Construction · Project Controls · Applied AI

Sertaç Okuyan

Senior Construction Project Controls & Contract Management Executive. 23 years across Russia, Kazakhstan, Libya, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Iraq, Germany, Poland, Angola, and Qatar.

$1B+ in delivered project value. Project Controls Coordinator at GAP İnşaat (Çalık Holding). Builder of a private, fully on-premises AI platform for project-controls work.

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Portrait of Sertaç Okuyan

About

Two decades in international construction — and a second discipline

Project-controls and contract-management professional with 23 years in international construction. I lead the planning, cost-control, claims, and tender pipelines that keep large, complex builds on schedule and on budget — work that has spanned hospitals, airports, urban-renewal districts, high-speed rail, mixed-use towers, and industrial plants across ten countries.

My background is deliberately dual-track: an M.Sc. in Construction Project Management from Istanbul Technical University and an MBA from Istanbul Bilgi University. Technical depth in scheduling, EVA, and FIDIC pairs with the financial and commercial framing needed to translate site reality into board-ready numbers — and to convert claim positions into recovered margin.

What I bring to a senior team: rigor under pressure, a results-orientation grounded in measurement, and the breadth to operate across project controls, contract administration, tender preparation, and HQ–site coordination. I'm currently Project Controls Coordinator at GAP İnşaat (Çalık Holding), and open to new challenges.

Since 2024 I've added a second discipline. On my own hardware and my own time, I built and now operate a private, fully on-premises AI and automation stack — a two-node NVIDIA GPU cluster self-hosting open-weight large language models up to 120B parameters, retrieval-augmented generation, and multi-agent automation — alongside a self-built analytics platform in Next.js and Python that delivers project-controls dashboards from structured source data. All inference runs locally; nothing is sent to third-party model APIs.

I didn't build it to change careers. I built it because the reporting, forecasting, and contract work I've done for two decades is full of problems modern tooling can genuinely solve — and because the people who will apply AI well in construction are the ones who understand what a defensible forecast or a valid claim actually requires.

Experience

Career timeline

Eight employers across 23 years in international construction.

  1. 2022 – Present

    GAP İnşaat · Çalık Holding

    Project Controls Coordinator

    HQ–site coordination across Turkmenistan, Qatar, Iraq, Germany, Poland, and Angola portfolios. Led tender preparation totalling $450M+. Established the Poland country branch. Re-engineered the cost-reporting pipeline into Python and automated the weekly, cost, and finance reporting cycle.

  2. 2019 – 2022

    Kalyon

    Contract Manager

    Headquarters contract-management function supporting 21 major projects concurrently across infrastructure, rail, energy, and high-rise. FIDIC, claims, variation orders, and progress-payment oversight.

  3. 2015 – 2016

    Emaar Turkey

    Development Manager

    Owner-side representation on a $1B+ mixed-use development. Managed the PMC and the multi-discipline international design team (Foster & Partners, KPF-tier architects).

  4. 2014 – 2018

    Teknomont

    Project Manager

    Industrial construction (process plants, fabrication facilities). Delivered +10% of contract value as net profit through proactive claim management on flagship contracts.

  5. 2013 – 2014

    Maya Holding

    Technical Office Manager

    Technical office leadership on a multi-asset shopping-mall portfolio.

  6. 2011 – 2012

    Bilgili Holding

    Technical Office Manager

    Technical office for premium residential developments in Istanbul and Bodrum.

  7. 2009 – 2010

    Renaissance Construction

    Project Controls Manager

    Project controls on a 1.6M m² university campus in Tripoli, Libya.

  8. 2003 – 2009

    ENKA

    Project Controls Manager

    Six-year run across four flagship projects in Russia and Kazakhstan: IKEA Mega Khimki, Sevastopolsky Perinatal Medical Centre, Esentai Park (Almaty), Sheremetyevo Airport Terminal 3.

Selected Projects

Eight projects, five countries

A representative slice — airports, hospitals, urban-renewal, high-speed rail, energy infrastructure, and mixed-use towers.

Aerial view of Sheremetyevo Airport Terminal 3

ENKA · Moscow, Russia · 2007–2009

Sheremetyevo Airport Terminal 3

Project Controls

170,000 m² Aeroflot terminal with a 374,000 m² airside apron. Built in compliance with both Russian norms and international IATA standards.

Aerial view of IKEA Mega Khimki

ENKA · Moscow, Russia · 2003–2005

IKEA Mega Khimki

Project Controls (early career)

186,000 m² flagship shopping mall, anchor of IKEA's rollout into the Russian market.

