İsmail Karahan completed his high school education in the Electronics Department of Sivas Industrial Vocational High School and graduated from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Fırat University, in 1991.

He began his professional career as an Assembly Engineer at Nurol Inc. Between 1991 and 1996, he served in the Project Approval Directorate at Sivas Municipality, followed by a role as Engineer at the Natural Gas Department of the EGO General Directorate until 2003.

From 2003 to 2010, he worked as General Manager at ESGAZ (Eskişehir Natural Gas Distribution Inc.), serving also as Chairman of the Board in his first year. In 2010, he joined the Energy Market Regulatory Authority as Advisor to the President and between 2011 and 2016 held the position of Head of the Natural Gas Market Department.
From 2016 until the last quarter of 2023, he served as General Manager of Aselsannet Ltd. Şti. In October 2023, after having been a Member of the Board for nearly three years, he was appointed General Manager of Hacettepe University Technology Development Zone Management Inc.

İsmail Karahan is married and the father of four daughters.