Görgün Taner

General Director, Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts

Born in 1959 in Istanbul, Görgün Taner graduated from Kadıköy Anatolian High School and Boğaziçi University Department of History. Since 2002, he has been the General Manager of İKSV, where he started to work as the Cinema Coordinator at the Cinema Days in 1983 and acted as the coordinator of international relations and assistant coordinator of the Istanbul Jazz Festival (1987-1994) and as the coordinator of the Festival between the years 1994 and 2002.

Elected as the chair of the board of the European Cultural Foundation in Amsterdam in May 2013, Görgün Taner remained in this post until 2018. He is also a board member of Istanbul Modern. Also a board member of HEC Montréal International Arts Management Master's Program since 2012 and the Turkish-German Youth Bridge since 2014, Mr. Taner has been an advisory board member of Allianz Turkey since 2015.

He assumed the presidency of the European Jazz Festivals Association between 1998-2002, was the commissioner of the "Turkey Season in France" events held between July 2009 and March 2010, and served as Artistic Advisor to Amsterdam Municipality between September 2010 and May 2011.

In 2011, he was honored with the Chevalier dance L'Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur by the Republic of France and with the title of Art and Literature Knight of the French Ministry of Culture as well as the Officer Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.