OF-COUNSEL
Müge Aksel
Müge Aksel is a Turkish-qualified lawyer with more than twenty years of experience advising on corporate and commercial law, governance, compliance and business risk. She works with a practical understanding of how legal considerations shape commercial decisions, organisational responsibilities and long-term business objectives.
She has held senior legal and compliance roles at Shell, Deloitte and Goodyear Türkiye, most recently serving as Head of Legal & Compliance and a member of Goodyear Türkiye’s Executive Management Committee. Throughout her career, she has advised boards and senior management on complex legal and regulatory matters, cross-border transactions and strategic business initiatives.
Her experience encompasses M&A and joint ventures, commercial contracts, procurement and supply arrangements, technology and software licensing, and regulated energy activities. She has also advised extensively on corporate governance, internal investigations, data protection, export controls, competition law and regulatory compliance.
Müge’s advisory approach brings together legal analysis, commercial judgment and an understanding of organisational decision-making. She focuses on helping businesses navigate complexity, manage legal and compliance risks, and establish governance arrangements that support responsible and effective operations.
Building on this experience, her work and academic interests extend to AI governance, responsible technology and public international law, including their application in the defence and security sector. Her particular areas of focus include responsible procurement, compliance-by-design, human oversight and lifecycle risk management.
In 2026, Müge completed an LL.M. in Public International Law at Sigmund Freud University Vienna, in cooperation with UNITAR. Her thesis, “AI-Based Decision Support Systems in Military Targeting: Review Mechanisms and Compliance Under International Law,” examined legal review, human oversight, lifecycle governance and accountability for AI-enabled military decision-support systems.
Müge is a graduate of Istanbul University Faculty of Law and holds an LL.M. in Commercial and Corporate Law from Queen Mary University of London. She also completed an Artificial Intelligence programme at UC Berkeley School of Law in 2024.
