Alexander Terpigorev
Alexander was born in 1967 in Moscow. Before college he travelled a lot across Russia, Estonia, the Ukraine, Algeria and Bulgaria, going to one school and then to another, mixing with children of various nationalities. For 4 years he was in one class with Germans, Mongolians, Koreans, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Macedonians, and Bulgarians. From early age he has been interested in various cultures and lifestyles.
In 1991 Alexander graduated cum laude from Moscow State Linguistic University, specialising in humanities. For a semester he was a visiting student at Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, USA, where he studied public speaking and multicultural communication. After graduation he returned to USA for another 3 years where he went to graduate school at University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, from which he gained his Master of Arts degree in history, with distinction.
Finally returning home to Moscow in 1994 to start his career, he briefly worked for the Chicago Tribune newspaper as a fixer, where he arranged interviews with various prominent figures in Russian politics. This gave him a nudge in the direction of headhunting.
He joined Commonwealth Resources, a Dutch recruitment firm in Moscow where he grew from Researcher to Partner between 1995 and 2001. Then he built up with partner his own executive recruitment firm Acuris (2001 – 2006), and from 2006 he manages Alex Terp LLC, his own search boutique. There was an interruption between 2011 and 2020, in which period Alexander worked for Neumann as a principal, as Head of Recruitment in Allianz and as a Consultant for another international search firm. From 2020 Alex Terp is Alexander’s only job and passion.
Over more than 20 years Alexander built, trained, and managed teams of recruiters. At the same time up until today he does his own searches for general management, heads of finance, human resources, operations, sales, and marketing. Very recently he did several executive recruitment projects for the IT industry. In addition to search he also managed mass recruitment for major blue chip multinational corporations in Russia. His clients were major international life sciences companies, private and public FMCG giants, global professional services companies, private retailers, blue chip and small niche high-technology companies. For one global food producer Alexander placed the whole management board in Russia.
At present Alexander’s clients are health care, consumer, industrial and IT companies. He helps them find, assess and place general management, rare and narrow specialists. He mostly does searches across Russia, however, his recent searches also included such markets as the UAE, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and the Ukraine. Most of his projects are highly confidential and challenging.
Hannu-Matias Nurmi, Finland
Hannu-Matias Nurmi is Managing Partner of Chief Executive Search, a retained consulting firm in Helsinki, Finland, and is a partner of Alex Terp. The two firms often join forces when performing search assignments across borders.
Hannu-Matias, Chief’s founder, is an executive search consultant and a tech executive who has managed fast-growing companies and teams in Finland and Sweden. The IT / Tech industry is his bread and butter, and over the years he has built strong and wide networks in Finland and in the Nordics.
Hannu-Matias has earned his Master of Science in theology from University of Helsinki, his major being social ethics; he also studied leadership and work psychology. He also did in-depth studies in executive coaching at Henley Business School in the UK.
His book, Toimitusjohtaja (‘The CEO’), was published in May 2021. As groundwork, he has interviewed close to 50 board chairs, board professionals, and CEOs from publicly listed and other companies.
