Umut Destegul has more than 20 years of experience working on geothermal projects in Türkiye and internationally, including 10 years of experience in the design and supervision of geothermal exploration and drilling projects, adding up to 107 MW, or approximately 6% of the current installed power capacity of the country. She is also a leading expert in direct use geothermal applications, having successfully deployed direct use technologies across various sectors in Türkiye, including district heating, industry and tourism.

Umut has carried out geothermal consulting assignments for a number of organizations, including the UN, IFC, NZTE and USTDA. As a consultant at GreenMax, she led a technical assessment of direct use geothermal opportunities across six East African countries for UNIDO.

Umut previously worked in Business Development roles in Türkiye’s geothermal and renewable energy sectors, including for Enther Energy, Transmark Renewables and BM Holdings. She also worked as a Hazard Impact Modeling Engineer at GNS Science in New Zealand and as a Disaster Management Research Specialist at Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) in USA.

Umut holds a M.Sc. in Natural Hazard Sciences from the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation in the Netherlands and a M.Sc. in Geodynamics from Istanbul Technical University. She is fluent in Turkish and English.

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