Narek Sirakanyan

Armenian entrepreneur. Founder and President of Freedom International Group — an Austrian-headquartered group of companies operating in 19 countries, built on its own technology and its own distribution.

Follow on LinkedIn Seriously — talent search
Narek Sirakanyan

The path

2005–09
McGill University · Harvard program
Finance & Accounting, top 1% of class at McGill; capital-markets program at Harvard; gold-medal graduate in Vancouver.
2006 · AGE 19
Credit Suisse, London — summer internship
Interned in investment banking at 19 — and was hired back after graduation.
2009 · LONDON
Credit Suisse, Investment Banking
M&A and IPO mandates for financial institutions and natural-resources clients across EMEA — the full transaction cycle.
2011 · AGE 23
CEO within the Rosatom group
Led Effective Energy, the management company of Uranium One (TSX-listed, $3.1B market value); initiated the landmark "Kalashnikov bonds" — the first ruble bonds by a foreign issuer, saving $50M for the shareholder.
2014 · VIENNA
Founded Freedom International Group
Left corporate life to build and own companies across borders — today 19 countries and over 2 million customers.
2017 · AGE 29
Merged with Vision International People Group
A landmark deal covered by Kommersant and Vedomosti: combined assets of ~$150M, a distribution network of 200,000+ partners — and $5M invested to rebuild the business on the group's own Sessia platform. Relaunched as Project V.
TODAY
Raising the flagship
Leading Firstline — the group's hospitality-technology venture — from Dubai to the United States.

How I build

Own the technology

Rented technology caps your growth. Every group company runs on our own core — so every improvement compounds across the whole portfolio.

Own the distribution

Brands die when someone else controls the customer. We build our own channels — networks, venues, platforms — in every market we enter.

Scale across borders

A business that works in one country is a job. A business that works in eight is a company. We build for the second from day one.

Now

Firstline — Royalties for hospitality.

Loyalty programs give guests points; Firstline gives them royalties — a real share of the traffic they bring to a venue. Restaurants stop renting traffic from marketplaces and start rewarding the people who actually generate it. Live in Dubai. U.S. launch in preparation.

Follow the build on LinkedIn — one post a week on building across borders.

Seriously — an annual open talent search

Once a year, in one of the group's countries, I run a free open competition — and hire the winners. No CVs, no recruiters: real tasks, on stage, in person. It is how the group finds people who question everything.

  • Tashkent — held
  • Ho Chi Minh City — held
  • Vienna — held
Next: Miami, November 2027

To apply, send your story to SeriouslyMiami2026@freedomgroupint.com — the team will get back to you.

Apply by email

Three books I keep rereading

Carnegie
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie

Read it ten times since I was twelve. It taught me that energy is a decision: you can walk into any room and choose to connect with every person in it.

Machiavelli
The Prince
Niccolò Machiavelli

The habit of standing in the other side's position before I speak. It takes a minute of thought — and once it becomes as automatic as tying your shoes, negotiations start ending in yes.

Puzo
The Godfather
Mario Puzo

The weight of a pause. Say less, mean it, and keep your word — people feel the difference before you finish the sentence.

"I started early, and I was lucky to see how big organizations work from the inside while I was still young enough to question everything. Freedom International Group is my answer: companies we own, technology we built, and brands we intend to make famous. Firstline is next."
— Narek
Beyond business
Father of two. National champion in Greco-Roman wrestling.

A discipline he credits for how the group competes: patiently, and to win.