Canan was born in Istanbul, Turkey. She attended University of Istanbul and graduated with a doctorate degree in Dental Medicine in 1985. Canan received her Master of Business Administration degree from Bosporus University. She worked as a Doctor of Dental Medicine until she joined the Pharmaceutical Industry at the end of 1989, as a product manager in Hoechst Pharma (Sanofi today). She worked on various marketing and commercial leadership roles in the pharmaceutical industry. She moved to Paris France for a global marketing leadership role in pharmaceutical industry in 2004.
After working 4 years based out of France as Global Leader for Metabolic Diseases, in March 2007 she joined General Electric Healthcare as VP of Marketing for Region International, responsible from Europe, Asia, Middle East, Africa & China. In March 2009, she was appointed as Chief Marketing Officer of Healthcare Systems and she moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to join the Global Leadership team and worked on innovation, strategy, and marketing of new products. In November 2011, she has been promoted to Global General Manager of Mammography and has moved back to Paris, France to lead GE Healthcare Global Mammography business.
Eventually, she has been appointed as President and CEO of GE Turkey in August 2012. In 2017, she has been given additional responsibility as Chief Growth Officer in MENAT region. Her responsibility was driving GE’s growth in Turkey, a leading emerging market until June 2021. She acted as a consultant and retained the title Chairwoman until June 2022. Currently she is an independent board member of Garanti BBVA since April 2019, and on the Board of Trustees and Board of SEV. She is also Deputy Chair of AmCham in Turkey. As of April 2022, she is Advisor to the Board of Tekfen Temas and as of November 2022 Advisor to the Executive Committee of Esin Avukatlık Baker McKenzie.
In addition, Canan recently completed a master’s degree on Energy Technologies from Sabanci University (2015 September). She is often invited to give speeches at various industry events on, leadership, future of technology, digital transformation, and women in business. She has started her PhD at Ozyegin University in 2020 and is working on Energy Transition and sustainability.
Canan is married with a 33-year-old son.