Biography:

Ibrahim is a senior associate within the International Tax and Transfer Pricing practice at Forvis Mazars LLP UK where he is specialised in providing international tax and transfer pricing services to clients across multiple industries. He is a Nigerian qualified attorney with extensive experience of African tax regimes having practiced with both Big 4 and Chambers ranked law firms in Nigeria and South Africa.

Biography:

Catherine is a Tax Partner with PKF O’Connor Leddy & Holmes Ltd and leads the VAT Department.Catherine has advised both domestic and international clients and work closely with foreign tax advisers to deliver VAT advice. Catherine and her team, devise solutions and provide their clients with comprehensive VAT advice enabling them to realise the full tax implications of the transaction.

Catherine has advised and delivered CPD lectures on business VAT transactions, VAT on property, structuring property transactions, and Brexit VAT considerations. She worked closely with the SFA on their business strategy document ‘A Supportive Tax Environment for Small Firms’.

Catherine is a contributing author to the Republic of Ireland country guide in Tolley's Global VAT.

Biography:

Patrick Cannon is an experienced direct access tax barrister specialising in taxation advice and advocacy.

In 2021, Patrick launched Cannon Chambers, a client-focused barrister set without the high overheads of a presence in one of London’s Inns of Court.

He read law at the London School of Economics and the University of Oxford before admission as a solicitor in 1984. He was called to the Bar in 2003.

Alongside his L.B, BCL (Oxon) CTA (Fellow) qualifications, he is licensed by the Bar Standards Board to accept public access work and conduct litigation - and has written Tolley's Stamp Taxes and Tolley's Disclosure of Tax and VAT Avoidance Schemes.

Biography:

Petra is an Indirect Tax Manager at Protokorp d.o.o who principally advices on all aspects of VAT. She has MSc in law and BSc in economics. She has worked with various tax consultancy firms covering different types of taxes including corporate income tax and private individual taxation.

Petra advises businesses of all sizes as well as private individuals. She has experience in tax advising for many international companies from various industries.

Biography:

Hemma specializes in supporting U.S. citizens with their U.S. and UK tax reporting obligations, also offering comprehensive advisory services to help clients remain compliant across both jurisdictions. Hemma is known for her practical, client-focused approach and her ability to navigate the complexities of cross-border taxation.

Biography:

Josie advises on all aspects of UK employment law, acting for individuals, charities and businesses and advising on both contentious and non-contentious matters. Josie has experience in litigation involving equal pay, disability discrimination and sex discrimination. Josie also has experience in Data Subject Access Requests, preparing policies and staff handbooks, drafting contracts of employment and advising in relation to settlement agreements.

Biography:

Dr. Asif Zaman, alongside his academic career, also runs a private consultancy part-time. He is the founder and the CEO of EATAS Consulting LTD, UK (A Corporate Education and Training Consultancy). EATAS Consulting specialises in facilitating organisations adapting to the dynamic and complex business environment and advises corporates on organisational development, management, and leadership training to develop human capital.

Dr. Asif Zaman holds an MBA from the University of Wales, Institute Cardiff (UWIC), and a PhD in Corporate Finance / Islamic Banking and Finance from Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Affiliated professional bodies:

• Fellow of the Higher Education Authority (FHEA), UK since 2011
• Academic Fellow of The Association of International Accountants FAIA(ACAD) since April 2015
• CMBE (Certified Management and Business Educator) by CABS (Chartered Association of Business Schools) since March 2020
• Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) (CIMA - Candidate), since 2017

His expertise lies in Islamic Banking and Finance, Corporate Finance and accounting, sustainable finance, and FinTech and Digital Finance.

Dr. Asif Zaman has over 20 years of extensive business management experience in diversified industries. His entrepreneurial expertise ranges from sales, retail, and project management to the property development sector. Before entering the world of academia, he successfully managed many small and medium-sized enterprises within the UK and internationally. He has worked with industry professionals in the financial sector for commercial and private lending.

Biography:

Lilian Leong is a Senior Manager in William Buck New South Wales’ Tax team. With almost a decade of experience, Lilian specialises in both Corporate and International Tax and works closely with high net wealth individuals and multinational companies. As well as obtaining a Bachelor of Law and a Bachelor of Applied Finance, Lilian has a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice and has been admitted as a lawyer in NSW.

Biography:

I lead the delivery of international assignment and expatriate tax services to a wide range of clients from owner managed businesses through to large international not for profit organisations. I have presented at a number of industry seminars on expatriate tax and social security issues, such as the European Construction Industry Annual Conference, Payroll World Annual Conference, Expatriate Management and Global Mobility Conference and Tolley's Practical Employment Tax Conference. I am also a specialist contributer to the Tiley and Collison's UK 2013/14 UK Tax Guide.

I specialise in the full range of employer and employee issues associated with international mobility, including: international assignment policy and process development, international employer and employee compliance, international payroll, international share arrangements and pension issues, expatriate tax aspects of corporate inversions, tax equalisation, cost reduction, setting-up overseas operations, cross border moves for senior executives and international HR co-ordination across multiple countries.

Biography:

Briony advises on all aspects of UK employment law, acting for both employers and employees, and advising on both contentious and non-contentious matters.

Briony advises on litigation in the Employment Tribunal, including claims relating to unfair dismissal and discrimination. Briony also has experience in Data Subject Access Requests, preparing policies and staff handbooks, drafting contracts of employment and advising in relation to settlement agreements.

Biography:

Mairéad Hennessy founded Taxkey in 2016 as a tax practice that works closely with accountants, solicitors and financial advisors to deliver strategic and proactive tax solutions for Irish businesses and their owners.

