The author is the director of the Center for Public Diplomacy and Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations, Kırklareli University, Turkey. He also serves as Vice Head of the Department of International Relations. He was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, the Elliott School of International Affairs, the George Washington University, the USA in 2011. He served as a visiting lecturer at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India for the academic year of 2012-2013. He worked as a foreign policy expert in The Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), and several think tanks such as the Global Strategy Institute (ORSAM), ASAM, SETA. He also worked as a cultural diplomacy expert in Yunus Emre Institute in Ankara.Dr. Ekşi serves as a public diplomacy adviser in Ankara-based prestigious think tank ANKASAM. He has authored numerous articles and also published two books: The Rise and Fall of Soft Power in the Turkish Foreign Policy during AK Party Era, Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, 2016; Public Diplomacy and Turkish Foreign Policy during AK Party Era (in Turkish), Siyasal Kitabevi Press, Ankara, July 2014.