Director of Europe and Central Asia

Mustafa Gönen is a trained urban planner with more than twenty-five years of experience in urban planning and management. He worked with Global Heritage Fund as the Director of the Turkey Heritage Program for almost twenty years, where he led Kars, Göbeklitepe and Sagalassos cultural heritage preservation projects and numerous investigations in Turkey, Kosovo, Armenia, and Greece.

He was a research affiliate to Harvard University’s Center for Urban Development Studies and Institute for International Urban Development in Turkey for three years. Mustafa has extensive experience in international projects in France, Thailand, Russia, Finland, Benin, Morocco, Albania, Macedonia, and Kosovo.

He was lecturing on ‘Cultural Heritage Management and Economics’ in Ankara Science University and is currently a visiting lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Gazi University, Ankara.

Mustafa Gönen has a MSc. in Urban Planning from Gazi University, Ankara; an MA in Urban Management from Erasmus University, Rotterdam. He is fluent in Turkish and English.