Biography:

I am responsible for the delivery of Stamp Taxes advice across the UK firm to all types of client from private individuals to large corporate groups I also provide advice to large corporate, not for profit and public sector clients on a wide range of tax matters, particularly in relation to Real Estate matters and business reconstructions. I have been with Grant Thornton for over 13 years, an have over 17 years experience in Stamp Taxes. I also have significant experience in both urban regeneration and in Public / Private transactions involving property, having advised housing associations, house builders and local and central government.

Sector experience

• Property taxation
• Housing
• SDLT
• Public/private transactions
• Business reconstructions

Professional qualifications and memberships

• PhD
• ACA
• CTA
• Stamp Taxes Practitioner's Group

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:

Mala is a Chartered Tax Adviser and non-practising Solicitor and Accountant. She trained with a top ten professional services firm where she worked in the tax investigations department and gained experience in a wide range of personal and corporate taxes. She joined the tax investigations team at a boutique tax consultancy and developed her portfolio before moving to a tax investigations firm.

Mala specialises in preparation of disclosures to HMRC and resolution of tax enquiries and CoP8 and 9 Investigations. She has experience in a range of situations – self-employment, property, owner managed businesses, non-UK domiciled individuals – and taxes; direct income taxes as well as PAYE, VAT and SDLT.

She is a well-known tax author, having had several articles published by the professional press including Taxation Magazine, Bloomsbury Professional and Tax Adviser. She also regularly lectures online and in person for the CIOT, AAT, ICAEW and CIMA, including at CIOT and CIMA conferences.

Mala was a finalist in the “Best Rising Star in Tax” category as part of Tolleys Taxation Awards 2020. The Awards are known for identifying excellence in tax. Being shortlisted for the award demonstrates Mala’s commitment to the tax profession as well as her technical excellence as supported by testimonials from clients and other tax experts.

Mala founded the London Tax Society in 2017 and actively encourages networking and technical development for young professionals.

To contact Mala, please email: mala@londontaxnetwork.co.uk or call 0203 953 6660.

Biography:

Tom Shaw is an Associate Director at Deloitte. He leads Deloitte’s response to Environmental Tax budget measures, and acts as a tax lead in Deloitte‘s Road to Net Zero/Climate group. He has over ten years' experience advising businesses in every sector on the effect of environmental taxes, in addition to VAT/GST systems, customs duties and other taxes, on their operations.

Tom specialises in global trends concerning carbon pricing instruments, associated taxation policy change and business transformation. He is a Chartered Tax Adviser and holds a first class degree in Mathematics.

Biography:

The Venture Capital Tax Reliefs (Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS), Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCT)) are a key part of the UK Government’s strategy to help small and growing businesses raise much-needed capital.

Philip Hare & Associates LLP specialises in these tax reliefs, and advises businesses looking to raise money under these schemes, and deals with HMRC on their behalf. We work alongside other intermediaries, such as lawyers, brokers and fund managers.

Biography:

Helen Wood is the founder of HLN WD TX, a share schemes and employee incentives advisory business.

She qualified as a CA with ICAS in 2009 and has worked as a specialist reward and incentives advisor for 17 years, spending 13 of those at KPMG followed by 3 ½ years as an Associate Director at RSM. Helen has worked with businesses ranging from start-ups to fully listed companies, spanning owner-managed businesses, private equity portfolio companies, and AIM listed businesses.

She advises on a wide range of employee share schemes and employment related securities matters including the design and implementation of effective management and employee incentives; tax valuation of employment related securities, buy and sell side transaction support, HMRC compliance, tax due diligence and employee ownership trust transactions.

Biography:

Keith M Gordon MA(Oxon) FCA CTA(Fellow) is a barrister practising from Temple Tax Chambers in London. He previously practised as a chartered accountant and chartered tax adviser. His practice covers all areas of tax and also related areas including partnership disputes and professional negligence. Keith also lectures and writes extensively won the Tax Writer of the Year category in the 2013 LexisNexis Taxation Awards. He was also the Chartered Tax Adviser of the Year in the 2009 awards.

Keith's cases include Jones v Garnett (the 'Arctic Systems' case) where he was the junior barrister for the successful taxpayer in the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords.  More recently, he was instructed by the taxpayers in HMRC v Charlton (discovery), Cotter v HMRC (meaning of tax return), Thomson v HMRC (meaning of trade) and the residence cases of Grace and Tuczka.

