Muttalip Tütüncü Named Secretary General of SAHA İstanbul, Europe’s Largest Defence Cluster

Muttalip Tütüncü has been appointed Secretary General of SAHA İstanbul, the largest defence, aerospace and space industry cluster in Europe. The appointment is part of a management restructuring tied to the cluster’s growth targets for the coming period.

For a NATO supply-chain audience the relevant detail is his background: Tütüncü spent roughly 15 years at the Presidency’s Investment and Finance Office, and from 2019 served as Project Manager for the defence and aviation sector — the desk responsible for attracting foreign direct investment into those two industries.

Why this appointment matters for NATO supply chains

SAHA İstanbul is not a trade association in the conventional sense. It functions as a supplier-development body: it qualifies subcontractors, matches them with prime contractors, provides access to test and laboratory infrastructure, and runs the biennial SAHA EXPO exhibition in Istanbul. Most of its membership consists of SMEs — machining shops, electronics houses, composite and casting suppliers.

Alliance-wide ammunition and component shortages since 2022 have pushed European primes to widen their supplier base. Turkish subcontractors are among the candidates: they hold EN 9100 and NADCAP-track certifications, sit outside the congested Western European supplier pool, and already feed domestic programmes with high production rates. The cluster’s stated priority under Tütüncü — placing member SMEs inside global value chains — is aimed directly at that opening.

Who is Muttalip Tütüncü?

Tütüncü holds undergraduate degrees in international relations and business administration, and speaks English and Arabic at an advanced level. His career has been built on investment promotion rather than engineering or programme management.

At the Investment and Finance Office he handled investment projects originating from Gulf markets among others. Between 2014 and 2016, during Türkiye’s presidency of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA), he served as Executive Coordinator. He has also taught at the Foundation for Research on Türkiye and authored a study on Turkish war systems alongside academic translation work. He is married with three children.

What SAHA İstanbul is

Founded in 2015 with 27 members, the cluster today lists more than 1,300 member companies and 29 member universities. Its board is chaired by Haluk Bayraktar, General Manager of BAYKAR. Vice-chairs are Murat İkinci (ROKETSAN), İlhami Keleş (MKE) and Ahmet Akyol (ASELSAN). TUSAŞ, SEDEF Shipyards, BMC Defence, Yongatek, ARCA Defence, METU, TUSAŞ Engine Industries and TÜBİTAK are represented on the board.

That board composition is the operative point: the cluster’s leadership consists of the same prime contractors that place the orders. A secretary general with an investment-promotion background is being asked to convert that proximity into cross-border subcontracting work.

Stated priorities

• Expanding member firms’ access to new business opportunities.
• Strengthening business-development mechanisms and certification capacity.
• Increasing the cluster’s presence in international markets.
• Supporting SME entry into global value chains through cooperation programmes and international partnerships.

None of these are new objectives for an industrial cluster. What changes is the profile of the person executing them: the previous emphasis was on domestic localisation programmes, while Tütüncü’s record is in outbound and inbound investment negotiation.

The Gulf angle

Tütüncü’s Arabic and his handling of Gulf investment files are directly relevant to where Turkish defence industry partnerships have expanded fastest. Joint production and technology arrangements with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar have been signed at prime-contractor level. Pushing those relationships down to the subcontractor tier is what would turn them into contracts for cluster members.

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Sources

• Anadolu Agency — Muttalip Tütüncü appointed Secretary General of SAHA İstanbul (17 August 2026)
• SAHA İstanbul official website — board of directors and secretary general pages
• SAHA İstanbul corporate briefing materials