Türkiye has made a series of senior personnel changes across financial regulation and public administration through presidential decisions published in the Official Gazette dated October 20, 2026. Capital Markets Board chairman Mahmut Sütcü and İbrahim Ömer Gönül, chairman of the Public Oversight, Accounting and Auditing Standards Authority, were removed from their posts. The decisions were published with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s signature.
Reports by Anadolu Agency, EKOTÜRK, Dünya and Habertürk show that the same package did not name successors for the two regulatory bodies. There is therefore no official announcement yet identifying the next heads of the Capital Markets Board or the public oversight authority. The published decisions also did not state reasons for either removal.
New deputy finance minister appointed
The decisions appointed Kutluhan Taşkın, previously a deputy head of the Presidency’s Strategy and Budget Office, as a deputy minister of treasury and finance. According to biographical information carried by Anadolu Agency, Taşkın graduated from Boğaziçi University’s business administration department in 2001 and began his public-service career at the State Planning Organization. He later completed a master’s degree in public administration at Cornell University and held several posts at the Development Ministry and the Strategy and Budget Office.
Şinasi Candan, who had served as general manager and board chairman of the State Supply Office, was appointed head of the Revenue Administration. Kaan Kasım, Zekayi Çenge and Hüseyin Azili were named deputy heads of the Revenue Administration, while Ferhat Dinçer was appointed as a department head at the institution.
Timing draws attention in financial markets
The leadership change at the Capital Markets Board comes during a period of heightened scrutiny of Türkiye’s capital markets. Reuters reported on October 16 that MSCI had frozen certain changes to its Türkiye equity indexes while it continued to assess market reforms, transparency and enforcement. Türkiye retained its emerging-market classification, but MSCI warned that insufficient progress could raise the risk of a downgrade by mid-2027.
The October 20 personnel decisions, however, did not explicitly connect the removals to MSCI’s action, developments in the investment-fund market or any particular investigation. It would therefore go beyond the published record to present the leadership changes as the confirmed result of a specific market event or inquiry.
Changes across other public institutions
The Official Gazette package covered more than financial administration. Appointments and removals were also announced at the National Lottery Administration, the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry, the Family and Social Services Ministry, the Education Ministry, the Forensic Medicine Institute and the Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Ministry.
At the Environment Ministry, provincial directors in Muğla, Muş and Afyonkarahisar were removed. New provincial directors were appointed for Sakarya, Balıkesir, Bolu, Kayseri, Denizli, Karaman, Muğla, Muş, Kocaeli, Ordu and Kastamonu. Specialist physician Ali Ulvi Çalık was appointed deputy head of the Forensic Medicine Institute.
Hikmet Yıldırım was appointed to the National Lottery Administration’s board, while Salih Ercan became deputy general manager and a board member. Nigar Genç was named the institution’s chief legal counsel. The Agriculture and Forestry Ministry appointed Mahmut Musa Timur and Özge Umut Eker to deputy director-general posts.
The most consequential element for financial governance is the simultaneous removal of the leaders of the capital-markets regulator and the body responsible for public oversight of accounting and auditing standards. The next stage will be the appointment of their successors. Until those appointments are announced, the decisions establish the removals and the other named public-sector appointments, but do not settle the future leadership structure of the two regulators.
The distinction matters because personnel decisions and policy decisions are separate. No new capital-market rule, accounting standard or enforcement measure was announced in the appointment package itself. Any operational or regulatory change would require a further official announcement from the relevant authorities.
