Dr. Mehmet Yılmaz was born in Artvin/Borçka in 1967. Having completed his secondary education in Ankara, he received bachelor’s degree in sociology from Middle East Technical University in 1991. He carried out his post graduate studies in Bilkent University and earned Masters and PhD degrees in 1992 and 2002 respectively.

Yılmaz worked as a research assistant at Bilkent University (Ankara), Yüzüncü Yıl University (Van) and Kırıkkale University between 1991 and 2004. During his academic career Mr. Yılmaz lectured modern sociology theories, sociology of modernization and urban sociology. He began his career at the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) as an expert in 2004, and in 2005 he was appointed to Kosovo where he carried out his duty as deputy program coordinator and program coordinator respectively. After finishing his duty in Kosovo in 2006, Mr. Yılmaz seconded at the OECD-Paris as economist and policy analyst and completed his duty at Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs in 2007 before assuming his position as Head of the Personnel, Administrative and Financial Affairs Department at TİKA; then he was appointed the Head of the Educational, Cultural and Social Cooperation Department till 2010. He served as the acting Deputy President of TİKA between September 2010 and March 2011, and as acting President of TİKA in 2011. Between 2012 and 2018 he was the Head of the External Affairs and Partnerships Department.

Yılmaz was appointed as the ambassador of Turkey to the Federal Republic Somalia in December 2018.

Yılmaz is married and has three children.