In his role as associate research director for IT services and software across the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META), Melih drives IDC’s regional research and consulting engagements in the areas of IT services, Cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), and intelligent automation.

He first joined IDC in 2012 as a senior research analyst located out of IDC’s Istanbul office, with various responsibilities for the firm’s IT services, cloud computing, software, and telecom domains — both in Turkey and across the wider META region. Between 2016 and 2021, Melih headed the international marketing and investor relations practice at P.I. Works, a global automation and AI software vendor that serves telecom operators.

Now back at IDC, Melih is leveraging his vast experience in the IT services, cloud, software, and telecommunications domains to advise clients on go-to-market strategies, technology marketing and promotion activities, and market trends analysis. He is also driving a wide variety of research and consulting projects across the META region.

Melih has also previously served as enterprise channel and marketing manager at Nortel Turkey and as business development and strategy manager at Netaş, one of the leading systems integrators in Turkey and a former Nortel subsidiary. He possesses a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and received his MBA from Esslingen University of Applied Sciences in Germany. He has worked as a business development specialist at HP and wrote his MBA thesis for the company, covering European retail channel trends and winning strategies for channel businesses.

Stuart Bulley is Area Vice President for Central Europe, Middle East, Turkey & Africa at Couchbase, leading high-performing teams across some of the company’s fastest-growing markets. He began his career in the Royal Marines Commandos, an experience that shaped his leadership style and resilience. He later held senior roles at Oracle, running direct enterprise sales teams and leading cloud partner ecosystems across EMEA. Known for building strong customer relationships and scaling complex markets, he has consistently delivered standout growth and secured strategic, multi-million-dollar partnerships, helping organizations harness data, cloud and AI to accelerate digital transformation.

Mahmoud Younes is a Senior Solutions Engineer at Couchbase with over 15 years of experience in designing and architecting cloud-native and enterprise solutions across multiple industries. Prior to Couchbase, he held various technical sales roles at Oracle and Hewlett Packard, specializing in cloud transformation, solution architecture, and technical enablement.