MENA's Evolving Tax Landscape Seminar

Dr. Ehtisham Ahmad

Senior Fellow, Center for Development Research, University of Bonn and London School of Economics

Dr. Ehtisham Ahmad is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Development Research at the University of Bonn and at the LSE (since 2010); a member of the Academic Committee, Institute of State Governance, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, PRC (since 2015); and a Pao Yu-Kong Professor at Zhejiang University, PRC (since 2016).

From 1990-2010, Ehtisham was a Senior Advisor on the Executive Board at the International Monetary Fund (IMF); as well as Advisor and Division Chief for the Fiscal Affairs Department. While at the IMF, Dr. Ahmad led the technical assistance on the early GCC VAT frameworks initiated by the Dubai Government in 2006-8. More recently, he worked on the Mexican Fiscal Reforms in 2012-13; budget and treasury reforms in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Qatar; and from 2015-16 advised the Timor-Leste Fiscal Reforms Commission on measures, including the introduction of a VAT.

Some of his other posts include: Special Advisor to the Finance Minister, Saudi Arabia, 1996-1998; Director of the Development Economics Research Program, STICERD, LSE, 1986-1990; and Deputy Director of the Development Economics Research Center at Warwick University (1980-1986).

He has written widely on public policy and fiscal reforms, governance, fiscal federalism and poverty reduction.

Justin Alexander

Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Qatar

Justin Alexander serves as an economic advisor at the Ministry of Finance in Qatar, where he provides analysis on economic and fiscal trends across the GCC region and internationally.

He arrived in Qatar in 2010, initially as the senior international economist at Qatar National Bank, where he developed macroeconomic forecasting models and published a series of Economic Insight reports on countries across the region. Before that he was a Middle East Economist with the Economist Intelligence Unit in London.

He has been visiting the Middle East since 2001, when he volunteered in Jordan as an English language teacher to Iraqi refugees awaiting resettlement. He subsequently worked in Iraq with the United Nations. He has degrees from Balliol College, Oxford and Birkbeck College, London.

Pierre Arman

Market Development Lead for Tax & Accounting, Thomson Reuters

Pierre Arman is the Market Development Lead for Tax & Accounting at Thomson Reuters, and is responsible for the strategy and product management of all Tax & Accounting and Global Trade Management solutions in the MENA region.

Pierre’s main responsibility is to drive market and product development in the region whilst defining and implementing the regional product localisation strategy. An experienced consultant in the tax technology consulting field, Pierre has been involved in global tax technology projects, spanning over 127 countries both in implementation and project management.

Prior to joining Thomson Reuters, Pierre’s worked for an Actuarial Consulting firm where he focused on optimizing the tax position of HNWI and UHNWI’s pension arrangements between Monaco and London.

Pierre holds a Master’s Degree in International Business, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting and Finance. In addition, Pierre is a Business Lecturer in Strategic Change Management for the MBA Program at Cornerstone College in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

Abdelhamid Attalla

Former Tax Director, MENA & Turkey, GE

Abdelhamid Attalla is the Strategic Advisor to the Cragus Group based in Dubai, where he provides international and regional tax advice to global and regional companies.

Prior to joining the Cragus Group, he was the Tax Director for MENA and Turkey (2009-2016) at GE, and the Egypt and Middle East/South Asia Senior Tax Partner (1997-2009) at KPMG.

Abdelhamid has substantial experience in the Middle East and North Africa region having worked in an advisory capacity to governments and private sector companies on tax policy and laws. He participated in the drafting of the Egyptian Income Tax Law 91 of 2005, including its executive regulations.

Abdelhamid holds an M.Sc. in Taxation from the American University in Washington D.C. and a Master’s in Accountancy from Texas A&M-Kingsville. He is a qualified US CPA (Texas) as well as an Egyptian Chartered Accountant, and has practiced in the US, UK, Egypt and the UAE.

Bert Brys

Head of Tax Policy Unit, Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Bert Brys is Senior Tax Economist, Head of the Country Tax Policy Team, and Head of the Personal and Property Taxes unit in the Tax Policy and Tax Statistics Division of the OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration. He joined the OECD in 2005.

Within the OECD he has worked on a broad range of taxes, tax indicators and tax policy design topics, including personal income taxes and effective tax rates on labour income, property taxes, corporate income taxes, political economy issues of tax reform, taxation and economic growth, and taxation and skills indicators.

Prior to joining the OECD, he worked on tax issues for the Flemish regional government in Belgium.

He holds a Ph.D. degree from the Tinbergen Institute, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He also obtained Master degrees in economics from the Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain), from Center at Tilburg University (the Netherlands), and from Universiteit Antwerpen (Belgium).

Stuart Halstead

Director, Deloitte

Stuart is a Director in indirect taxes and has spent over 14 years with Deloitte. Previously based in the UK, he has been located in the UAE since 2011.

Stuart co-founded Deloitte’s Government Revenue Solutions practice in 2013. The group helps governments undertake revenue reform and mobilization programs.

Whilst he is a tax (principally VAT) policy specialist, he has also advised governments and their revenue agencies on administrative capacity building and performance improvement programs. His work includes tax policy design and benchmarking, legislative drafting, best practice benchmarking, organization strategy development, tax process design and re-engineering, technology implementation and performance monitoring requirement planning, senior management coaching.

Stuart has been quoted extensively with respect to the tax reforms underway in the GCC.

