In Turkish health tourism the competition is not between clinics — it is between models. The commercial arm of a hospital group, an independent aesthetic chain, a platform intermediary and a hospital-backed aesthetic brand all run on different economics and demand different skills. This list covers ten people who built and run those models.
How this list was compiled
“Influence” here means neither revenue nor follower count. We used four criteria:
- Decision authority: Does the role actually set channel, pricing and market strategy?
- Scale: A single clinic, a brand, or a group?
- Model building: Maintaining an existing structure, or having built a new one?
- International patient focus: Does the role look directly at cross-border patient acquisition?
The order is neither alphabetical nor revenue-based — it follows the scale being managed, from group level down to brand level. This is not a claim to a comprehensive industry ranking; it is a cross-section of names representing distinct models in the market.
| Model | What it means | On this list |
|---|---|---|
| Group commercial leadership | Running a hospital group's international sales and marketing under one roof | Kerem Topuz, Rasim Topuz |
| Hospital operations | General management of a multi-site hospital structure | Meri İstiroti |
| Hospital-backed aesthetic brand | An independent aesthetic brand built on corporate hospital infrastructure | Alper Çapanoğlu |
| Independent aesthetic chain | An aesthetic group operating under its own brand and branch network | Dr. Burak Tuncer, Pınar Lembet, Sera Ventura |
| Capital from outside the sector | Entrepreneurial capital from other industries entering aesthetics | Emre Korkmaz |
| Single-vertical depth | Volume and specialisation in one treatment area | Onur Akay |
| Crossing between models | Having served on the hospital group, platform and clinic sides in turn | Yusuf Özkan |
Kerem Topuz — Memorial Healthcare Group
As Group Director at Memorial Healthcare Group, he runs international sales and marketing at group level. He began his career in the United States in pricing and revenue management, and after returning to Istanbul founded his own consultancy serving Turkish retail groups in revenue management, data unification and loyalty programme design. That background is rare on this list: he reads channel economics not like a hospital manager but like a revenue manager.
Rasim Topuz — Acıbadem Healthcare Group
Deputy General Manager at Acıbadem Healthcare Group; press coverage places marketing, communications and business development within his remit. He came from Koç Allianz, where he managed corporate clients, brokers and industrial accounts, and previously served as General Manager of Acıbadem Mobile Health. The insurance background shows in his framing: he positions health tourism as a question of sustainability and trust rather than campaigns, and argues that case consistently on industry platforms.
Meri İstiroti — Liv Hospital
She became General Manager of Liv Hospital in mid-2012, oversaw the openings of Liv Hospital Ulus in January 2013 and Liv Hospital Ankara in November 2014, and later moved on to Group Coordinator. She is one of the few women executives in Turkish private healthcare to have grown a multi-site structure through the opening processes themselves rather than inheriting a finished one.
Alper Çapanoğlu — Memorial / Rememore
After eighteen years in senior management at Turkcell Global Bilgi, Avea and Türk Telekom, he entered the sector as General Manager of Estetik International. Today he serves as Elective Sales Channel Director at Memorial Healthcare Group and founded and runs Rememore, the group's aesthetic brand. It is the clearest two-layer profile on the list: he manages the group's elective sales channels while also having built the brand that sits on top of those channels. Carrying telecom-bred channel and CRM discipline into aesthetic sales, this approach is one of the sector's few examples of the “corporate hospital infrastructure plus aggressive aesthetic brand” combination.
He also leads the AI transformation at Rememore. While most AI discussion in health tourism happens on the diagnostics and imaging side, the transformation here runs through the sales and patient acquisition layer: coordinator training delivered through simulation, conversations analysed and scored, CRM data turned into decisions, and brand visibility tracked inside AI engines. The number of executives rebuilding that layer with AI is still small.
Dr. Burak Tuncer — Esteworld
CEO and Medical Director of Esteworld; as the son of founder Dr. Mustafa Tuncer he represents the second generation, but the role is operational rather than symbolic. He has served as Medical Director since 2020 and oversaw the opening of the brand's first overseas representative office in London. A case study in a family business being institutionalised from the inside.