Esentai Park tower at night, Almaty

ENKA · Almaty, Kazakhstan · 2006–2007

Esentai Park

Project Controls

368,000 m² mixed-use complex (tower, mall, residences). Achieved 5.7 million person-hours without a lost-time incident across the re-mobilization phase.

Al-Fateh University rendering, Tripoli

Renaissance Construction · Tripoli, Libya · 2009–2010

Al-Fateh University

Project Controls Manager

1.6 million m² university campus — one of the largest single-contract education works in North Africa at the time.

Emaar Square Libadiye towers at dusk

Emaar Turkey · Istanbul · 2015–2016

Emaar Square Libadiye

Development Manager (Owner side)

$1B+ mixed-use development; 1.12 million m² built area; LEED Silver. Owner-side single point of authority over the PMC team.

High-speed rail viaduct

Kalyon · Turkey · 2019–2022

Bandırma–Bursa–Yenişehir–Osmaneli Higher-Speed Rail

Contract Manager

201 km rail corridor with 29 tunnels, 35 bridges, and 7 stations. Contracts and claims oversight across the full alignment.

Engineering model of the Poland FSRU offshore terminal

GAP İnşaat · Poland · 2022–Present

Poland FSRU Terminal

Project Controls

Offshore floating storage and regasification unit terminal: pile-driven marine structure with breasting and mooring dolphins, cargo-handling pier, and shore connection.

Aerial rendering of the Ashgabat medical complex

GAP İnşaat · Ashgabat, Turkmenistan · 2022–Present

Ashgabat Medical Complex

Project Controls

Multi-facility medical cluster: Rehabilitation, Oncology, Pediatric, Stomatology, and Physiology centres, plus the Akhalteke Equestrian Complex.

Media

Talks and appearances

External features on subjects within my professional scope.

Kalyon Holding · YouTube · 2019–2022

Sözleşme ve Hakediş (Contracts & Progress Payments)

Talk on contract administration and progress-payment workflow, published on the Kalyon Holding channel during my tenure as Contract Manager at Kalyon. Open on YouTube ↗

Skills

Technical depth, commercial breadth

Professional disciplines

  • Project controls
  • Contract management & FIDIC
  • Claim management
  • Earned Value Analysis (EVA)
  • Tender preparation & bid management
  • Cost control & project finance
  • ERP implementation
  • HQ–site coordination
  • Multi-country project management
  • Generative AI for project management

Technical tools

  • Primavera P6 (Advanced certified, 2024)
  • Microsoft Project
  • Power BI
  • Bentley Synchro 4D
  • SAP ERP
  • AutoCAD
  • BIM
  • VBA macros

Applied AI & automation

  • On-premises LLM serving (vLLM, ollama)
  • Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)
  • Multi-agent orchestration
  • Prompt & context engineering
  • Python (ETL, pandas, SQLite)
  • TypeScript / React / Next.js
  • Data engineering & ETL pipelines
  • Linux, Docker, NVIDIA GPU/CUDA

Education & Certifications

Dual-track foundation

Education

  • MBA — Distance Learning Business Administration

    Istanbul Bilgi University · 2011–2015 · CGPA 3.43

    Master's project: Project Cost Management Applications and Earned Value Analysis Method in the Construction Sector.

  • M.Sc. Construction Project Management

    Istanbul Technical University · 2002–2006

    Thesis: Organization of Construction Firms After Bidding Phase with Computer-Aided Planning Approach and Resource Leveling. Cited in three subsequent academic works including a 2024 book.

  • B.Sc. Civil Engineering

    Istanbul Technical University · 1997–2002

Certifications & memberships

  • Project Management Institute (PMI)Member since 2007
  • Turkish Society of Civil EngineersMember
  • Primavera P6 Professional Advanced2024
  • Primavera P6 Professional Fundamentals (100% assessment)2024
  • Generative AI for Project Managers (PMI)2024
  • Data Landscape of Gen AI for PM (PMI)2024
  • Construction Contract Claims Preparation (TechnoBee / ITU)2015
  • Delay Analysis Techniques (TechnoBee / ITU)2015
  • FIDIC Contract Management (TechnoBee / ITU)2013
  • Real Estate Investment & Development (Bilgi University, 54h)2014
  • Team Work & Leadership (Masters Training International)2004

Highlights

By the numbers

$1B+

Cumulative managed project value

$450M

Tender preparation led at GAP İnşaat

+10%

Net profit added via claim management at Teknomont

21

Projects supported concurrently at Kalyon

8

Employers across 23 years

10

Countries of construction experience

120B

Largest open-weight model self-hosted on own hardware

34k+

Lines of code in a self-built project-controls platform

18

Production automations running on own infrastructure

Let's connect.

Open to new challenges. The fastest way to reach me is LinkedIn.

Connect on LinkedIn

Istanbul, Turkey