Our Team

Dr Peter Wilson is an international taxation adviser with more than 40 years of experience. Peter has advised companies, individuals, partnerships, trusts, foundations, collective investment funds, pension funds and governments on taxation, international tax law and associated planning and compliance, firstly from a base in Sydney, Australia, then London, New York and now in Dubai.

He also advises corporate service providers, financial institutions, investment managers, and administrators on their client taxation matters together with FATCA, CRS and ESR reporting obligations. Dr Wilson also advises on obligations and controls to be implemented for tax risk mitigation. He also assists clients in defending domestic and cross-border disputes with taxation authorities and in subsequent taxation litigation before tribunals and courts, together with advising family lawyers on the taxation consequences of disputed family investment entities in contested divorces. He advises clients on regulatory matters and entity (companies, partnerships, trusts, foundations, stock option schemes) formation, including countries or territories in which the entities may be formed.

Dr Wilson’s practice includes the taxation considerations (including indirect and miscellaneous taxes) relevant to mergers and acquisitions, including demergers, splits and divisions; substantial public debt issuances, including restructure post-closing; cross-border financial transactions, both third party and intra-group; post-acquisition subsidiary and asset restructure; acquisition due diligence; individual and corporate redomiciliation; cross border services, intellectual property and profits; transfer pricing and international taxation conventions both bilateral and multilateral.

Over the years, he has advised clients on the cross-border taxation laws of more than 75 countries in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Caribbean, North and South America and Asia, including Australia and New Zealand.
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Peter has practiced as a taxation and business advisor in South Africa and the Middle East for in excess of 30 years. He has experience in a number of industry sectors including healthcare, education, financial services, wholesale, retail and manufacturing.

His main focus is on strategy, family business and business improvement using experience gained in both Public Practice and in Commercial roles. Areas of expertise include operational due diligence, auditing, taxation, corporate restructuring, M&A, technology implementation, supply chain and contract negotiations.

Peter started his career as an Articled Clerk with a leading accounting and audit practice in South Africa. This was followed by a role as a Tax Inspector with the South African Revenue Service where he was actively involved in the rollout of VAT by way of leading pre-VAT implementation education programs to business leaders and the public as part of a national roll out. He trained tax inspectors, issued advance tax rulings and led VAT and corporate tax inspection teams.  Peter is now heavily involved with VAT in the UAE and the Middle East generally.

Peter spent eight years as an audit and tax partner with Grant Thornton in South Africa, before taking up senior finance leadership roles with several well-known groups in the UAE, Qatar and South Africa. Peter has lived as well as worked in Qatar and he now lives in the UAE.

Among Peter’s commitments he is a founding partner of an award-winning Middle East accounting practice and a founding partner of a technology company focusing on digital transformation, automation and cyber security.

Peter is a qualified Chartered Accountant CA(SA). He has B.Com and Postgraduate Diploma in Accountancy from the University of Port Elizabeth and an Advanced Taxation Certification from the University of South Africa.

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Mr Mohammed Rashid Alhemrani Alshamsi is PB First Global Tax’s Chief Government Relations officer. He is highly educated with a Bachelor of Science in Administration from the University of Washington DC, United States of America and a Diploma in customer service excellence.

Mohammed is a results-oriented professional with over 32 years of experience. His career and contributions have had a significant impact on the public and private sectors in the UAE. His ability to create and lead programs, as well as his involvement in strategic planning and governance, are highly accredited. He has a talent for leadership skills and driving positive change within organisations.

Mohammed has established and operated extremely successful projects at Government institutions such as the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, the Ministry of Interior, ENOC and the UAE’s Prime Minister’s Office.

Maria Khattar has extensive experience in international taxation and audit. She established herself as a trusted advisor with a proven track record of excellence in helping businesses navigate complex global tax landscapes. As a graduate of the American University of Beirut with a degree in Finance, speaking fluent Arabic and English and years of experience in the field, Maria has honed her expertise in advising multinational corporations ( including financial institutions), start-ups and individuals on cross-border tax compliance and planning. Her insights and guidance have saved clients substantial resources while ensuring full compliance. She specialises in financial instruments and financial institutions.

Maria started her career as an auditor at Ernst and Young and gained extensive experience in reviewing tax turns and ensuring that financial statements are compliant with the IFRS standards for various industries, including banking, factoring, sporting, hotels, casinos, electrical appliances and media.

Maria worked as an internal audit leader auditing various banking processes and proposing to management value-added recommendations related to system enhancements, changes in internal procedures, and strengthening the internal controls. She is experienced in capital markets, treasury, liquidity and market risk, and trade finance.

As an in-house tax manager for Europe, the Middle East and Asia with a multinational group, she has also dealt with a range of tax-related obligations, from tax planning and compliance to international taxation.

Dr Ajay Kumar is an international commercial lawyer specialising in international taxation, development and financial crimes. Ajay started off as a qualified lawyer in India and after more than 10 years of practice, principally as a litigation lawyer, he moved into academia. Subsequently he qualified as a solicitor in England and Wales. Presently he holds a full-time academic position with the University of Bradford, where he teaches on international taxation, Trusts and Banking & Finance. Prior to that he held academic positions at different educational institutions in the UK, India and the UAE.

