With 20 years of international legal experience, Paul provides counsel to clients in relation to their most complex and challenging IT and digital transformation programs.      

As Co-Chair of DLA Piper’s Global Technology & Sourcing practice, Paul is committed to supporting clients to achieve their organizational objectives. Paul is also a member of DLA Piper’s Change Council which is responsible for fostering radical change and innovation at the firm, and building on the firm’s recognition by the FT as one of the world’s top 10 firms for innovation.       

In recognition of this work, Paul and his team are ranked Band 1 in both leading legal directories, Chambers Global and Legal 500.   

Paul completed his INSEAD Executive MBA in December 2019 (on the Dean’s List with Distinction), with a focus on the design and implementation of strategies and new business models that leverage new and emerging technologies to provide a superior sustainable competitive advantage.  

Yousuf started his career as an entrepreneur before joining the executive-level of Dubai Government; where, he led and took part in strategic innovation-related and Economic development projects. From 2012 till March 2018, Yousuf was the Group Chief Strategy Officer of Dubai Holding where he focused on investment strategy, innovation and digitalization, and strategy and business plan development. Currently, he is the Founder and Managing Partner of E11, which is a global VC and venture building platform that is based in UAE and US. E11 focuses on investing, building, and globalizing cutting-edge tech startups. In addition, he is involved in several strategic government initiatives in UAE to promote and enhance entrepreneurship ecosystem in UAE and he is an advisor to senior leadership in UAE government. He sets on boards of few tech and non-tech startups. He regularly mentors entrepreneurs and he launched a startup competition that focuses on enhancing entrepreneurship amongst Emirati university students.

He holds an Executive MBA from INSEAD, MPA from Lee Kuan School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a BSc in Business Administration with concentration in Corporate Finance from Marshall Business School at University of Southern California (USC).

William leads Control Risks’ crisis and resilience consulting team in the Middle East from our Dubai office. He has worked in risk management, business continuity, crisis management and IT disaster recovery, cyber and resilience since 1997. William has been based in Dubai for the last three years working extensively across the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. He has a track record of designing and delivering major assignments, having worked across multiple sectors, from financial services, oil and gas and mining, to retail, real estate and hospitality. 

Prior to joining Control Risks, William worked at several multinational accounting firms, leading their business resilience practices in the UK and the Middle East.

A dedicated and dymanic communicator, Andrea’s scope of work has involved filing breaking news from Washington D.C., delivering humanitarian aid programs into Iraq and fighting to stop the genocide in Darfur. Navigating major career transitions, Andrea used these lessons to create ‘FutureFitCo’ – a business that empowers people to prepare for the future of work. The FutureFitCo Emerging Leaders Program is routinely delivered into top ASX businesses including Bunnings, Lendlease and Telstra.

Andrea is the author of ‘Future Fit: how to stay relevant and competitive in the future of work’ – which explores how we can advance our human capability to accelerate our careers as we navigate major shifts in the way we work.

As the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Esports Insider, Sam has led the growth and development of the company and brand, and managed it day to day, since 2016.

He’s also a co-founder at ‘corporate’ esports tournament series, the WFH League, and is an advisor at the venture fund Rewired.gg, and mobile esports service provider Gamerpro. 

Abe is a General Partner at Vintage Investment Partners, a global venture platform that manages over $2 billion and has worked with some of the most successful VC funds and tech companies across Israel, Europe and the U.S.

Before joining Vintage Investment Partners in 2003, Abe was an equity analyst with Goldman Sachs covering Israel-based technology companies in a wide variety of sectors, including software, telecom equipment, networking, semiconductor and satellite communications. While at Goldman Sachs, Abe and the Israel team were highly ranked by both Thomson Extel and Institutional Investor. Prior to Goldman Sachs, Abe was Vice-President at US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, where he helped start and headed its Israel technology shares institutional sales effort. Before joining Piper, he was an Associate at Brown Brothers Harriman covering the enterprise software and Internet sectors. Abe began his career at Josephthal, Lyon and Ross, joining one of the first research teams focused exclusively on Israel-based companies. Abe graduated Magna Cum Laude from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania with a BS in Economics and concentration in Finance.

A successful veteran of Silicon Valley, Paul Holland is Managing Director and VC-in-Residence at Mach49, where he leads the company’s Corporate Venture Investing Practice. Paul works with global businesses to design, launch, and manage CVC Funds that leverage the experience, deal flow, global network, and success of his team of top-tier Silicon Valley VCs. Paul supports Executive Investment Committees, bringing the discipline, portfolio mindset, metrics, and best practices needed to drive meaningful growth. He also teaches clients best-in-class methods for partnering with and leveraging external startups to drive maximum value and innovation across the core business.

