Next-gen materials and biotechnology company Gozen has undergone a leadership switch as it preps for its next phase of expansion.

Sedef Uncu Aki has been named chief executive officer, effective immediately. Founder and current CEO Ece Gözen will transition into chief innovation officer and creative director. The team will work closely together to steer Gozen’s growth phase.

“Now our facility is up and running and Lunaform is in commercial use, we’ve moved from start-up to scale-up,” Gözen told WWD. “This enables me to focus on pushing Gozen forward through design and innovation, working hands-on with partners, and unearthing the full creative potential of Lunaform.”

Gozen is behind the Lunaform material made famous by the sold-out Balenciaga Maxi Bathrobe Coat, which debuted on the runway in the spring 2024 collection. It also launched a dress collaboration with Beymen Group in April.

Aki will oversee the delivery of Lunaform across the mass, premium and luxury segments and focus on driving commercialization for the material. Fashion will remain the primary category, and the company will seek to expand into automotive, interiors and consumer electronics.

“Our shared leadership reflects our commitment to Gozen’s vision and our ambition to scale Lunaform globally. That means structure, systems and commercial focus — areas in which I bring experience, playbooks and many lessons learned,” she said.

Aki steps into the role with extensive experience in textile technology and management and decades in the denim industry with successive roles at Turkish manufacturers Bossa Denim and Orta Anadolu working with brands including Stella McCartney and H&M, among others. She joined Gozen last year as chief product officer.

Gozen opened a 40,000-square-foot production facility in Turkey earlier this year, which can produce 150,000 square feet of its grown-cellulose material.

That facility can scale up to 1 million square feet, which would translate into about 40,000 garments. The company’s current headcount is 20.

Aki will focus on building and refining sales channels to maximize market penetration, creating long-term partnerships, as well as streamline internal operations. “This means developing the right infrastructure, talent and digital capabilities to support scalable production and innovation. By designing an agile internal operating system, we can ensure that we’re not only meeting customer needs with precision, but also driving strong financial outcomes,” she said.

Before founding the company, Gözen trained as a designer and received Vogue Italia’s Most Visionary Designer award under her own womenswear label in 2012. The new role will build on that experience, with Gözen steering the team’s creative leadership and design strategy.

That will entail collaborating with key partner design teams to help them understand the technical benchmarks of working with the product, which Gözen said is on par with or surpasses the strength of animal leather.

“We are doubling down on design. Our identity — being design-led from Day One — is not just how we create our materials, it’s a key part of how we grow their adoption,” Aki said. “As its inventor, Ece [Gözen] understands the potential of Lunaform better than anyone else. She intuitively ‘gets’ how to excite designers and work with them to turn Lunaform into products that push boundaries and meet functional needs.”

“One of Lunaform’s most exciting features is how it behaves in the hands of designers. Thanks to its unique memory and structure, we can experiment live with design teams — shaping and forming the material without sewing or gluing. This opens up new forms of artistic expression and enables more efficient, holistic design processes. These moments of co-creation are at the core of our brand,” Gözen said.

More than 50 brands are now actively prototyping with Lunaform. “We are working with them closely to fast-track sampling and help them translate prototypes into market-ready products,” Gözen added.

The company raised $3.3 million in seed funding in 2023, with San Francisco-based deep-tech venture capital firm SOSV as part of the round. The company is “strongly positioned” but remains open to partnering with additional investors.

“With Ece driving innovation and Sedef steering growth, Gozen is led by a creator shaping its vision and a builder at the heart of its operations,” said SOSV managing director Po Bronson. “The new team structure strengthens Gozen’s ability to scale with focus and to harness its creative capabilities — exactly what’s needed to continue growing the adoption of Lunaform.”