, and lifelong learner who grew up assembling the world piece by piece — across continents, cultures, and companies — always looking for the harmony in distinct parts.

At a Glance
$5.3B Exit Value Built Revenue infrastructure architected at Modernizing Medicine
$0 → $500M ARR Revenue teams scaled across three PE/public companies
MBA · MA Finance · BA Economics Kellogg · Yonsei · Kongju National
RevOps GTM Strategy Systems Builder Pioneer
Origin Story

Built from Many
Different Pieces

I grew up moving — city to city, country to country, always arriving as the new person who had to learn the rules of a new system fast. That experience didn't make me restless. It made me precise about what stays constant when everything else changes.

At 12, I spent time alone in the Alatau Mountains of Kazakhstan. No safety net, just the conviction that I'd figure it out. That trip shaped what I'd later call determination — not stubbornness, but the quiet refusal to stop until the pieces fit together.

I think of my work the way I thought about Lego as a kid: each piece is designed with intent. The magic isn't in any single block — it's in the harmony you create when you assemble them well. That's how I approach revenue systems, teams, and strategy.

A Korean Government Scholarship took me from Kazakhstan to Seoul. An MBA at Kellogg connected me to a global network of builders. Every stop added a new set of blocks to the kit. The instinct — find the system, understand it, improve it — stayed the same throughout.

"Each piece is designed with intent. The magic is in the harmony you create when you assemble them well."
Erdem on Systems Thinking
Turkey → Kazakhstan Early years across cities and countries — learning adaptability
Alatau Mountains, Kazakhstan Age 12 — solo expedition that forged determination
Seoul, South Korea Korean Government Scholar — cross-cultural immersion
United States Kellogg MBA → enterprise RevOps at scale
Core Values

What I Operate By

These aren't aspirational — they're observable. Every person I've worked with closely has named some version of these four back to me.

01
Adaptability
Grew up navigating new cities, languages, and cultures. Change is not a disruption — it's the default state. I adjust the approach while holding the direction steady.
02
Respect
Deep connections with others are non-negotiable. I lead with curiosity about the person in front of me, not the title. Trust is built in the details of how you treat people day to day.
03
Determination
The Alatau Mountains at age 12. The Korean Government Scholarship. Every transformation I've led. The quiet refusal to stop until the right outcome is achieved — not stubbornness, conviction.
04
Dynamism
I bring energy to complexity. New problems, new industries, new teams — each one is an invitation to think freshly. Standing still has never been the option I reach for first.
CliftonStrengths

How I Think

Strategic Thinking Domain — All Top 5

My top five CliftonStrengths are all in the Strategic Thinking domain — the rarest profile pattern. It means I spend most of my energy absorbing information, connecting ideas across disciplines, and building mental models of how things could work better. I don't lead with instinct alone. I lead with synthesis.


In practice: I'll be the person who's read three adjacent industry reports before the meeting, who asks the question nobody had the framing for yet, and who is already thinking about what the second-order effects of today's decision are.

1
Input
Collects information, ideas, artifacts, and relationships. Curiosity is the engine — nothing is irrelevant.
2
Ideation
Finds the elegant connection between seemingly unrelated things. Energized by the "aha" of a new frame.
3
Futuristic
Naturally oriented toward what could be. Paints vivid pictures of the future to energize action today.
4
Learner
Thrives in the process of learning itself — not just knowing, but the journey from confusion to clarity.
5
Intellection
Needs time for deep reflection. Thinking is not preparation for work — it is the work.
Predictive Index

How I Work

CliftonStrengths explains how I think. The Predictive Index explains how I show up day to day — my behavioral drives and the work environment where I operate at my best.

Guardian
Behavioral Profile
Guardian
Precise · Steady · Conscientious · Unselfish
Unselfish Approachable Detail-oriented Steady Precise Methodical Conscientious Duty-driven
CollaborationHigh
Precision & AccuracyVery High
Structure & ProcessHigh
Stability Under PressureVery High
Dominance / AssertivenessModerate

The Guardian brings together the Strategic Thinking of CliftonStrengths and the methodical precision of the PI profile. In practice: I generate ambitious ideas and execute them with rigor. I hold the vision and the spreadsheet at the same time.

Where I do my best work: cross-functional initiatives with complexity, ambiguity, and high standards — the kind where someone needs to both define the problem and build the system to solve it.

