Karan joined Schenker & Co. Ltd, London, a shipping and forwarding subsidiary of a German conglomerate
Schenker AG, in 1966 as a management trainee. In 1969 he moved to
Switzerland, working as a clerk for the container firm Crowe & Co in
Basel. The company, whose worldwide operations were based in
Hong Kong, became the fastest growing container leasing company in the world and after four years it became the largest leasing company in Europe. He resigned on 7 March 2011. Karan established the Ian Karan Auditorium in the
Bucerius Kunst Forum and an auditorium for medical students at the
University of Hamburg. He was awarded the
Federal Cross of Merit in June 2007 for his social and cultural work. Karan was a British citizen for over forty years before taking up German citizenship in December 2009, allegedly on the recommendations of
German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Karan later admitted that Merkel never made such a recommendation. ==References==