Keith is an active member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation. He has been a Council member since 2009, sits on a number of technical sub-committees and until June 2008 was co-chairman of the London Branch.  He is a member of the Taxation and LexisPSL editorial boards.

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:

I am a lawyer with a specialist focus and master's degree in Labour Law. I have more than 10 years of experience in the employment/labour area, advising companies in the hiring, maintenance and termination of employment contracts. I am the contributor to the Brazil country guide for Tolley's Global Mobility: Employment Taxes.

Biography:

Mark Baycroft is a Partner at haysmacintyre focusing on Taxation for Owner Managed Businesses and Property Taxes, including capital gains, SDLT & ATED. He is a member of the CIOT, the ATT and the ICAEW. Mark has spent over 20 years at top 25 accountancy firms advising Owner Managed Businesses, but he enjoys creative thinking around challenging technical problems in any area of tax, particularly where multiple taxes are involved. He contributes to Tolley's Tax Planning.

Biography:

Michael is an independent consultant with more than 30 years’ experience. He focuses on transparency, anti-corruption and good governance issues. He is also a political risk and stakeholder engagement expert with a focus on the Middle East. His book on Gaza will be published in the near future. He has worked for Middle East Broadcasting Centre, Control Risks Group, the Eurasia Group and for the international gas company BG Group as an international government relations manager in Egypt, Oman and Gaza. At BG Group, he was also responsible for the transparency agenda, especially the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI). He has also lived, worked and travelled extensively in the Middle East, advising companies on assessing and mitigating political risk in the region. Michael studied Arabic at the University of Edinburgh where he gained an MA (Hons).

He is a recognised expert in beneficial ownership disclosure and provides technical assistance to governments and government agencies introducing measures to tackle corruption, money laundering and other financial crimes, and has worked with jurisdictions across four continents. In collaboration with Tim Law, he co-developed the BO6 framework for the design and implementation of beneficial ownership reporting regimes. He is an expert to the Council of Europe Economic Crime and Cooperation Division and the EU AML/CFT Global Facility and has been a member of the B20 Integrity and Compliance Taskforce. He has also delivered projects funded by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Biography:

I trained in Private Client Services at Andersens and qualified as a CTA in 2000. In 2002 I joined BPP in Manchester as a CTA tutor before leaving in 2010 to set up iCount Training.

Biography:

Raffaele Russo is an expert on international taxation and on international and domestic tax policy. He is currently Partner at Chiomenti Law Firm and a Senior Fellow at the Amsterdam Centre for Tax Law (ACTL) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA).

With over 20 years of professional experience, Raffaele has held key positions in renowned international and domestic institutions, including the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) in Amsterdam, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, and the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance in Rome.

At the OECD, he worked on double tax treaties and on transfer pricing. He played a key role in launching and delivering groundbreaking projects like the OECD work on tax and crimes and the work on aggressive tax planning, which later became the OECD/G20 BEPS Project, which he led until the delivery of the first phase of the Project in 2015.

During his service at the Italian Ministry of economy and finance, he focused on reforming the tax administration and on the digitalization of invoices and receipts. He was then appointed Deputy Chief of Cabinet in charge of taxation and of digitalization from early 2020 to March 2021.

He lectures in leading universities around the world and speaks frequently at conferences and seminars. He has published more than 100 articles in Italian and foreign journals.

He is member of the Rome Bar (Italy) since 2022.

Biography:

Jonathan joined the Exam Training team at Tolley in July 2015 and teaches on courses across all of the tax qualifications and is Head of Leeds Centre.

Jonathan trained as a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser with Hodgson Harris in Hull, qualifying in 1986 and 1988 and then moved into training.

He was a regular speaker for the Government Finance Profession Senior Conference and delivered bespoke courses for clients in industry.

He also presents seminars regularly and delivers tailored training sessions to clients, as well as writing for a variety of publications.

Jonathan is an enthusiastic and competitive tennis player, but alas not very good, he is also a devout skier. Desperate to find a cheaper sport he has rather naively taken up scuba diving and golf.

