Ozlem Akkurt

Stanford GSB & Oxford, both on scholarship. I help int'l applicants get in!

Studied at Stanford Graduate School of Business

Works at ReadyOn

Available tomorrow

Starting at 6:30 PM UTC

My stated schedule is for only a month and will update it early October once I know more about my availability but will be reduced hours.

Protected by the Leland Experience Guarantee

Available tomorrow

Starting at 6:30 PM UTC

My stated schedule is for only a month and will update it early October once I know more about my availability but will be reduced hours.

Questions? Start chatting with this coach before you get started.

Ozlem's Offerings

Custom hourly · $79/hr

Get help with Application Strategy, Cover Letters, and .

Ozlem also coaches for Mental Health & Wellness and Career Coaching. View all.

Ozlem’s MBA Qualifications

I applied to Stanford GSB and Oxford from Turkey, with a path that didn't fit any template: government work in Rwanda and Ethiopia and early-stage venture in Turkey. I got into both on scholarships. What worked wasn't a polished résumé. It was knowing which story to tell and how to tell it to a reader who has three minutes and a stack of three hundred. That's what I help with. For years friends have sent me their essays and asked me to run mock interviews, and I've spent hundreds of hours reading drafts, finding the thread, cutting what doesn't matter. Most of them got in. I'm now doing it properly, with a small number of applicants each cycle. I'm especially good with international candidates, because I was one: the questions about how much to explain, how to frame a non-Western path, how to sound like yourself in a second language. I'm direct and you'll hear what's working and what isn't from me. If you have a draft, or a blank page and a deadline, send me a message.

Ozlem can help with:

Application Strategy

Cover Letters

Editing

Essays

Financial Aid & Scholarships

General Exploration

Networking Strategy

Recommendations

Resume

School Selection

Ozlem also coaches for Mental Health & Wellness and Career Coaching. View all.

About Ozlem

I'm Özlem. I coach high-achievers who want to succeed without disappearing in the process because for a long time, I was the one disappearing. I built my career in fast-moving tech startups; I joined one as its second US hire and helped it grow from a handful of us to around 100 people. On paper it looked great. I'm a Stanford GSB grad, originally from Turkey, the first in my family to walk this path so I knew how to push. What I didn't know was how to stop. So I kept going, until burnout stopped me for me. The four years since have been a different kind of education, which is messier, more honest. And what surprised me most: the more I leaned into this inner work, the better I got at the day job. It gave me more sustainable tools and helped me show up more aligned on the inside — which shows up in everything you do, especially the hard conversations with a client or a teammate. I found myself following that instinct since: GSB's Touchy Feely and executive coaching, hundreds of hours of therapeutic training, a psychedelic-assisted therapy & research certificate at CIIS, yoga teacher training in San Francisco, silent Buddhist retreats from California to Nepal, radical honesty workshops in Costa Rica and Colorado, Holotropic Breathwork in New Mexico, human design in Turkey — not to collect certificates, but to learn how to be a whole person, not just a productive one. I coach the way I actually am: direct, honest, and fully in your corner. This is for founders, operators, and driven people in the middle of burnout, a big transition, or that quiet 3am question: *"is this even the life I want?"* and who'd rather not walk it alone. I've walked it. I'll walk it with you. If any of this resonates, reach out!

Why do I coach?

Because I've sat with every one of these questions myself: "Everyone's getting promoted or pregnant — and I'm still wondering how you're even supposed to know what you want." "I've outgrown the future I once begged for, and I owe it to myself to reimagine life from where I stand now." "Why do I feel stuck, comparing, and full of doubt, when on paper I've made it?" For years I was the "unstoppable motor." I could outwork and outstrategize almost anything, until my body and mind finally called it. Burnout stopped me cold. What carried me through wasn't another productivity hack; it was people, coaches, mentors, teachers, who could see me clearly, hold space without judgment, and help me get honest about what I actually wanted underneath all the achieving. I first tasted that at Stanford GSB, in Touchy Feely and executive coaching, then went deeper through therapy, breathwork, and my own recovery — and learned that the bravest move isn't pushing harder; it's turning toward the hard thing and sitting with it. That's the work I do now: helping driven people stop running from themselves and start building a life that actually fits and to win, yes, but without crushing their soul to do it!! If any of these questions are yours too, I'd love to talk.