Başak Taşpınar Değim graduated from Boğaziçi University in 2000. She completed her undergraduate education in Civil Engineering and later received a scholarship for an MBA program at Koç University. Initially, Değim started her career as a graduate working in the marketing department at Coca-Cola. In 2002, she went to the United States to pursue her master’s degree. There, she completed the MSIMC program at Loyola University Chicago. After moving to the U.S., she held managerial positions at Nielsen and Revlon companies. At Nielsen, she worked as a research analyst for approximately 3.5 years. Later, she transitioned to product management and began working at Revlon, a cosmetics company. After spending about 8 years in the United States, Başak decided to return to Turkey for various reasons and founded Armut in 2011. Her biggest supporter in this endeavor was her husband, Erol Değim, who is also a co-founder of Armut.com. Armut.com is a marketplace that makes it easy to access quality services in Turkey. Changing consumer behavior in an entirely offline market, Armut.com has become the clear leader in the online service marketplace in Turkey. In 2014, Başak was recognized as the category winner among promising female entrepreneurs. Additionally, in 2018, she was selected as the ‘Female Entrepreneur of the Year’ at the Economist Magazine’s Businessperson of the Year awards ceremony.