Paul has been a General Partner at leading venture capital fund, Foundation Capital, for 18 years helping take startup companies from zero to $100M to IPO or acquisition. He enjoys being on the front lines—working side-by-side with entrepreneurs developing fast-growing, dynamic new ventures—experience he is also bringing to support Mach49’s work helping large companies build their own disruptive ventures.

Prior to joining Foundation, he had an equally stellar operating career, joining Reed Hastings at Pure Software, ultimately running Europe, Middle East, and Africa and helping Pure have one of the hottest IPOs of that vintage. He was later recruited by Benchmark Capital to join Mark Gainey at Kana Communications as its first C-suite executive to help Kana grow quickly and go public, ultimately attaining a $9B market cap. In total, Paul helped generate over $13B in market capitalization during his operating career.

Paul began his career at SRI International, where, as he likes to tell his kids, he was a “human Google,” conducting inquiries on a broad variety of topics for global businesses.

He received his MBA from UC Berkeley, MA from University of Virginia, and BS from James Madison University. Paul is a former president of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists, and he is the producer of the documentary Something Ventured, about the early days of the Silicon Valley. He premiered his newest creative endeavor for the stage: Walls: An American Story in January 2020. He has guest lectured on entrepreneurship at Stanford, Harvard, Dartmouth, MIT, University of Virginia, and James Madison University.

Eamon is a leading telecommunications, technology and data protection lawyer in the Middle East.

Eamon advised both government bodies and private sector entities on issues ranging from traditional telecommunications regulation through to emerging issues for the telecommunications sector such as machine to machine regulation, VoIP regulation, cloud computing, data protection, cyber-crime and cyber security.

Anuscha has over 14 years of experience in investment banking and alternative asset management. She is currently CEO of Spotii, the MENA regions leading Shop Now Pay Later platform.

Prior to co-founding Spotii, Anuscha served as a Managing Director at The Abraaj Group where she oversaw the Investment Office function at the firm. Anuscha joined Abraaj in 2007 as a member of the investment team and was responsible for evaluating investment opportunities across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia region covering a broad spectrum of industries.

Prior to joining Abraaj, Anuscha worked with Dresdner Kleinwort in New York as an Analyst in the media group, working on mergers and acquisitions and film financing projects.

Anuscha graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor’s of Science in Economics from the Wharton School and a Bachelors of Arts in Biology from The College of Arts and Sciences in 2005.

David has been in the middle east for over twenty years, working closely with an Abu Dhabi Ruling Family Office, focusing on strategy and international relations. This has involved working with senior leaders in government, business and the world of sport.

In recent years David has been engaged in the debate around digital and youth, supporting to shape the local, regional and global discussion on esports and gaming. David was instrumental in creating the first every UAE Government initiative into this space through the Ministry of Tolerance and Coexistence. Recently David facilitated a partnership between Abu Dhabi Media Zone and Emirates Esports to develop stronger governance in this space.

David has recently been appointed Regional Director of International practice that focuses on Cultural and Creative industry.

Tony Joseph in his own words is a “Business Strategist and Technology Futurist”. His current job role is CISO –eDirham Program, Ministry of Finance and is responsible for Data security and Data Governance standards and framework execution covering 40 Million annual eService transactions responsible for revenue collection to the tune of USD 10 billion annually. With a rich Techno-Business industry experience covering more than 20 years, his career interests have recently revolved around the following:

• Solving the “P” Dilemma – Payments & Privacy
• Security by Design
• Digital transformation as driver to cashless economy
• Imperative decisions on business process transformation
• Design principles of a Greenfield architecture for national critical infrastructure
• Creation of National Payment Scheme with interoperability with global payment schemes

Tansel Kilicarslan is the Chief Transformation Officer at Al Futtaim Group, based in Dubai. He has over 15 years of experience in large scale operational improvement, restructuring, integration, and divestiture programs across Automotive, Retail, Real Estate, Contracting and Logistics businesses. Tansel holds an MBA from Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, an M.Sc. in Biomedical Physics with a specialty in Pharmacology from the University of Toronto, and a B.Sc., in Biochemistry from McMaster University. A Canadian citizen, Tansel is married with 3 children and is fluent in English and Turkish.

Edward is the Project Lead at Empire Play, a department within Empire Entertainment that focuses on producing Arabic Esports content in the MENA region and localizing & distributing international gaming & Esports content. He joined Empire Play at its launch in 2018. Currently, he is responsible for building company`s relations with global game developers & publishers.

