CT Executive Search: Senior Advisors
CT Executive Search is supported by an international advisory board which supports our clients through its vast network in Europe, China, India and the Middle East.
Dr. Alireza Azimzadeh is the Managing Partner of the legal and business consulting firms Persia Associates and Persia Consulting, based in Tehran. The firms support international companies with legal issues and assist them in entering the Iranian market, e.g. by providing market analysis and distributor searches. Persia Associates and Persia Consulting closely cooperate with CT Executive Search.
In addition, Dr. Azimzadeh is a representative of the German Association for Small and Medium-sized Businesses in Iran and is a supervisory board member in several companies.
Previously, Dr. Azimzadeh worked for various European companies in Iran, including German Staedtler and Swiss Lindt & Sprüngli. From 1994 to 2004, Dr. Azimzadeh worked for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce in Tehran, where he was in charge of Iran and Afghanistan.
Dr. Azimzadeh holds an MBA from the University of Tehran and has a doctorate from the University of Vienna in International Commercial law.
Georg Graf was Freudenberg Group's Regional Representative for India. With almost 3,000 employees at 50 locations, Freudenberg is one of the largest European investors on the subcontinent.
Mr. Graf has over 35 years of experience in the management of operational business units in Europe and Asia. He joined the Freudenberg Group in 1992 and moved to India in 2008. Since 2013 he has been responsible for the Freudenberg Regional Corporate Center in Bangalore. In 2016 he became a board member of the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce. From 2018 to 2020 he served as the association’s Vice-president and then President.
Georg Graf has extensive expertise in the areas of finance, accounting, and project management. In addition, he has excellent intercultural skills from his many years of experience in the German-Indian business.
Mr. Graf supports CT Executive Search with his large network in the European-Indian business world and his knowledge of doing business in India.
Marcus Honkanen is the Managing Partner of the international Executive Search boutique firm - Nordic Minds GmbH, with offices in Germany and across the Nordics. He has 15 years of international experience working as a Managing Director and Partner in Executive Search and HR Consulting, having gained experience with the Kienbaum Group, and in his own boutique company.
He advises and supports his clients in the recruitment of management positions in the Central European and Nordic markets, as well as conducting pan-European searches for top-tier executive positions. Marcus speaks Swedish, Finnish, German and English, and uses his intercultural insights and cross-industry expertise to source and match the most suitable candidates across markets and functions.
Marcus has a Master level degree from the Åbo Akademi School of Business and Economics as well as Georg-August University Göttingen. Furthermore, he is the co-founder of the software company FutureHunt GmbH as well as Member of the Advisory Board of the German-Finnish Chamber of Commerce.
