Our People

Neal Horwitz

Neal Horwitz is our lead career consultant for executive search, executive coaching and career management. He has lived in Asia for over two decades, and established businesses in North Asia and South East Asia as well as numerous regional joint ventures.

Neal is considered one of the leading Corporate Affairs and Government Affairs search consultants in Asia, often called on for “hard to fill” searches, as well as market and talent evaluation of such roles.

He became interested in search after being a candidate himself, and thought he could apply his own insights to executive search. He has since carved out a niche with a well-known high-touch and bespoke approach.

Neal is married and father to twins. He used to present his own mainstream jazz radio show in Chicago’s Hyde Park (Barack Obama’s old neighbourhood).

Barry Friedman

Based in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Friedman works in an advisory capacity for HHM. He is currently Senior Director at Albright Stonebridge Group, and previously SVP for Corporate Affairs for Walmart China, where he led external communications, government relations and affairs and corporate social responsibility programs for Walmart China retail operations as well as Walmart Global Sourcing and Walmart eCommerce.

He represented Walmart on several boards including Vice Chair of the China Association for Foreign Invested Enterprises, The AmCham Beijing office, and the US-China Center for Sustainable Development.

Prior to Walmart, Mr. Friedman had a long career as a US diplomat, having served as Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs at the US Embassy in Beijing, where he oversaw five constituent offices and a network of American Trading Centers.

At the Department of Commerce, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Operations and was responsible for the management and oversight of the US Commercial Services worldwide network of 152 trade offices in 92 countries.

He has worked throughout Asia in government and business positions including Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Sydney, Tokyo and Singapore, with nearly two decades of experience in Greater China.

Mr. Friedman speaks Mandarin and Japanese.

Dr. Jane Horan

Based in Singapore

Dr. Horan works as strategic counsel for Henry Hale Maguire. She is the founder of The Horan Group, a Singapore-based strategic consulting firm building inclusive work environments, emphasising leadership acceleration and workplace politics.

She has extensive background in cross-cultural leadership and building diverse, global teams and is a frequent speaker on Transformational Women Leaders, Positive Politics, and Unconscious Bias. Jane leads workshops and coaches executives of Fortune 100 companies, NGO’s and academic institutions in Asia, North America, and Europe.

Her book, I Wish I’d Known That Earlier In My Career: the power of positive workplace politics, was published January 2012 by John Wiley & Sons. Her second book, How Asian Women Lead: Lessons for Global Corporations, was published by MacMillan in 2014.

Dr. Horan speaks Mandarin and Spanish.

John Kuzmik

Based in California

Mr. Kuzmik has over two decades of experience advising multinational corporations, state-owned enterprises, developers, commercial and investment banks and private equity funds on investment and financing strategies and structures.

He was formerly China partner-in-charge of the law firm Baker Botts, focusing on corporate transactions involving energy, infrastructure, oil and gas, petrochemicals and telecommunications, with a particular emphasis on China-related cross-border transactions.

Mr. Kuzmik was named a “leading individual, foreign firms” in the China section of The Asia Pacific Legal 500, Asia’s leading independent legal directory, since 2001 described as “one of the best-known and highly rated China experts”, “a leader in the field of banking and finance for Hong Kong”, and “among the best-known PRC law practitioners in the world”.

Mr Kuzmik is fluent in Mandarin.