Graduating from Ankara University Faculty of Law in 2001, Özlem Akay worked as a freelance lawyer for 4 years. Akay, who later started working as a senior lawyer at Turkcell İletişim Hizmetleri A.Ş., served as Sectoral Legal Consultancy Unit Manager and Sectoral Legal Affairs Department Director at Turkcell, Turkey's leading telecommunications company. In 2018, New Technology Law was added to her area of responsibility and she served as Sectoral and New Technologies Legal Affairs Director until the end of 2019. Akay founded AAT Partners with Adnan Akgün and Gökçe Türkoğlu in 2020.

Özlem Akay specializes in determining a company's stance on creating/updating regulated market legislation. Moreover, it has the ability to efficiently handle matters that demand expertise and attention, such as offering legal advice to businesses in accordance with the laws that control their operations, and developing and executing plans and policies regarding matters that impact the company's finances and core operations. She is also experienced in representing companies before the decision-making bodies of relevant institutions and creating processes, systems and policies to ensure compliance with the legislation that companies are subject to.