How to Find CTOs Hiring for ML Projects in Russian Tech Companies

You've got an ML consulting practice or a staffing pipeline full of engineers, and you know Russian tech companies are quietly scaling up ML and AI teams right now. The problem: LinkedIn coverage in Russia is thin, most CTOs there don't bother keeping a profile updated, and cold-emailing a generic "info@" address gets you nowhere. You end up guessing at company names instead of talking to the actual person who signs off on the hire.

That's the wrong way to find decision-makers in this market. There's a faster, more reliable path — and it doesn't start with LinkedIn at all.

What's the fastest way to find a CTO's contact info in Russia?

The fastest reliable method is a three-step lookup: pull the company's registry data to confirm who legally holds a leadership role, get the associated phone number from that registry data, then convert that phone number into a Telegram username. This works because Russian business registries (like EGRUL) are public and phone-to-Telegram conversion is near-instant when the number is tied to an active account — which covers the vast majority of tech professionals in Russia, since Telegram is the default messaging app there.

This matters because job titles like "CTO" aren't always what's registered — sometimes it's "technical director" or the person is listed as a co-founder. Registry data gives you the real legal name behind the title, which is what makes the rest of the chain work.

Why LinkedIn fails you for this specific search

LinkedIn works fine for US and EU tech hiring. In Russia, it's a different story:

• Low adoption — many Russian CTOs, especially at mid-size and regional companies, never built out a LinkedIn presence.

• Access restrictions — LinkedIn has been blocked in Russia since 2016, so browsing and updating profiles from inside the country is already friction most people don't bother with.

• Stale data — profiles that do exist are often years out of date, showing a job title the person left two roles ago.

• No hiring signal — even if you find the person, LinkedIn gives you zero indication they're actively hiring for an ML role right now.

If you're used to LinkedIn Sales Navigator workflows, none of that muscle memory transfers here. You need a different data source entirely — one built around Russian legal and business registries, not social profiles.

The registry-to-Telegram workflow, step by step

Here's the actual sequence that gets you from "company I think is hiring ML talent" to "verified Telegram contact for their CTO":

1. Identify target companies — start with a list of Russian tech companies matching your criteria (sector, size, funding stage, job postings mentioning ML/AI roles).

2. Pull registry data — look up each company in the Russian business registry to confirm the officially listed director, co-founder, or technical lead. This step is critical because job titles on a careers page rarely match the legal filing.

3. Extract the phone number — registry filings often include a registered contact number tied to the individual or the company's legal representative.

4. Convert phone to Telegram username — run that number through a phone-to-Telegram lookup to find the person's actual Telegram handle.

5. Verify before you message — cross-check the name and role against any public job postings or press mentions to confirm this is the person hiring for the ML project, not just a generic co-founder listing.

6. Reach out on Telegram directly — since Telegram is the primary business messaging channel in Russia and CIS, a direct message here gets read far faster than a cold email.

CRMChat automates this entire chain through an AI assistant paired with @crmchatcontactbot, which takes a company name, pulls the registry data, extracts the phone number, and converts it to a Telegram username — so you go from company name to a real Telegram contact without manually cross-referencing three different databases.

This is the same registry-lookup approach that works for other B2B decision-maker searches where LinkedIn falls short — see how to find decision-makers at Russian manufacturing plants without LinkedIn for a parallel example outside tech.

How do you confirm they're actually hiring for ML, not just "tech"?

Finding the CTO is only half the job — you need signal that this specific company has an active ML hiring need, not just a generic engineering team. A few reliable signals:

• Job postings mentioning specific ML stack terms — PyTorch, TensorFlow, LLM fine-tuning, MLOps — rather than generic "data scientist" postings, which often signal an established team rather than a new build-out.

• Recent funding announcements earmarked for AI/ML product development.

• Public statements from the CTO or founder about AI initiatives, on the company blog or in press coverage.

• Telegram group activity — many Russian tech companies discuss hiring needs in industry-specific Telegram groups and channels before posting formal job listings.

On that last point — if you want a broader net beyond a single named CTO, parsing relevant Telegram groups is a solid complementary tactic. CRMChat's Telegram Group Finder lets you search by keyword — like "ML hiring Russia" or specific frameworks — to surface niche industry groups where these conversations are already happening, then extract member profiles for outreach. Treat this as your secondary net once you've gone after your named CTO targets directly through the registry workflow.

What do you say once you've got the CTO's Telegram handle?

Getting the contact is the easy part compared to the ask. A cold Telegram message to a CTO needs to earn a reply in the first two lines, because that's all most people read before deciding to respond or ignore.

• Reference something specific — a job posting, a funding round, a public comment about their ML roadmap — never open with "I saw your company and thought..."

• State the value in one sentence — what you can help them ship faster, cheaper, or with less hiring risk.

• Ask a low-commitment question — "Worth a 15-minute call this week?" beats "Let's schedule a discovery session."

• Follow up once, not five times — CTOs get pitched constantly; a single well-timed follow-up outperforms a nagging sequence.

If your goal is to actually close an ML consulting engagement once the conversation starts, it helps to have your qualification and pricing frameworks ready before the call — see how to qualify an ML consulting lead before the first call and how to price a custom ML model development project for a client.

Managing outreach at scale without burning your Telegram account

If you're doing this across dozens of target companies, manual lookups and one-off messages don't scale — and mass-messaging cold contacts on a fresh Telegram account is a fast way to get flagged. CRMChat includes built-in account warming features that automate this process while keeping activity natural and undetectable, so your outreach account stays healthy as volume increases.

Once you've got a pipeline of verified CTO contacts, CRMChat also handles tracking replies, tagging leads by hiring stage, and logging every conversation against the company record — so you're not juggling spreadsheets alongside Telegram chats. Check the Help Center for setup details, or the CRMChat API if you want to pipe registry lookups directly into your own workflow.

Quick recap

• Skip LinkedIn for Russian tech hiring searches — coverage and access are both weak points.

• Use registry data to confirm the real legal name behind the CTO title.

• Convert the registered phone number to a Telegram username for direct contact.

• Verify active ML hiring intent through job postings, funding news, or Telegram group chatter before you reach out.

• Warm your outreach account and track replies systematically once you're messaging at volume.