The Wspark Awards, which recognize outstanding women leaders in Türkiye’s technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem, have once again celebrated expertise, innovation, and impact in the industry. This year, two professionals from Payten Türkiye and Paratika have been honored with the Golden and Bronze Wspark Awards for their remarkable achievements.
Betül Kocaoğlu, Banking Software Development Unit Manager at Payten, received the golden award for her technical leadership in Morocco's central payment infrastructure transformation. She led a nine-member development and testing team through a high-stakes migration that converted a single-acquirer virtual POS system into a multi-payment service provider architecture — enabling each bank to independently manage its own payment infrastructure for the first time. Under intense regulatory time pressure, Betül and her team built custom migration tools that seamlessly transferred 5,000 merchants to the new platform in just three weeks, with zero integration changes required on the merchant side. Completed without compromising existing quality and security standards, the project earned direct recognition from executive leadership and stands as a high-impact international technology transformation delivered under exceptional conditions.
Ela Kayacı, Inside Sales Team Lead at Paratika, was recognized for rebuilding and scaling the inside sales function into a direct revenue-generating channel within a single year. Starting with a three-person team in 2024, she expanded the team to five members in 2025 while tripling the division's revenue and growing inside sales' share of total company revenue from 11% to 17%. Beyond the numbers, Ela introduced individual performance and pipeline reporting on Paratika's CRM platform, making sales processes measurable and sustainable at scale.
These recognitions underscore the critical role women play in shaping the future of fintech and digital transformation.