Roy Saunders

Founder and Chairman, IBSA

Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1967, Roy Saunders has accumulated a wealth of commercial experience working independently in commercial property, international tax, advertising and other industries. He is the Chairman of IFS, a boutique international tax practice based in central London. Academically, he is known throughout the world for his many books and publications, the foremost being his red book, International Tax Systems & Planning Techniques published by Sweet & Maxwell. Roy has also taught an MA Course on International Taxation at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London.

Roy is very proud of the fascinating client base of entrepreneurial individuals that he has built up at IFS. He feels strongly about the role that ethical tax structuring plays in the growth of an economy, and that this needs to be better understood by the public at large. Roy founded the IBSA to enable business professionals around the world to discover new business relationships and promote best practice by creating sustainable business structures compliant with international transparency, corporate governance and social responsibility.

Lorraine White

Managing Director, Head of EMEA Securities Tax and US Tax Services, BNY Mellon

Lorraine works for the BNY Mellon as Managing Director, Head of EMEA Securities Tax and US Tax Services where she provides custody tax technical support to BNY Mellon’s Asset Servicing groups and clients in the EMEA region. She has been heavily involved with a number of trade associations and their work on FATCA, AEOI, EUSD and tax treaty relief initiatives. Lorraine currently chairs the European Banking Federations Tax Reporting and Information Exchange working group. She is an active participant in global initiatives focussing on simplification and harmonisation of tax relief and tax compliance procedures for cross border portfolio investors, as a member of the Business advisory group to the OECD’s TRACE and CRS work and the European Commission’s Tax Barriers Advisory Group T-BAG, both looking at procedures to improve access to tax relief for cross border portfolio investors.

Paul Morton

Head of Group Tax, Reed Elsevier Group Plc

Paul Morton is Head of Group Tax at Reed Elsevier Group plc. He leads a team of 28 tax professionals in London, Amsterdam, Boston and Singapore which serves businesses operating in more than 90 countries. Reed Elsevier is a leading provider of professional information solutions including LexisNexis and the Elsevier Science, Technology and Medical publishing divisions. Prior to joining Reed Elsevier, Paul led the tax team for Royal Dutch Shell’s global marketing and refining division. He held a number of positions before that at Shell including European Internal Audit Manager, Head of Tax for Shell UK and advisor to the exploration and production businesses. Prior to that he was a tax manager at KMPG and he began his career as a tax inspector in the UK Inland Revenue.

Paul is Chairman of the British Branch of the International Fiscal Association and a member of the Confederation of British Industry and FTSE 100 Group Tax Committees as well as the Tax Law Review Committee of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He is a member of the Council of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a past member of the Council of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (CIOT) and a past chairman of the CIOT Commerce & Industry Group and the European Branch. He is a past President of the Confederation Fiscale Européenne which represents tax professional bodies in Europe.

Keith Brockman

EMEA Tax Director, Mars UK

Focused, proactive and visionary Executive with extensive financial, business and management experience; recognized for enhancing earnings, identifying value-added opportunities, defining clear objectives and consistently exceeding corporate goals. 

Accomplished problem solver, decision-maker and strategist, as well as a public speaker and author, including The Brockman brief, a monthly column in The International Tax Review. 

Recognized as a leader within all levels of an organization based upon interpersonal skills, creativity, and proactive nature enhancing individual and team goals and objectives.

Specialties: Proactive Global Tax Executive and Dynamic Leader with extensive hands-on experience in M&A, global tax planning, US and foreign tax audits, transfer pricing and international tax structuring. 
Introduce "Best Practices" and coordinate in-house tax presentations for US GAAP FAS 109 (ASC 740), including FIN 48. Collaboratively develop tax-efficient funding and repatriation strategies.

Jose Villoldo

EMEA Tax Director, Omnicom Europe Limited

In 1998 Jose Villoldo qualified as a lawyer specialising in International Corporation Taxation with the law firm Linklaters (in Paris & Luxembourg). He was admitted to the Parisian Bar in 1998 and to the Luxembourg Bar in 2000 and become a member of the Law Society of England and Wales in 2002.

