”I’ve had the pleasure of working with Basak for the last 3 years in founding, developing and running The Berkeley Turkish School. Basak is a true visionary and is highly skilled in and passionate about thinking outside the box, maintaining integrity both personally and for the school while taking steps to develop the school further and push things to its limits to see what can be achieved and how. She’s very hard-working, and goes above beyond all expectations to stretch the boundaries of what is possible, while also holding her team responsible and accountable for their expected contributions. So, things are never idle and the energy always remains strong. Basak has great critical thinking capacity – she constantly evaluates the state of things, cause and effect of decisions made, how improvements can be made, who we can bring in for expertise, how we can better address the needs of our community and continue developing our programs. And finally, I think Basak is an excellent leader and has the crucial traits necessary to run a developing and strong organization: the ability to hold her ground for what she’s passionate about, being a good listener, being a strong researcher and synthesizer, encouraging collaboration and contribution, energizing others, appreciating and acknowledging deserving efforts, and always thinking big.”

Basak Cakici- Co Founder of BTS, Architect & Realtor