Dr Kumar was awarded a PhD in International Economic Law, by the University of Manchester in (2015) for the thesis – ‘International Tax Coherence a Development Perspective’.  The thesis is a work in progress and focussed on tax jurisdiction and looked at the principles and practices with the international tax regime while evaluating its efficacy for offering development. This is being developed into a monograph for publication by 2024. He also holds a master’s degree in international Commercial Law from the University of Aberdeen, UK and an undergraduate degree in law from Mahatma Gandhi University, India. Ajay has also co-authored a book published by Kluwer on ‘The public International law of international taxation: Text, Cases and Materials’, with Asif Qureshi.

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Sandra has more than three years organising offices and assisting in arranging and managing professional courses on taxation.

She is studying for a BA LLB degree at Kerala Law Academy Law College, India and is pursuing a Diploma in International Commercial and Corporate Law from The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs, London.

Sandra has participated in moot court competitions, seminars, and workshops and is studying taxation law and intends becoming a full time tax researcher and adviser as soon as she is qualified to do so.

Susie is a PWC trained international Tax advisor with over 15 year’s experience advising HNW individuals and businesses on maximising wealth through efficient global tax planning.

She is renowned for her meticulous approach to minimising tax risk through efficient planning, with a focus on cross-border structures and experience interpreting complex tax law in multiple jurisdictions to maximise and retain wealth.

Before joining PB First Global Tax, she independently advised HNW clients and family businesses based in the UK & Middle East. Susie works with clients on a wide range of complex matters, from residence and domicile issues, structuring businesses, exit strategies, profit extraction, CGT and IHT.

Susie obtained a first-class honours degree in Economics from Sussex University and went straight to PWC’s graduate program, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant with first-time passes in 2007. Susie then completed her CTA in a record time of 5 months whilst working in Corporate Tax at BDO LLP. She continued her career in Corporate Tax as a head office tax advisor of the UK and the Middle East for FTSE 250 company CGI. With a strong corporate tax background, Susie brings solid experience in IFRS accounting standards and audits.

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Jo is a British-qualified Chartered Accountant (ACA) and ICAEW Fellow with 25 years of professional accounting, taxation and training experience. Her more than 15 years of residence in Dubai have resulted in Jo being one of the most experienced international professional advisors in the UAE. Jo focuses on UAE businesses, including those owning or trading in the UK and Africa. She speaks fluent Somali and is working to improve her Arabic and Italian.

In recent years, she has been involved in tax training courses, including the PwC Middle East GCC VAT course and the ADIT International tax course. She has also assisted and advised UAE SMEs in evaluating, planning and reporting financial performance as well as advising on corporate income tax and VAT implementations.

Having earlier been employed as a corporate Financial Controller in the Middle East, where she was primarily responsible for managing the finance and commercial functions of the business, including taxation, HR, property and administration functions, she is uniquely equipped to advise and assist clients in planning, implementing and supervising their corporate income tax and VAT responsibilities. The best tax advisors understand business.

Before relocating to the UAE from the UK, Jo was an auditor for ten years at a Big 6 Accounting firm having a diverse client portfolio in the security, technology, media, tourism and leisure, and cosmetics sectors.

Using the 25 years of experience in financial and commercial management, internal and external auditing, business systems, statutory accounts preparation (IFRS, UKGAAP) and taxation compliance for UK and for the last 15 years UAE based businesses, Jo is very able to advise and assist clients with their planning for and implementation of UAE corporate income tax and VAT. IFRS experience is required to properly deal with UAE corporate income tax for businesses, and Jo has ample of that. Substantial practical experience such as that which Jo has is difficult to find in the UAE!

Kennedy has close to 30 years of professional experience in dealing with international and domestic tax issues. He has worked as a Regional Manager for Africa, the Middle East and Latin America at the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) in the Netherlands, as a Senior Manager at Deloitte Zambia, as a SeniorTax Inspector at the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) and, on secondment, as a Tax Advisor at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in France.

Kennedy has managed numerous tax advisory assignments for major multinational enterprises in the mining, banking and financial, insurance, energy, telecommunication, construction, manufacturing and agricultural sectors. In tax policy, he has acted as a lead consultant on a number of assignments, including tax policy advisory and training for the Zambia Ministry of Finance, the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA) and for many Governments and tax authorities in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.

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Imran Shafi is a leading English silk specialising in criminal, fraud and money laundering matters.

He has been involved in several groundbreaking cases, and his advocacy, conference skills and practical experience are highly sought after.

Imran is well known for his incredible work ethic and dedication to representing his clients.

He is renowned for having cases discontinued, dismissed and successfully applying to exclude evidence. A number of his court of appeal cases are studied and written about in leading criminal defence textbooks.

In recent years, Imran’s practice has increasingly focussed on fraud (inclusive abusive transactions) complex money laundering cases, which is ably suited due to his meticulous preparation, logical approach and understanding of accounting and financial evidence.

With these skills, Imran is well suited to participate in compliance and litigation strategy sessions covering UAE corporate tax and VAT law, tax advocacy before the relevant UAE courts and working alongside advocates who have access rights in UAE Courts on tax, which Imran does not.