Hatice Hocaoğlu started her legal career by enrolling in Marmara University Faculty of Law in 2006, at the age of 15. While a student, she participated in the 2009 Phillip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition and came first with her team, personally received the best oralist award and represented her university and Turkey in the international stage of the competition held in Washington D.C. She also participated in the 2010 Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration competition, representing her university in Vienna. Before graduating, she did summer internships at various law firms and also worked as a parliamentary consultant. After graduating in 2010, Hatice Hocaoğlu registered with the Istanbul Bar Association. She worked as an in-house lawyer in various international company groups and also worked as a Managing Lawyer in law firms.

Hatice Hocaoğlu received post graduate classes in public law, personal data protection law and commercial law. Before joining the Igniters team, Hatice Hocaoğlu gained experience in dispute resolution and gave legal consultancy on various commercial issues to public and private owned entity clients. She worked as lead counsel in two international arbitration cases, one pertaining to an insurance dispute of a state-owned insured, the other pertaining to a dispute between shareholders; as counsel for Social Security Institution on social insurance disputes and consulted on acquisition negotiations of a logistics company by another logistics company; consulted on data privacy issues for companies processing sensitive data. As part of the Igniters team, Hatice represents both investment funds and start-up companies at every stage of investment rounds, starting from the negotiation of conditions and encompassing legal due diligence, preparation of investment documents and completion of the investment.

Hatice Hocaoğlu works on contracts specific to technology companies (e.g. software as a service “SaaS” contracts, terms of use, etc.). Hatice Hocaoğlu also focuses on personal data protection law and works on the creation of data protection policies and documents of technology companies. Hatice Hocaoğlu spends her free time struggling to solve puzzles despite her 6 cats.