Jose joined Omnicom Europe in London in September 2002 as the EMEA Senior Tax Manager to look after Omnicom’s EMEA tax affairs – these include, amongst other things, providing tax advice and tax planning in areas such as corporate restructurings, M&A, transfer pricing, VAT, managing the group’s global effective tax rate and tax audits. Jose has headed the EMEA Tax Department since 2006.

Harm J. Oortwijn

Director, International Tax, Paramount Pictures

Harm J. Oortwijn is Director of International Tax with Paramount Pictures (a Viacom company). He has 20 years of international tax experience with a number of multinational companies as both in-house professional and tax consultant. He is well-versed in international tax software & solutions development, US & international tax planning and compliance, US GAAP & IFRS tax accounting principles and ERP tax implementation issues. He studied chartered public accountancy at Hogeschool Windesheim in Zwolle, Netherlands and graduated with honors from United Business Institutes in Brussels with a master’s degree in global tax management.

Gary Howlett

Global Tax Director, Kaspersky Lab

Gary Howlett has a 20 year career as a tax executive in both consulting and in-house corporate positions and specializes in implementing tax efficient supply chain structures. Effective September 2010 Gary was appointed Global Tax Director at Kaspersky Lab, the largest private internet security software company. Prior to that, Gary was International VP of Tax at Yahoo, based in Switzerland and responsible for tax strategy outside the Americas. He spent a significant part of his career as Global Tax Director at Silicon Graphics and previously in his career Gary worked in tax consulting, starting at PWC and eventually forming his own consulting practice.

Andrew Hewitt

Head of Tax, ASOS

Andrew Hewitt was appointed Head of Tax at ASOS PLC in October 2012 where he has been responsible for building a tax structure to support a rapidly expanding global business. Prior to that he was Head of EMEA Tax at Sabre Holdings, responsible for EMEA transfer pricing, planning, compliance and risk management. He worked at Sabre for 5 years and was involved in the resolution of a number of transfer pricing disputes. Before that, Andrew spent 7 years at Ernst & Young and has also been involved in the Digital Economy Stakeholder Group run by HM Treasury.

Raffaele Russo

Head of BEPS Project, OECD

A member of the Senior Management Team of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (Paris), Raffaele Russo currently coordinates the work on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS), an ambitious project aimed at redesigning the rules for the taxation of cross-border profits.

Previously, Raffaele was Head of the Non-Compliance Unit at the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, in charge of the work on Aggressive Tax Planning and on Tax Crimes. Prior to that, he worked on the OECD Model Tax Convention and the OECD Transfer Pricing Guidelines, as well as on Exchange of Information matters when he drafted the Protocol to the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters.

Raffaele regularly leads OECD missions in non-member countries and at the OECD Multilateral Centers.

Before joining the OECD, he was a Senior Associate at the International Tax Academy of the IBFD (Amsterdam) and a Tax Lawyer with NCTM Studio Legale Associato (Milan). He obtained his Law Degree from the University Federico II (Naples, Italy), and his LLM in International Taxation from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, both cum laude.

He is the author of several articles on international tax matters and editor and co-author of the books ‘The Attribution of Profits to Permanent Establishments: The taxation of intra-company dealings’ (2005), ‘Fundamentals of International Tax Planning’ (2007) and ‘A Decade of Case Law: Essays in honor of the 10th Anniversary of the Leiden LLM in International Taxation’ (2008). Raffaele has published articles in Italian, French, English, Spanish, Polish, Russian and Portuguese. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars.

Francois Thomas

Former Senior Tax Counsel, Michelin

Francois Thomas is a senior tax professional with over 20 years as tax Counsel and tax lawyer. He spent 8 years as Senior Tax Counsel  with Michelin, working in France and also serving as a Regional Tax Counsel  for Asia-Pacific for 2 years. In this role Francois was responsible for dealing with tax and customs issues in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan and Vietnam. He is an expert in industrial investments, cash pooling, supply chain, acquisitions & restructuring, R&D, headquarter expenses, monitoring Permanent Establishment exposure. Francois also has a strong professional focus on intra-group transactions: transfer pricing policy implementation, adaptation, enforcement and defence, including negotiation of advanced pricing agreements with tax authorities. Previously he spent 9 years practicing at PwC and E&Y.