Among most recent success stories in that direction, are Empire Play`s cooperation with RIOT Games in bringing the first VALORANT Ignition Series round to the MENA region and Empire Play`s Arabic broadcast of the full Esports calendar of Hearthstone & World of Warcraft with Blizzard Entertainment. In addition, Edward is also responsible for expanding the list of international tier-1 Esports events that Empire Play covers in Arabic. Empire Play broadcasted recent “WeSave! Charity Play” Dota 2 tournament and have announced the Arabic coverage of the “Omega League”, a $550,000 Dota 2 league organized by Epic Esports Events. He also supervises all online & offline tournaments organized by Empire Play in the MENA region.

Paul Latto, Partner, currently on secondment to Alshahrani AlMansour in Saudi Arabia.

Paul is based on the ground in Riyadh, however, he also spends a significant amount of time in the UAE and advises on cross-border, including UAE, mandates. Paul has experience across a broad spectrum of banking and finance transactions and has led many of the largest and often innovative finance transactions undertaken in the region.

Paul acts for an impressive list of clients including FinTech clients as well as regional and international banks. Paul's recent advice in relation to FinTech includes advising on a regional FinTech sandbox application to establish a market-first P-2-P lending platform. 

Jeremy Lustman leads DLA Piper’s Israel Country Group. Spending much of his time on the ground in Tel Aviv, Jeremy has developed a strong international network of Israeli companies, investors, entrepreneurs, bankers, accountants and local lawyers. He coordinates and leads DLA Piper's development efforts and initiatives in Israel cultivating international business emanating from Israel, serving as a liaison for Israeli clients seeking legal guidance in non-Israeli jurisdictions where DLA Piper has a presence, and providing guidance to non-Israeli clients evaluating business relationships and strategic partners. Jeremy’s experience covers virtually all sectors of the Israeli economy, including leading venture capital and private equity funds, institutional real estate investors and multiple companies in the biotech, high tech (software, Internet and semiconductors), telecommunications, industrial, food/beverage, agro-tech, defense, homeland security and gaming sectors.

Yifat Oron is the co-founder and CEO of LeumiTech, Leumi Group's high-tech arm. In the past 6 years, she has built LeumiTech to be the leading banking platform serving Israel's technology sector. Under her leadership, LeumiTech has developed a comprehensive portfolio of high-tech-specific banking products, as well as a strong ecosystem of relationships with leading investors and service providers, to support both startups and growth companies in all their financing needs. Yifat serves as the Head of Leumi's Innovation Committee and a board member at Leumi Partners.

Yifat has twenty years of experience working with technology companies. Prior to founding LeumiTech, Yifat was a Partner at Vertex Venture Capital, where she invested in and served as a board member of early-stage technology companies in the Semiconductor, Enterprise Software, Healthcare and Cleantech sectors.

Before joining Vertex, Yifat was a Technology investment banking associate at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York, where she analyzed mergers and acquisitions, equity offerings, fixed income and syndicated financings. Previously, she spent three years at the Directorate of R&D of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, achieving the rank of Lieutenant in the Economics, Budget & Control Department.

Yifat is a sought-after speaker in industry gatherings, and a well-regarded mentor to technology companies at all life-stages, from inception to IPO.

Yifat holds an M.B.A. from Tel-Aviv University and a B.Sc. in Economics and Management from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology.

Padma has been with TechM since 2006, and has played multiple roles in the company. She currently heads the global consulting team at Tech Mahindra, which is engaged in business consulting, as well as technology and business process advisory & re-engineering services.  In her digital role, Padma is responsible for the growth of digital business at Tech Mahindra. 

She was a leader and sponsor of Tech Mahindra’s digital transformation program launched in 2016: a comprehensive change program that transformed everything in the company from front-end sales and solutions, to the 100,000 strong workforce. This led to Tech Mahindra being recognized as the top services company in the Forbes 100 list of global public firms that are impacting the digital economy for 2018.

In 2009, Padma moved to the then newly acquired Satyam organization, to lead the post-acquisition program, and the integration activities between Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam. 

In March 2020, Padma was featured on Forbes Magazine’s India Women Power list of Self-Made Women for 2020. 

Mark Radcliffe's practice is split evenly between corporate securities (particularly venture capital transactions) and intellectual property licensing and strategy. He works with technology companies and companies that use technology throughout the world. Currently, he is particularly focused on the use of blockchain technology and the use of tokens for capital formation and implementing new business models.

Mark has been working in Silicon Valley for over 30 years and has worked on over 1,000 venture capital transactions. He has significant experience in applying the law to the issues raised by new technologies, such as open source software, blockchain, IoT and domain names. For example, in 1994, he assisted Network Solutions, Inc. in developing the first domain dispute resolution system which is still the basis for the system in use today. His clients range from Fortune 500 such as Oracle Corporation and Sony Corporation to unknown startups. Currently, he and his team work with over 50 startups. He has worked across a wide variety of industries, including software (in particular open source software), blockchain, IoT, semiconductor, consumer electronics, content licensing (from music to characters), and medical devices.

