Spotlight on Dr Dicle Kortantamer

We continue our series in which the members of the LCP introduce themselves and their work from a more personal perspective. Dr Dicle Kortantamer, our Lecturer in Project Management, shares a bit more about herself below.

I am Dicle Kortantamer. I am originally from Turkey. I came over to London when I was awarded a scholarship to do a master’s at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). What I thought was one year study abroad turned out to be a lifetime in the UK. After my master’s degree, I joined JP Morgan’s graduate leadership programme, which then led me to lead projects, and later programmes and portfolios in various investment banks based in London.  Whilst my undergraduate degree was in computer engineering, through my masters and work experience I found myself more and more interested in the human side of projects. As a senior manager in the financial services industry I observed how taken-for-granted assumptions about leadership affected project outcomes. My curiosity about how we can reflect on and revise taken-for-granted assumptions about leadership to produce better project outcomes led me to move from the industry to academia and research leadership in projects.

Through my research on this area, I questioned some of our taken-for-granted assumptions about leadership in projects:

• Kortantamer, D., 2023. Rethinking Leadership in Projects for a Resilient and Just Future. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management. (access here)
• Kortantamer, D., 2023. Distributed Leadership in Projects: The Contributions of Stakeholders. Project Management Journal, 54(2), pp.179-193. (access here)

I have always been passionate about contributing to making the world a better place for everyone. My research increasingly directed my attention to time-related challenges in tackling societal grand challenges. Therefore, I am currently working on research projects that investigate time-related issues in addressing grand challenges through projects. For instance, we are working with one of my PhD students on the role of leadership in the effective navigation of urgency, and collaborating with colleagues to examine the ways in which deadlines may affect the outcomes produced by projects.

As a Chartered Project Professional, I am involved in various networks that shape the future of our profession. At the Major Projects Association’s Transformation Network we are currently looking into how major projects transform. At the Association for Project Management Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire network, we have been working the delivery of a series of continuous professional development events.

Having worked in the industry for many years, I am also passionate about the learning and development of new generation of project professionals and researchers. I lead the dissertation module of our master’s programmes, which engages with our LCP community to define real-world challenges our students can investigate through their research project. I also lead our people management module where we examine the human side of projects, and encourage our students to experience it  through the various approaches such as role plays and case studies. I also organise our monthly LCP doctoral sessions where our PhD researchers have an opportunity to present and discuss their work as well as discuss the future of our field with our guest speakers.

Get in touch with me via [email protected]