Andrew Caldwell

Director, Berkeley Research Group

Andrew Caldwell has 30 years of experience in the valuation of private companies, intellectual property, unincorporated businesses, and associated assets and liabilities. These have been for commercial, fiscal, statutory, financial reporting, and “fair value” purposes, both within the United Kingdom and internationally, including acting for FTSE 100 clients. Andrew has been involved in litigation support for both national and international jurisdictions. In 2008, Andrew was appointed by HM Treasury as the Independent Valuer for the Northern Rock Compensation Scheme. He is a founding member of the Expert Witness Institute, a founding council member of the Society of Share and Business Valuers, and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. Before joining BRG, he was the senior valuations partner with BDO LLP.

Roya Ghafele

Managing Director, Oxfirst Limited

Professor Ghafele is the Managing Director of Oxfirst Limited, a consulting firm specialising in the economics of IP. She holds permanent faculty positions in law and business school with the Universities of Oxford and Edinburgh, has published with Harvard and Oxford University Press and held a Research Fellowship with the Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley. Previously she worked as an economist with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), offering strategic advice on Intellectual Property, Trade and Innovation to Governments in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. She started her career with the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Her Ph.D. was awarded the Theodor Koerner Research Prize by the President of the Republic of Austria.

Matt Rainey

Director of the Innovation Division, the WIPO

Matt Rainey is Director of the Innovation Division at the WIPO, responsible for issues relating to innovation policy and infrastructure, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and other IP rights holders, universities and technology transfer issues and processes. 

Mr. Rainey joined WIPO after nearly thirty years of IP law practice in both large and small companies and law firms, in the United States and for some time in Munich.  His legal work has involved patent, trade secret, copyright and trademark protection, strategies, commercialization and litigation.  He has focused on patent law, and before joining WIPO he specialized in IP and innovation policy, including extensive work on legislative, judicial and administrative matters relating to IP law, processes and policy. 

Mr. Rainey holds a degree in Physics from the University of Maryland and a law degree (J.D.) from the University of Southern California School of Law.

Omleen Ajimal

International Tax lawyer

Omleen was formerly Director of International Tax in the Tax Strategy & Benefits group at Squire Patton Boggs, a global law firm.

She has extensive experience, from over 14 years of practice, in prominent City firms, of a very wide range of cross-border corporate, real estate, funds and financing tax issues and structures.  She has worked with FTSE 100 companies, Fortune 100 companies and major international banks, funds and financial institutions. She has vast experience advising financial institutions on international tax structuring, compliance and risk management, in the context of recent intergovernmental, EU and OECD initiatives on international tax transparency and exchange of information.

Over a number of years, she has advised members of the UK House of Lords and several UK Government departments on various matters relating to international business.  She is regularly invited to travel abroad with high-profile UK Government business delegations.  She has also been involved in consultations on a number of EU-wide and OECD-level international initiatives. She is regularly invited to speak at high-profile conferences and events. She has also written for journals and books, on issues relating to corporate tax, international tax and international business relations.

Helen Blenkinsop

Interim In-House Tax Director, Helen Blenkinsop

Having trained and worked as a corporate tax manager in the Big 4, Helen Blenkinsop has worked as a Tax Director in-house for 20 years, mostly within small head office teams where all individuals have a high degree of responsibility. “It is important to be flexible and cover VAT and employment taxes as well as corporation tax – and above all, focus on earnings and practicality,” Helen says.  She was Tax Director of Albright & Wilson PLC when it floated into the FTSE250, and set up the tax function at Imperial Tobacco Group PLC. Since then, Helen has carried out interim assignments within a variety of sectors such as retail, media and FS, and is currently on assignment within the service sector.