Founder-led Private Client Advisory
Hassan Akram
Founder and Principal Advisor
Families are not buying a coaching company. They are buying one person's judgement, and this is that person.
Hassan personally leads the Private ECS Diagnostic, assessing the candidate's profile, target firms, written evidence, interview judgement and current conversion risk before ECS recommends any next step.
- 10,000+ applications reviewed
- 100+ documented outcomes
- Founder-led Diagnostics
Parent or sponsor welcome. Applications are reviewed before booking.
- Hiring-side perspective
- 10,000+ applications reviewed
- 100+ documented outcomes
- Capacity limited to approximately 30 engagements per year
- London-based | International engagement
The thesis
Strong credentials do not automatically become an offer.
Elite firms do not hire a CV. They make a sequence of decisions.
At each stage, different people assess different evidence: academics, experience, written applications, tests, interviews, commercial judgement and fit. Strong candidates are rejected when those signals do not form one clear, credible case.
That is the problem ECS diagnoses.
We assess the candidate's profile, target firms, failed stage, written evidence, interview judgement, timing and family expectations as one system. We then identify exactly where conversion is breaking and what must change.
ECS moves forward only where the profile is strong enough, the objective is serious and the decision-maker is aligned.
You speak to the principal.
The Diagnostic is led personally by Hassan, not routed through a junior intake team.
The advice fits the candidate.
Their record, the firms they want and the stage they keep losing are assessed together, not in isolation.
The proof is kept.
Every outcome claimed is documented and held on file, named where a family has agreed to it and anonymous where they have not.
Background
From the hiring side to private advisory.
Hassan Akram is the Founder and Principal Advisor of Elite Careers Strategy, a London-based private advisory firm working with internationally mobile families and candidates targeting elite careers in corporate law, investment banking, private equity, venture capital and consulting.
ECS has advised candidates from many of the world's leading universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, MIT, UCL, LSE and Imperial, as well as exceptional candidates from less conventional backgrounds.
Before founding ECS, Hassan worked on the recruitment side across investment banking, private equity, venture capital and corporate law. He has since reviewed more than 10,000 applications and built a documented record of more than 100 outcomes across leading firms in London, New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and other international markets.
Hassan has also delivered independent sessions in student-led and educational contexts associated with Harvard Business School, Yale School of Management, MIT Sloan and Wellington College, as well as for audiences connected with leading global banks.
Hassan read History at University College London and, as a teenager, played cricket for Derbyshire.
Named client, documented arc
Four years of work before the HSBC and Blackstone offers.
Karam Kahlon first messaged Hassan in November 2022, aged 17 and still in sixth form. He resat his A-levels, read Finance and Investment Banking at the University of Exeter, and worked through four years of the engagement before either flagship landed: the HSBC 2026 Capital Markets and Advisory Summer Internship in June 2025, then the Blackstone 2026 Spring Insight Programme in November 2025.
Nothing here was quick, and nothing here came from a target-school profile. That is what the four-year arc actually looks like, dated, and on the record with Karam's permission.
Read the Karam Kahlon case studyThe practice
Judgement, supported by a practice.
Hassan leads every Diagnostic and every advisory session personally. What surrounds that work is deliberately structured, so that his time is spent on judgement rather than on administration and so that nothing depends on memory.
You are buying one person’s judgement, with a proper practice behind it.
What that practice puts around the judgement, including the written intelligence a session produces, is set out on the engagement, and the documented outcomes are on the track record.
In context
Selected speaking and educational contexts.
In November 2022, Hassan was invited to speak to members of the Harvard Business School Venture Capital & Private Equity Club. Other independent, student-led and educational sessions have included contexts associated with Yale School of Management, MIT Sloan and other selective audiences.
These references describe the context of independent sessions only. ECS is not affiliated with or endorsed by any university.
Sessions are delivered independently at the invitation of student organisations and event organisers. No faculty appointment, employment, sponsorship or institutional endorsement is held or implied.
Endorsement
"The strongest career strategist I have encountered - anywhere in the world."
Kristin Irish
- Former Head of Campus Recruiting, UBS Investment Bank New York
- Former Deputy Director of Career Development, Yale School of Management
Independent endorser, not a client.
To begin
Apply when the decision is serious.
Every engagement begins with the Private ECS Diagnostic. Hassan reviews the application first. Qualified families are then invited to book a Diagnostic, with a parent or sponsor welcome.
Request a Private DiagnosticOutcomes vary. Evidence is held on file. ECS is independent and unaffiliated.