Gülnur Tumbat, MSc, MBA, PhD, Professor of Marketing at San Francisco State University, is a marketing scholar, consultant, speaker, and athlete.

After completing her undergrad and masters degrees in Türkiye, Gülnur moved to the US to get her PhD. In 2004, she ventured alone to Everest base camp and stayed the whole climbing season in her tent on rock and ice to collect data for her dissertation on risk consumption and risk marketing. Following the sudden loss of her father to cancer and then surviving a major accident totaling her car, she went back in 2014 for her sabbatical to continue her research and to attempt to climb, only to witness the biggest avalanche in the history of Everest, claiming the lives of five Sherpa teammates (a total of 17 deceased). After years of grief and self-reflection, she decided to take a leave from work in 2018, went back and finally reached the summit in response to her lifelong calling.

Gülnur went on to conquer all 7 Summits, the highest peaks on each continent, becoming the first Turkish woman to achieve this feat - accomplishing it with the Messner list (and 28 years after the first Turkish man). Also, she recently summited K2, the mountain of mountains, again as the first Turkish woman (and 25 years after the first Turkish man), on August 11 2025 4pm Pakistani time - which ultimately carved her place on top.

She is a passionate endurance athlete with a love for the outdoors: in addition to being a mountain climber, she is also an ultrarunner, adventure racer, skier, and mountain biker. She firmly believes in the transformative power of our connection to nature and its wild spaces and advocates for environmental and social sustainability through collective reimagination.

As a professor, she has been passionate about teaching complexities of human (consumer) behavior at the undergrad, MBA, ExecMBA levels. She also taught and gave presentations at academic institutions such as University of Utah, American University-Beirut, Universite de Nice-Sophia Antipolis-France, University of Innsbruck-Austria, Bahcesehir University-Istanbul&Silicon Valley, and Bogazici University-Istanbul. As a marketing consultant, she has worked in market research projects for brands such as Philips, SCA, REI, and SRG. She serves on advisory boards and mentorship programs for several startups and nonprofit organizations.

As the Director of the Lam-Larsen Community Engagement Initiative at San Francisco State University, she spearheads its highly regarded flagship event, the Women’s Emerging Leadership Forum, which empowers women and fosters a vibrant learning community for both personal and professional growth.

Gülnur is also a teamwork & leadership workshop facilitator and a motivational speaker in the San Francisco Bay Area in the US and in Istanbul, Türkiye.

She is currently getting ready to ski to South Pole from Hercules Inlet. She is also planning to ski to North Pole and will become the First Turkish person ever to complete the Grand Slam Project (7 Summits and 2 Poles).