Biography:

Walter César Keiniger is partner at the tax department of Marval O'Farrell Mairal, having joined the firm in 1999.

He provides advice to local and foreign companies in the design, planning and organization of a variety of transactions, including loans, project financing, IPOs, etc. He has an impressive track record in M&A transactions and tax-free reorganizations, many of which involved different jurisdictions and were among the most significant deals in Argentina. He also provides planning strategies to individuals searching for a high-quality and practical approach towards their needs. He also has a strong background in complex tax litigation and leads a large team of tax litigators.

He has been recognized as one of the main tax lawyers in Argentina by prestigious publications, such as Chambers & Partners, Legal 500, World Tax and LL250. In 2017 he received the “best article” award granted by the Argentine Fiscal Association. He has also been recognized as leading tax attorney in Argentina and thought leader by LACCA (Latin American Corporate Counsel Association) and has been awarded the 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022 Client Choice Award for Corporate Tax in Argentina. In 2022 he was recognized as Tax Advisory Expert of the Year - Argentina by the Lawyer Network. Has was also recently included in the Business Today’s list of “Top 10 Influential Tax Lawyers Revolutionizing Argentina’s Legal Scene in 2023”.

Biography:

Since 2006, Jordi is Director of GD Global Mobility, the division of Gesdocument (www.gesdocument.com/en), specialized in advising and managing international mobility and assist international businesses and individuals to get established in Spain.

Jordi has a degree in Labor Relations at Universitat de Barcelona. Throughout his 19 years of experience advising major international corporations on global mobility issues, corporate and personal immigration laws and procedures in the European Union, Asia and America, he has been able to develop his professional skills in highly relevant companies such as PwC and E&Y.

During his professional activity, he has gained experience in the field of expatriate taxation, payroll, and international social security. Due to his international activity, he’s member of the most important international associations in this field such as EURA, ERC Worldwide and he’s also Chairman of Expat SIG at Leading Edge Alliance (LEA), one of the world’s largest professional law firm associations.

He was also an associate professor at both ESADE and ISDE, main business schools in Spain, and directs international conferences on expatriation issues related to Spain.

He is also co-author of the Immigration Guide for Investors of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

Biography:

Richard has been in practice for over 25 years, originally specialising in corporate tax for large corporates and multinationals but has spent most of his career devoted to looking after the interests of UK owner manager businesses, their owners and their wider families.  He has carved out a reputation for making complicated concepts of taxation understandable for his clients. This is a skill he has put to good use in co-authoring Tolley’s Tax Planning For Owner Managed Businesses 2020-21, with his colleagues Craig Simpson and Cassandra Graham at Bates Weston Tax Advisory Ltd.

Biography:

Muhammad Ali Larik is a seasoned compliance and risk management professional with over 17 years of multifaceted experience spanning regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering (AML), counter-terrorism financing (CTF), governance, and operations across the UAE and Pakistan. He has held leadership roles in prominent institutions such as A&A Associate LLC, AJMS Global Consulting, Creative Zone Group, and Al Brooge Securities. As Group Compliance Officer and MLRO, he has developed enterprise-wide compliance frameworks, led regulatory engagements, and implemented cutting-edge AI-based monitoring systems.

Mr. Larik is a DFSA, FSRA, and SCA-recognized compliance expert and an Approved MLRO with the UAE Central Bank. His core competencies include KYC/EDD, regulatory reporting (ESR, UBO, FATCA, CRS), transaction monitoring, internal audits, sanctions screening, and corporate governance. He has extensive experience collaborating with Free Zones, UAE Mainland authorities, and global financial regulators.

He holds an MBA in Banking & Finance and multiple prestigious international certifications, including GRCP, GRCA (GRC-USA), CAMI, CAMS, ICA (UK), CISI (UK), and Certified VAT Compliance from ATT (UK). He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Public Accountants (Australia) and the Institute of Financial Accountants (UK). His FinTech specialization from the University of Pennsylvania reflects his forward-thinking approach to digital compliance and regulatory tech integration.

With a strong foundation in operations from his early years at BankIslami and a proven record in senior leadership roles, Mr. Larik combines analytical rigor, regulatory foresight, and technological fluency. He is well-versed in leading compliance trainings, enhancing audit readiness, and fostering a culture of integrity and risk-awareness across organizations.