Stuart holds a Masters (Hons) in Economics with Economic History, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Economic History from the University of Glasgow, UK.

Paresh Khushal

Head of Professionals, MENA, Thomson Reuters

Paresh was appointed as Head of Professionals for Thomson Reuters, Middle East & North Africa in January 2016. He is responsible for serving legal and consulting customers, and managing growth in the segment.

Paresh was most recently Head of Finance for several business units at Thomson Reuters within the Middle East & North Africa. He helped set up the financial planning and reporting functions for the Middle East, Africa, and Russia/CIS region within the nascent Global Growth & Operations division at Thomson Reuters.

Prior to Thomson Reuters, he has held several Finance-related roles (from Finance through to Corporate Development and Strategy) at large media companies, such as Disney, Universal Music, and Liberty Global.

He earned his professional Chartered Accountancy qualification at Ernst & Young in the United Kingdom, and graduated with 1st class Honours in Mathematics with Italian from the University of East Anglia, UK.

Eugene McQuaid

Strategic Advisor, International Development Ireland (IDI), Saudi Arabia

Eugene C. McQuaid is a senior macroeconomist with the Saudi Arabian government and IDI, responsible for strategic investment planning, public fiscal and financial management, public debt management, private sector development, and economic diversification. Eugene is also a PFM Advisor and economist with the Fiscal Affairs Department at the International Monetary Fund.

Eugene has 23 years international experience as a macroeconomist and advisor to CEOs, Ministers, Heads’ of Government and has counseled international stakeholders including the IMF, World Bank, United Nations and European Commission. He specializes in pubic financial & fiscal management, private sector development and natural resource & hydrocarbon energy management.

Eugene recently held the position of the senior economist with the Ministry for Economic Development Planning and Statistics in Qatar and was seconded into a catalogue of principal roles in the Qatari government spanning a seven-year period. Eugene is also the co-founder of Economic Impact and Energy Advisory LLC (EIEA), an advisory firm focusing on services and products tailored to public financial management.

Eugene holds a Masters Degree in Economic Science from University College Dublin and also qualified in advanced computer science and statistics during that tenure.

Mario Mansour

Deputy Chief, Tax Policy Division, International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Mario Mansour is Deputy Chief, Tax Policy Division of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Before joining the IMF in 2004, he managed tax policy advisory projects in the Middle East and Eastern Caribbean islands for a consultancy (2000-03), and was a tax policy analyst at the Canadian Federal Department of Finance (1992-2000) where he started his career specializing in business and international taxation, and modeling the fiscal and economic impacts of tax policy.

Mario has advised on tax policy in over 30 countries, and has published on a broad range of tax issues. His recent publications have dealt with tax policy in the Middle East and Africa, including how oil-rich countries should approach tax design, tax coordination in West Africa, and fiscal stabilization in the oil and gas sector.

Dr. Nasser Saidi

President, Nasser Saidi & Associates

Dr. Nasser Saidi is the Founder and President of Nasser Saidi & Associates, and acts as an adviser to governments, central banks, regulators, multinational and regional companies. He is a member of the IMF’s Regional Advisory Group for MENA, and Co-Chair of the OECD’s MENA Corporate Governance Working Group.

Some of his former posts include Minister of Economy and Trade of Lebanon, Minister of Industry of Lebanon, Chief Economist for Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Vice-Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, and Member of the UN Committee for Development Policy (UNCDP).

In 2013, he was named among the 50 most Influential Arabs in the World by The Middle East magazine, for the fourth consecutive year, and named among the 500 Most Powerful Arabs in the world by Arabian Business.

He is the author of numerous articles and has written a number of books and publications addressing macroeconomics, capital market development, and international economic issues in the MENA region, GCC countries and Lebanon.

Finbarr Sexton

Partner, Ernst & Young Middle East

Finbarr Sexton is a Partner with Ernst & Young Middle East, and the indirect tax service line leader for the Middle East and North Africa region.

His clients operate in a broad range of industries, such as oil and gas (both upstream and downstream), power and utilities, engineering procurement and construction, real estate, marine activity and financial services.

He is responsible for the development of indirect tax training for the MENA region and also for thought leadership contributions on indirect tax. He has conducted VAT and customs training courses across the region. He has advised a number of governments in the region on tax policy initiatives including VAT, petroleum fiscal regimes and customs, and global trade agreements. He has also advised on the trade programmes in the MENA region, including the impact of free zones and free trade agreements.

A graduate of the University College Cork, in law and accounting, Finbarr is a Fellow of the Irish Institute of Chartered Accountants.

Marijn Verhoeven

Lead Economist and Cluster Lead Tax, World Bank Group

Marijn Verhoeven is the Lead Economist and Cluster Lead of the Global Tax Team, a part of the World Bank Group’s Governance Global Practice, which supports the Bank’s work on strengthening tax systems. This includes the development of analytical instruments, participation in global tax debates, and contributing to policy advice and capacity building support in developing countries. At the World Bank, Marijn has also contributed to work streams on state-owned enterprises, extractive industry governance, evidence-based PFM reforms, political economy analysis, and public expenditure reviews.

Before joining the World Bank, Marijn worked at the IMF where he was the Fund’s resident representative in Bangladesh and Deputy Division Chief of the Expenditure Policy Division. He was educated at Tilburg University in the Netherlands.