Iraj Ispahani is the CEO of Ispahani Advisory Ltd. and is based in London. Ispahani Advisory advises family businesses on business strategy, governance, people, and education. The firm operates internationally across EMEA and APAC and specialises in working with family and private businesses, private foundations and wealth owners. Iraj also serves as a Group Director and Board Member of the Ispahani Group, a family business headquartered in Bangladesh which marked 200 years in 2020.
Prior to joining the family business Iraj held global and regional leadership roles in banking at JP Morgan and organisational development at Korn/Ferry. He also co-founded Cantos an online corporate communications business in 2001.
In January 2020 Iraj was appointed Chair of The Shakespeare’s Globe Council. Prior to this Iraj served as Deputy Chairman and Trustee of Shakespeare’s Globe. He was a long serving Member of the Advisory Board of ‘Seeing is Believing’, Standard Chartered Bank’s global initiative to tackle avoidable blindness in collaboration with The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB). Iraj is an Independent Trustee of the Standard Chartered Foundation. He is an Advisor to UNICEF in the UK and in Bangladesh. Iraj serves as a member of the UK Development Board of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Iraj is editor of the Family Business and Responsible Wealth Ownership: Preparing the Next Generation, published by Globe Law and Business in 2021. He is Founding Advisor and member of the Advisory Group of a new programme led by the Institute for Sustainability Leadership at Cambridge University on Multi-Generational Leadership, equipping the world’s most influential families to shape the 21st century.
Iraj was educated at Winchester College and holds a Master’s of Philosophy degree in international relations from Cambridge University and a Bachelor’s Degree (with honours) from London University in politics and history.
