Sercan Alben: Making Leadership Training Stick

Companies spend heavily on training. The harder question is whether anything changes once people leave the training room. That question sits at the centre of Sercan Alben's work. A co-founder of Alben Akademi in Istanbul, he works where behavioural science meets leadership development and communication, and he is a nominee for Leader of the Year at the TPC Awards 2026.

From the stage to the boardroom

Alben's route into corporate development was unusual. He began by observing human behaviour in the theatre, at Istanbul Gökkuşağı Tiyatrosu, and carried that stage experience into education and communication work. He then moved into media production and broadcasting before building Alben Akademi, which he describes as his main platform: a firm that applies behavioural science to leadership and organisational development.

His specialisms include communication strategy, manager development, one-to-one mentoring and organisational transformation. Across them runs one idea: development should not stop in the training room. What matters is whether an organisation, its managers and its systems make the desired behaviour easier to sustain afterwards.

The work in practice

According to Alben Akademi, that approach has shaped several recent engagements. At Esalco Logistics, the firm ran an 18-month development programme involving more than 100 employees across Istanbul, Izmir and Dubai. It covered five structured training sets, from team building and effective communication to body language for sales teams and business writing, with Alben responsible for design, facilitation and follow-up.

With Lighthouse EMEA and Bimbo QSR, he has worked on mentoring and management development focused on communication, feedback, ownership of responsibility and team effectiveness. In each case the emphasis was on observation and follow-up rather than one-off sessions.

Putting it on the record

In 2026, Alben co-authored, with Serkan Alben, an open-access report titled Corporate Development and Behavioral Change in Türkiye: 2026 Field Benchmark and Applied Research Report. Covering 2021 to 2026, it draws on 193 substantive qualitative documents, 396 structured evaluation records retained after deduplication, and 312 anonymised participants.

The report examines recurring field patterns across leadership, communication, team dynamics and development processes, while explicitly treating the evidence as observational and non-causal. The authors publish their methodology and limitations alongside the findings. That restraint is unusual in a field better known for bold promises, and it is part of his nomination.

Sercan Alben is a nominee in the Leader of the Year category of the TPC Awards 2026. Details are as provided in the nomination submission and by Alben Akademi.