Mairéad specialises in delivering bespoke tax solutions to SME owners on matters including business succession planning, optimising corporate structures, personal retirement and estate planning, Irish gift and inheritance tax, property transactions and VAT.

Mairéad is passionate about delivering the highest quality tax advice in a practical, timely and confidential manner.

Mairéad is a Chartered Tax Advisor (CTA AITI) and Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland (FCA) and holds a Bachelor of Business and Law (BBLS) from UCD and a Masters in Accounting (MAcc) from the Michaels Smurfit School of Business.

Prior to setting up Taxkey, Mairéad held tax roles in a “Big 4” accountancy practice, a top 5 Irish law firm, a small accountancy firm and most recently headed up the tax function in a large Irish corporate group.

Biography:

Claire is a partner specialising in incentives. She advises clients on all forms of management and employee incentive arrangements, including option plans and other share-based incentives, cash plans and UK tax-favoured plans. She works with clients from start-ups to listed multinationals in a variety of sectors, in particular technology, energy and infrastructure and life sciences.

During her career, as well as law Claire has worked in executive remuneration consulting and in-house reward which gives her a 360 view of incentives, enabling her to partner with her clients to find the right solutions for their businesses.

Biography:

With over 20 years’ experience of indirect taxation, working both in professional practice and industry, Luigi advises UK and international businesses and not for profit organisations on a broad range of issues to ensure they are compliant, take advantage of VAT reliefs and maximise VAT recovery.  He has particular expertise in VAT recovery and attribution methods, partial exemption and business/non-business apportionments, and regularly undertakes VAT health checks for national and international businesses to identify risks and opportunities.

His sector expertise includes financial services, charities and real estate, having spent three years in the in-house tax team of a privately owned group specialising in property investment and fund management, principal investments and financial services.

Luigi is a graduate in Economics, a Chartered Tax Adviser, a UK Taxation Technician (Fellow) and an Associate of the Federation of Tax Advisers.  He is the leader of the PKF Global Indirect Tax Group, the chairman of the PKF European VAT Group, a member of the PKF Global Tax Committee and a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) indirect tax committee.

An in-demand public speaker on VAT, Luigi provides indirect tax updates and presentations to national and international audiences. He writes regularly on indirect tax, and is the editor of VAT in the EU, a country by country guide to all 27 EU member states and the UK to the post Brexit implications for international trade published by LexisNexis.

Biography:

Beth Noy is a Tax Manager at Bates Weston Tax Advisory Limited. She specialises in providing tax advice to owner-managed businesses and high net worth families. Beth enjoys working with individuals to understand their big picture and prides herself on ensuring the tax advice delivered fits with their goals and is explained without the jargon.

Biography:

Ximena draws from prior experience in public law and has a successful tax advisory and litigation practice representing clients in Judicial Review, High Court claims and substantive tax appeals in the Tribunals and beyond.

In the span of her 18-year career, she has represented and appeared on behalf of taxpayers in complex Judicial Review proceedings and group appeal litigation for 350+ appellants with tax at stake of several £100m.  She is uniquely familiar with procedure, FTT rules, costs and alternative dispute resolution strategy.

Ximena has published numerous articles, case reports, commentaries and text books on tax legislation and caselaw.

Her clients include a variety of media personalities, HNW individuals, OMBs and multinational corporates.

Biography:

I'm an international tax and transfer pricing specialist, working with a wide range of clients across all aspects of international corporate taxes.

I joined Smith & Williamson as a graduate, and have experience ranging from fast growth FinTech companies, through to well established, global groups. I'm an active member within the Nexia International network, assisting multinationals with cross-border structuring, transactions, financing and transfer pricing.

Biography:

Sophie is a very well known tax lecturer and writer and has been involved in ATT and CTA training for over 25 years with a reputation for giving clear, enthusiastic lectures.

Sophie is known for always having time to help students - whether in choosing which combination of CTA papers to sit and in which order or helping with technical queries.

Sophie started her career as a Chartered Accountant in the tax department of the London office of Andersen, qualifying in 1994 and winning prizes at every sitting of her ACA examinations.

She discovered her passion for lecturing through her involvement with internal tax training courses at Andersen and thereafter decided to pursue a full time training role, joining BPP Taxation Courses in 1996. Whilst at BPP Sophie passed her CTA examinations with distinction and was awarded the prize for the Personal Tax paper.

Sophie was CTA Course Director at BPP for some years before moving to Tolley in 2003. Sophie is one of the original members of the team who started the tax exam training business within Tolley. She is in charge of the updating of the material for both the distance learning and revision courses and the audio-visual lectures which Tolley provide to ATT and CTA students. Her knowledge of the way in which tax is examined across CTA is unrivalled.

Biography:

Mradul Gupta is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Mradul has over 13 years’ experience in indirect taxation, and also more than 14 years’ experience in direct taxation. He has hands-on experience in handling clients in IT, Finance, Aviation, Trading, Manufacturing, Insurance, Stock Broking, Real Estate, Pharmaceutical, Banking-Financial and Hospitality sectors.

Mradul has successfully handled and implemented GST for several clients in India prior to VAT law implementation assignments in the UAE. He has strong working knowledge in the concepts of Indirect Taxes entailing VAT/GST, Excise, Customs, Service Tax and Sales Tax. He has conducted several training events on VAT/GST in the UAE and India and was also a speaker in the GST Clinic organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

He has written various tax articles published on prominent tax portals in the UAE and India. Mradul has also managed the responsibility of payment of VAT, filing of VAT returns, providing relevant information to the tax authorities and, handling VAT audits.

He is a contributor to the UAE country guide in Tolley’s Global VAT.