Alireza Nasiri

Alireza Nasiri (born 21 March 1968) is an Iranian academic, business manager and technocrat. He played a leading role in the establishment of online degree programs in Iran in the early 2000s, founding University of Tehran's first online program and advocated for e-government in Iran. He was general director of planning and development in Iran's Ministry of Cooperatives between 2004 and 2005 while also serving as acting Vice Minister. In 2018 he served as CEO of Iran's Maku Free Trade Zone until 2020. Between 2020 to 2022 he was the chief executive officer of the National Industrial Group, a public company with the Iranian Social Security Fund as its main shareholder. Nasiri merged the National Industrial Group's large real estate holdings with a centralized electronic system for online sales and management during Covid-19 quarantines.

Between 2011 and 2013 he was an instructor at Missouri State University Dalian Campus Nasiri was a senior business management and innovation lecturer at Global Institute of Management and Economics in DUFE.

In 2015 he supported investment and innovation in Iran's scientific fields as a means to create profitable business cycles in the Middle East. He also supported the cooperation of European companies with Iranian partners after the signing of the Iran nuclear deal.

Early life and education
Alireza Nasiri was born in Iran and finished highschool in the city of Qazvin.

Nasiri graduated from Iran University of Science and Technology with a bachelor of Industrial Engineering in 1993 and began his profession as an industrial planner.

In 2000 he acquired a M.Sc. in Executive Management from the Industrial Management Institute (IMI) of Iran in Tehran and started working as an executive manager specializing in industry and engineering.

In 2010 he gained a PhD in Management Science and Engineering from the Dalian University of Technology in China and became an academic instructor with extensive experience in management and industrial planning.

Career
Nasiri began his career as an industrial planner in 1993 by working on industry and energy projects. By 1999 he was among others part of a push to start a commercial ICT sector in Iran. 

In the late 90s he was the chief executive of the influential Tehran University Monthly Press (Persian: ماهنامه دانشگاه تهران). During that time he was also consultant to the CEO of Melli National Industrial Shoes Co. and in 2000 became a member of the board at Melli Industrial Shoe and Darya Bandar Shipping Lines Co. In the same period between 1999 and 2001 he was a consultant to the National Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of Iran which is in charge of tourism and export of Iranian cultural products and is regarded as an autonomous Iranian government ministry.

In 2002 he was the director for educational support department veteran students from the Iran-Iraq war. and would later launch Iran's first online degree program based out of University of Tehran and the 1st National Exhibition on IT and E-City project. In 2004 he became acting vice minister at the Ministry of Cooperatives, while serving as General Director of Planning and Development in during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami.

Between the years of 2010 and 2015 he established a private venture to commercialize forestry in Iran. During this venture he would establish Aras GED which among other activities managed medium-sized Paulownia forests in Iran. In 2019 he became the CEO of Maku Free Trade Zone. In 2020 he became CEO of publicly traded National Industrial Group, which held among other companies, Melli Shoes Co. NIG's real estate holdings are the largest in Iran with estimates placing the portfolio value at $586 million (108,650 billion Rials in 2021) across 282 locations, including a 25,000 square meter commercial building adjacent to Mehrabad Airport. In the annual shareholder meeting of the NIG in February 2021, the Iranian social security fund as the largest NIG shareholder remarked Nasiri had leveraged the National Industrial Group's real estate holdings to invest in new online sales revenue and paid out dividends to the fund in the period of Covid lockdowns.

Commercializing Forestation in Iran
Inspired by the Chinese method of using genetically modified trees in fighting desertification and commercial afforestation, he began a campaign to improve Iran's pollution, deforestation and green city planning problem using commercial forestation with the genetically modified Paulownia tree.

The effort would be supported by a series of greenhouses which replicated genetically modified trees in a dozen locations across Iran. During this campaign Aras Green Economic Dawn, was established to manage the commercialization of forestation in Iran and cut down on the import of paper into the country which amounted to a billion dollar industry in 2013.

The campaign had many setbacks in areas outside of Tehran, but succeeded in making artificial forests commercially viable in Iran. By utilizing modified trees he pushed a countrywide project for commercial forestation.

Nasiri succeeded in establishing commercial afforestation projects in several large cities in Iran. Namely Tehran, Shiraz, Tabriz, Masshad, Bandar Abbas, Anzali and Ardebil. Artificial forests were also planted in less urban locations such as Janat Shahr.