Betül Çelikkaleli was born in 1978 in Izmir. After she graduated from high school, she moved to Istanbul where she studied at Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics and graduated from the Public Administration Department in 2000. Later she got her Master Degree from Jean Monnet´s European Union Institute at Marmara University in European Politics and International Relations program. While writing her thesis she did her research at the European Institutions in Brussels in 2001 and in 2002 she continued her research at the University of Westminister in London, where she participated in a summer school program on "International Theory and the EU". She earned her Ph.D from Dokuz Eylül University, Department of European Studies. Dr. Betül Çelikkaleli wrote her Master's thesis on "Corporate Restructuring and EU's Twinning Projects", and for her Ph.D thesis she researched on " The European Union's Representation of Economic Interest Relations and Legitimacy: An Assesment in terms of the Social Partners".
From 2004 to 2010 Betül worked for BASIFED as an EU expert, and in 2010 she started working at the TÜRKONFED General Secretariat as Deputy Secretary General. In TÜRKONFED she applies her expertise in the fields of regional development, economic interest organizations such as the European Union and legal society organizations, as she deals also with administrative structure and capacity issues.