Baturay Özden

London · available for a few engagements a year

Founder · Director · Investor

I build systems that don't need me.

Five directorships, two countries, one operating philosophy. For twenty years I have moved from psychology to brands to performance marketing to software, and every step was the same question: how does this keep running when any one person, me included, steps out of the room?

Read the storySee the proof
  • MSc Psychology
  • Google Ads certified
  • Director of five companies
  • Published author
30+countries worked in
2countries running my own company
6ventures live or operating
150+professionals advised worldwide
12years running B4Mind

The story

Psychology taught me why people decide. Marketing taught me to measure it. Software let me automate it.

Full biography
Act I · Istanbul · 2010–2015

The mind

Economics, then a Master's in psychology. Executive search at Stanton Chase, then years as a professional coach and trainer working with leaders and teams. Founded B4Mind in 2014 to bring psychology into brand strategy. Wrote a book on how men make decisions.

Act II · London · 2016–present

The numbers

Opened B4Mind's London office alongside Istanbul; both still run today. As founder, led the agency's digital and brand work for Google, SAP, Vodafone, Mercedes, Bayer and DHL: £1m+ budgets, campaigns in thirty-plus countries, Google and Meta partner status. Learned what scales and what quietly depends on one person.

Act III · now

The systems

Director of five companies across the UK and Türkiye, two of them CQC-regulated. Founder of a portfolio of AI-operated products in healthtech, legaltech and property compliance. Teams on the ground, AI in the plumbing, and every process designed to outlast whoever built it.

What I believe

Five things I would argue with anyone about.

  1. 01
    A key person is a single point of failure.If a business stops when one person is on holiday, it isn't a business yet. Hire people for judgement, give the repetition to systems, and make sure the founder is the most replaceable part.
  2. 02
    Regulation is the best go-to-market.A deadline, a registration, a duty: where compliance meets commerce, demand is predictable and the buyer already knows they have a problem.
  3. 03
    Every buyer is a psychology problem first.Dashboards tell you what happened. Only a model of how the person decides tells you what to build next.
  4. 04
    Time is the only thing you can't buy back.The point of using AI well is not output. It is getting your hours back for the people and the work that matter most to you. Any system that doesn't return time to its owner is badly designed.
  5. 05
    The next search engine is a conversation.Buyers increasingly ask an AI, not Google. Being named first in that answer is the new page one, and almost nobody is measuring it yet.

The proof

What is running right now.

All case studies
The essaySystems That Don't Need Me: building companies that survive their founderWhy key-person risk is the quietest killer of small companies, and the operating model I use across my companies to design it out. [TO WRITE · ~3,000 words]Read the essay →

Writing

All

Subscribes you to one email a month.

Working with me

A few founders and owners a year. I pick them.

I don't sell hours and I don't take briefs. I work with people building in regulated markets who want what I run every day: systems that generate demand on their own, products shaped by a compliance deadline, and an operating model where the team does the thinking and the machinery does the rest. When a business is ready for capital, I help it become something an investor can believe in, and I open the right doors.

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Mandates I take on

  • Digital transformation with AIThe whole company, not one tool: sales, operations, reporting and compliance rebuilt as AI-run systems your team oversees rather than operates. Delivered as working software, not a roadmap.
  • UK market entry for international companiesCompany setup, licensing, hiring, go-to-market and the first year of operating, any sector. Regulated healthcare is where I've done it as the director on the paperwork, so that's where I go deepest.
  • Investor readinessNarrative, numbers and the operating evidence investors look for, then introductions when the company is ready for them.
  • Board and advisory seatsFor companies between Türkiye and the UK, or building where regulation creates the market.

Speaking & press

I speak from what I run, with the numbers.

Keynotes, panels and interviews in English or Turkish. Bio, headshots and abstracts in one download.

Download press kitInvite me →
  • Systems that don't need you: designing out key-person risk
  • When the buyer asks AI: generative engine optimisation for real businesses
  • Leading when the machines do the repetition
  • The psychology of the buyer, twenty years on from the brand workshop
Cover of Erkeğin Pin Kodu by Baturay Özden

The book · 2015

Erkeğin Pin KoduA field guide to how men make decisions, grounded in the psychology I studied, published in Türkiye. The first thing I ever built that worked without me in the room.On D&R →

Off the clock

Sailing, aviation, contemporary art.Father of two in West London. Studied in Bursa, Opole and Istanbul.

Tell me which door you came through.

Calls are weekday mornings, London time. I reply to every serious message within two working days.

Founder or ownerAdvisory, investor readiness, boardInvestor or partnerPortfolio, deal flow, co-buildingSpeaking or pressPress kit, dates, topicsSomething elseA question, a correction, a thank-you