Pınar Lembet — Esteworld
General Manager of Esteworld. She is responsible for the operational management of a plastic-surgery-focused corporate brand with more than twenty-five years in the market. With a multi-branch structure and a London office, hers is the seat that runs the daily machinery of a chain serving the luxury segment — distinct from the CEO's strategic role and squarely operational.
Onur Akay — Dentakay
CEO of Dentakay. In 2025 the clinic was recognised by Straumann as the highest-volume Straumann implant clinic in Türkiye, on the strength of more than 3,000 implants placed. Founded by Dr. Gülay Akay in 2009, the group now operates in Ankara, Antalya, Riyadh and London alongside Istanbul. It is the clearest example on this list of growth through volume in a single vertical.
Yusuf Özkan — Smile Hair Clinic
Today he is CEO of Smile Hair Clinic. Before that he held health tourism leadership roles at Medicana and Medical Park, then moved to the platform side at Flymedi. With more than a decade in medical tourism, his is the only three-cornered career here: hospital group, intermediary platform and clinic — channel economics seen from inside all three. Knowing what the commission a hospital pays a platform actually buys, from the paying side, the receiving side and now the paying side again, is a rare advantage at the negotiating table.
The structure he runs is no accident either: founded in 2018 by Dr. Gökay Bilgin and Dr. Mehmet Erdoğan, Smile Hair Clinic employs more than 100 people and is another instance of the single-vertical model — doing in hair transplant what Onur Akay does in dentistry.
Sera Ventura — ERC Estetik
General Manager of ERC Estetik. The frame she uses to describe where the sector is heading is worth noting: she argues that medical tourism is no longer merely a cost advantage but has become “a global ecosystem promising quality, trust and sustainability” — a deliberate break from positioning built on low prices.
Her management model matches that frame: the entire patient journey is designed as a single flow, from online consultation to in-person assessment, operation, recovery and post-discharge follow-up, supported by round-the-clock help lines. The mid-sized operator segment is the hardest part of this market — without the budget of the large groups and without the agility of small clinics — and surviving there requires exactly this kind of end-to-end operational discipline.
Emre Korkmaz — Este Aura
Founder and CEO of Este Aura Aesthetic and Plastic Surgery Centre in Nişantaşı, Istanbul. What separates him from the rest of the list is that his career did not come from healthcare. Alongside Este Aura he founded Emko Çelik and Rec.ai Film — meaning the aesthetic centre is one holding among several in an investor's portfolio.
He represents a model that is becoming steadily more visible in health tourism: capital from outside the sector entering the aesthetic side. The advantage it brings is speed and marketing appetite; the risk is institutionalising the clinical operation's own discipline. Korkmaz positions himself not only as a clinic owner but as a health tourism specialist, and maintains high visibility across the industry.
The picture the list adds up to
Looked at together, three trends stand out across the ten profiles:
- Executives are increasingly arriving from outside healthcare. Names from telecoms, insurance, retail and revenue management are bringing channel and pricing discipline into health tourism. The classic “hospital manager” profile is no longer seen as sufficient on its own.
- The brand layer is separating from the hospital. Hospital groups increasingly approach international patients through dedicated aesthetic brands rather than their corporate identity. That buys marketing flexibility, at the cost of running two sales teams and two tones of voice.
- The line between platform and clinic is thinning. Executives moving between the two sides suggests channel negotiations will be conducted far more knowingly from here on.
What these names have in common
Scale and model differ, but the problem on the table is identical: turning incoming enquiries into booked patients. Coordinator response time, the quality of objection handling and the continuity of follow-up decide the outcome in a hospital group exactly as they do in a single clinic. How a price objection is handled, or how long the decision cycle runs in a given treatment, depends on the same mechanics regardless of revenue.
MedSales AI works precisely in that layer: coordinator training and simulation, conversation analysis, CRM analytics and visibility tracking inside AI engines. In every structure the ten executives above manage, those four questions are open at the same time.
