Team
Crowlight is a partnership of senior practitioners. For 25 years and more, our partners have led negotiations, organizational change and strategy execution in global companies, as executives, consultants and coaches. There are no junior teams: the people you speak with are the people who do the work.
Partners
Partners advise only under the Crowlight name and shape the firm’s direction.
Hrvoje Zaric
Founding Partner
25 years of experience in negotiation, organizational change and strategy execution in global companies.
Peter Frantzen, PhD
Partner
25 years of experience in communication, organizational change and intercultural collaboration.
Lars Bening
Partner
A systems thinker with more than 25 years of transformation experience across strategy, consulting and pre-sales, product management, operations, IT and marketing.
Associate Partners
Associate Partners bring the same seniority and deep functional or industry expertise. Some of them also advise under their own name.
Jens Kurth, PhD
Associate Partner
Biotech and pharma executive with a track record in bringing scientific innovation to market, building companies and forming strategic partnerships across global markets.
Arek Skiba
Associate Partner
More than 25 years in corporate strategy, business development and innovation, over ten of them in international partnership management and global tech ecosystems.
Jens Olejak
Associate Partner
Innovation leader with more than 25 years in telecoms and high tech, broad functional experience and an international network.
Merlin Koene
Associate Partner
Strategic communications advisor and founder of merlin & friends, specializing in transformation, reputation, crisis communication and international leadership advisory.
Ida Manton
Associate Partner
Advisor, trainer and lecturer in international negotiation, mediation and conflict resolution, with a focus on diplomacy, identity-based conflict and institutional capacity-building.
Extended network
For highly specialized questions, we draw on a wider network of experienced professionals, among them executives from aviation and aerospace and from marketing, media and digital sales. They contribute targeted expertise in the background, which keeps us lean without limiting the depth we can offer.
Our values
Pursuit of mastery
We keep working on our craft, because the situations we are called for rarely follow a pattern. Every engagement teaches us something, and we bring it into the next one.
Integrity
We say what we see, including what a client would rather not hear. We keep our commitments, and we measure our work by whether clients can handle the next situation without us.
Team spirit
We work as partners, with each other and with our clients. Trust, open disagreement and mutual support make the work better, and we enjoy it.
Service
Our clients’ decisions come first, not our methods. We work with care and without vanity, and we judge our contribution by what it changes for the client.
Why a crow?
Sailors, the story goes, took crows on board. Out at sea they released one, and it headed for the nearest land. That is why the lookout at the top of the mast is still called the crow’s nest.
Our name also has a personal origin. One of our partners kept a crow as a teenager. It followed him everywhere: on the way to school, along the track during PE, always present, always watching. Crows remember faces, form lasting bonds and stay close to the people they trust.
That is how we want to work with our clients: close to the decisions, with a clear view of what lies ahead, and at their side when the situation gets difficult.
The light in our name stands for what we bring into a difficult situation: clarity about the interests involved, the options available and the next step.
Joining Crowlight
We are not actively growing, but we are always glad to meet experienced people who would like to join us as partners. We look for people who:
- have carried operational leadership responsibility in companies or consulting for many years,
- have a track record in negotiation, strategy, organizational change or leadership development,
- combine analytical depth with a sense for what can be implemented,
- would rather work as partners among partners, and enjoy situations where a lot is at stake.