Elite Careers Strategy

The Team

Meet the ECS Team

Elite Careers Strategy brings together specialist experience across elite recruitment, client advisory, education, technology and communications. Every client engagement is directed by our founder and supported by a dedicated client team.

Hassan Akram, Founder and Principal Advisor of Elite Careers Strategy

Hassan Akram

Founder and Principal Advisor

Selection strategy · Corporate law and finance

Kea Consultants · Barclay Simpson · Heriot Brown · Founder, Who Gets In?

Hassan founded ECS, leads every Private Diagnostic and remains closely involved in each private engagement. Before ECS he worked in London recruitment and search, at Kea Consultants, Barclay Simpson and Heriot Brown. Across his recruitment career and subsequent advisory work through Elite Careers Strategy, he has reviewed more than 10,000 applications and related candidate materials.

He also founded Who Gets In?, research into how highly selective employers and institutions choose people, and has been featured in the Financial Times and quoted in The Independent. He has delivered invited MBA student-club sessions at Yale School of Management, Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan.

Janet, Head of Client Operations at Elite Careers Strategy

Janet

Head of Client Operations

Onboarding, scheduling and progress tracking

Janet manages the operational side of the client experience, including onboarding, scheduling, document coordination, billing administration, progress tracking and day-to-day communication.

She ensures that each engagement runs smoothly and that clients, families and the advisory team have the information and support required at each stage.

Catrina Mira, Head of Client Services at Elite Careers Strategy

Catrina Mira

Head of Client Services

Candidate continuity between sessions

Catrina is the day-to-day contact for candidates between sessions: session follow-ups, assigned work, documents and scheduling.

She keeps each engagement moving against the live recruitment calendar and brings questions that need a judgement call to Hassan.

Tengo Meskhi, Strategic Advisor to Elite Careers Strategy

Tengo Meskhi

Strategic Advisor

Strategy, technology and growth

Cambridge · McKinsey & Company · Bank of Georgia · Conceptdigital · Forbes Georgia 30 Under 30

Tengo studied Engineering at the University of Cambridge and began his career at McKinsey & Company in London. He then served as Deputy CIO and Head of Agile at Bank of Georgia in Tbilisi, and later led growth at the London technology start-up Pensight. Since 2020 he has been co-founder and chief executive of Conceptdigital, a London digital and technology agency. He is a Forbes Georgia 30 Under 30 honoree.

His career has moved through management consulting, banking and entrepreneurship, three routes many ECS candidates weigh against each other. Tengo advises ECS on its strategy, technology and growth.

Shinaz Navas, Strategic Advisor to Elite Careers Strategy

Shinaz Navas

Strategic Advisor

Education, employability and venture

LSE · Moelis & Company · Deloitte · Emerge Education · Niyyah

Shinaz read Economics at the London School of Economics and spent a summer as an investment banking analyst at Moelis & Company in London. He then joined Deloitte, advising universities, government agencies and school networks in its global education practice before moving to Deloitte Ventures. From 2019 to 2023 he backed education-technology companies as an investor at Emerge Education in London.

He is now co-founder and chief executive of Niyyah, an education app for Muslims. His work has sat between universities, employers and the companies built to connect them, the ground ECS candidates have to cross. Shinaz advises ECS on its strategy, operations and growth.

John O’Regan

Strategic Communications Advisor

Media, reputation and public positioning

GLORY · BOXXER (Sky Sports Boxing) · Drayman

John holds a law degree and has spent more than 15 years in media and communications, beginning as a news and politics correspondent and later running digital editorial across UK and US titles. He spent eight years at GLORY, the international kickboxing organisation, latterly as Head of Brand and Communications, and from 2020 to 2023 led communications for BOXXER during its partnership with Sky Sports Boxing.

He now works as a PR and communications consultant through Drayman, a Manchester-based consultancy. John advises ECS on media relations, reputation and public positioning as an external adviser, not an ECS employee.

Research.Who Gets In? is the firm’s research arm. It studies how selective employers choose early-career talent and publishes each finding with its official sources at whogetsin.com.

Strategic advisers support ECS in their respective areas of expertise on an external basis. Former employers and educational institutions are included for biographical context and do not endorse ECS.

Operating standards

How every engagement is run.

A written plan

Every engagement runs on a written plan. The plan, session records, assigned work and feedback are held together by the firm in the ECS private client platform.

Client operations and progress tracking

The client operations team manages onboarding, scheduling, documents and progress tracking for every engagement.

Continuity between sessions

Catrina Mira, Head of Client Services, is the day-to-day contact for every candidate between sessions, so nothing depends on one inbox.

Cover

If Hassan cannot take a scheduled session, the client team contacts the family the same day and reschedules within five working days.

Confidentiality

Nothing about a family is shared with anyone, including the person who introduced them, without that family’s consent.

Candidates under 18

A parent or guardian completes or joins the application and takes part in the Diagnostic, is told the session times and may attend any session. ECS does not hold sessions with an under-18 candidate in person or outside a scheduled Zoom call.

Introductions

Introductions from private banks, family offices and advisers are acknowledged within one working day.

Work with the team directly.

Every engagement begins with a Private Diagnostic, the same entry point every client uses.

Request a Private Diagnostic