Career

The Work

Three companies, three inflection points, one throughline: transforming revenue organizations from reactive to systematic at critical growth stages.

2024 — Present Public Company · NYSE: IBTA
Ibotta Public · NYSE: IBTA

Leading enterprise-wide revenue transformation at a recently-public performance marketing company. Building the operating infrastructure, cross-functional playbooks, and AI-enabled processes required to scale from PE-stage efficiency into public-market accountability and growth.

Revenue Infrastructure Post-IPO Transformation AI-Enabled Operations Cross-Functional Alignment
2020 — 2024 PE-Backed · $150M → $500M ARR
Modernizing Medicine PE-Backed

Joined at $150M ARR and helped scale to $500M across a complete RevOps transformation. Built the GTM infrastructure — processes, systems, data architecture, compensation design — that turned a PE investment thesis into a durable growth engine. Managed the full revenue operations function: Sales Ops, Marketing Ops, CS Ops, and BI.

$150M → $500M ARR Full RevOps Build GTM Infrastructure 4 Ops Functions PE Value Creation
2016 — 2020 PE-Backed · ~$100M ARR
MotionPoint PE-Backed

Owned GTM strategy and operational infrastructure for a PE-backed SaaS business. Established the foundational processes and analytical frameworks — territory design, pipeline management, forecasting, and customer segmentation — that enabled the company to scale predictably under PE ownership.

GTM Strategy Territory Design Pipeline & Forecast Customer Segmentation
Education

The Formation

Three degrees, three countries, three very different intellectual environments — each one added a different lens to how I think about business, people, and systems.

🇺🇸
Master of Business Administration
Kellogg School of Management · Northwestern University
Executive MBA Program
Deepened strategic frameworks and built a global network of operators, founders, and executives. Confirmed the ambition: pioneer new methodologies and build institutional-grade RevOps infrastructure that scales beyond any single company.
🇰🇷
Master of Arts · Finance
Yonsei University · Seoul, South Korea
Korean Government Scholar
Korean Government Scholarship recipient — selected on merit from an international pool. Full immersion in a different language, academic culture, and way of thinking about financial systems. Built the cross-cultural fluency that now shapes how I lead globally distributed teams.
🇰🇿
Bachelor of Arts · Economics
Kongju National University
Kazakhstan · Undergraduate Foundation
Foundation in economic thinking, quantitative reasoning, and the mechanics of markets. The starting point of a journey that would cross three continents and four degrees before landing in enterprise revenue transformation.
Peer Perspective

How Others See Me

The words colleagues, managers, and cross-functional partners use when they describe working with me — unsolicited, consistent across contexts.

"Erdem combines rare intellectual horsepower with a genuine commitment to getting the work done right. He doesn't just generate ideas — he builds the systems to execute them."
Revenue Leader · PE-Backed Portfolio Co.
"One of the most trustworthy operators I've worked alongside. When Erdem says he'll deliver something, you stop worrying about it. That's an uncommon quality at the VP level."
Chief Revenue Officer · SaaS
"He holds high standards without creating fear. People work hard for Erdem because they respect him, not because they're afraid of him. That's the difference between a manager and a leader."
Director of Sales Operations · Direct Report
Trustworthy Committed to Excellence Confident Systematic Honest Kind Responsible Mature Open-Minded Strategic Precise Energizing
What I'm Building Toward

Pioneer
Mindset.

I'm not interested in doing what's already been done. I want to create the methodologies — the frameworks and systems that don't exist yet but should — and then build the institutions to deploy them at scale.

The long arc points toward a RevOps consulting firm and a deployable technology platform that makes enterprise-grade revenue infrastructure accessible to growth-stage companies. The operating experience I'm building now is the raw material for that.

🏗️
Methodology Creation
Building revenue frameworks that don't exist yet — filling the gap between PE operating playbooks and enterprise software.
🌐
RevOps Consulting Platform
Envisioning an institutional-grade advisory firm with deployable technology — GTM transformation as a repeatable product.
🤖
AI-Enabled Revenue Systems
Applying the frontier of AI to revenue operations — not as a feature but as the structural shift that changes what's possible.
🌍
Global Perspective
Leveraging a career that has spanned four countries and three continents to build teams and systems that work across contexts.

Let's Build Something.

Whether it's a transformation initiative, a speaking engagement, or a conversation about what's next — I'm always interested in the right problems.

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