"Probably the best lawyer in his field," client quoted in The Legal 500 United States

Eyad Ramlawi is Vice President & Chief Investment Officer at Alturki Holding and Managing Director of Alturki Ventures.

With over two decades of executive managerial experience, Eyad Ramlawi has been a driving force of growth and transformation at Alturki Holding. He joined the company as a Chief Strategy and Finance Officer back in 2012. In 2014, he assumed a Managing Director role for one of the major subsidiaries where he accelerated the company's growth. He also took various board member positions within the group and led significant acquisitions and divestments.

His remarkable professional journey started with a leading position at Deloitte in both the GCC and the USA. He held multiple senior executive-level positions at a number of investment companies such as National Holding in Abu Dhabi.

His extensive repertoire of unique operational, investment management, and leadership skills make him one of the most insightful strategy executives in his field, which is why he started working as a mentor at Endeavor in 2017.

Eyad Ramlawi holds an EMBA from CASS Business School – City University of London and is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Phil is a globally experienced and award-winning entrepreneur and VC investor. He has also spent over 25 years in a variety in-house General Counsel roles and private practice. He is a non-executive Board Director of multiple local and international tech companies.

Professionally, he is a well-known and long-respected legal and regulatory specialist in the ME region and recognised as a legal and regulatory expert in his core fields of communications, digital platforms and content, Fintech, AI, ML and robotics.

Seasoned in demanding pivotal roles in regulated industries and emerging markets, he has worked in multiple geographically disparate and multicultural environments. He is  well recognized for having started the Virgin Mobile Middle East and Africa group of companies in 2006 and held “C” level and NED posts for over 9 years. He previously held Executive Director-level posts in three Fortune 500 global communications companies, was a Director level regulator for 3 years with the Australian telecommunications and competition regulators.

Phil most recently broke new ground  by co-founding Pyypl Group Ltd in the UAE in 2016. Pyypl, a regional Fintech pioneering entity, uses cloud-based blockchain technology and machine learning to deliver multiple digital financial services from a single mobile phone App focusing on solutions for under-developed emerging markets. Pyypl’s core customer market is the almost 1bn under-banked citizens within the MEA region.

Educated in Australia (University of Melbourne and University of Canberra) and the U.K. (Queen Mary College, University of London), he holds a Master of Laws (Melb.) specializing in technology and communications law and has numerous additional postgraduate academic and professional qualifications. He is admitted to practice as a barrister and solicitor in 3 jurisdictions including the High Court of Australia.

He is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (MAICD), the Institute of Directors (MIoD),  the Law Society of New South Wales and various professional information associations and societies. He has been a member of the UAE DIFC Courts of the Future Working Group since its inception.

Jamie is a Dubai-based Partner with global law firm DLA Piper and heads DLA Piper’s Media Sport and Entertainment Sector in the Middle East. Jamie is ranked as one of the leading TMT lawyers in the UAE by the independent legal directories (both Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners) and has built a solid reputation in the market based upon the breadth of his practice and the consistent quality of his work for a range of UAE-based and international clients. 

Jamie regularly advises major broadcasters and media organisations in addition to international film studios and rights holders, major event hosting entities, and converged media and telecommunications companies on an on-going basis across a range of issues, including content acquisition and distribution agreements (both scripted content and sports rights), sponsorship agreements, digital content and video games platform roll-outs and marketing, media production and financing arrangements and a variety of regulatory and compliance issues.

Khalid is a FinTech entrepreneur and advisor. He is a Board Member of Oqal – Bahrain Chapter, which is the largest and most active angel investing network in the GCC. He is also a Board Member of CoinMENA, a fully-regulated crypto assets exchange. Additionally, he is a Member of the Finance, Insurance & Tax Committee of the Bahrain Chamber. He was previously the Founding CEO of Bahrain FinTech Bay, which is the largest FinTech platform in the MENA region bringing together around 100 different stakeholders from the public and private sector.

Prior to that, he was a Business Development Manager in the Bahrain Economic Development Board focusing on promoting Bahrain's financial services sector and attracting new investments into the sector. He also worked in Ernst & Young’s advisory practice and in SEI in London, within the investment management unit. Khalid has attained his bachelor’s degree from the University of Exeter (First Class Honours) and Master’s Degree from Imperial College London, both in the United Kingdom.

Will is Head of DLA Piper's Corporate Group in the Middle East. Based in the UAE for over ten years, Will Seivewright advises clients on mergers and acquisitions (both public and private) in the Middle East and internationally, with a particular focus on cross-border matters, joint ventures, private equity and venture capital transactions. Having practiced in several of the world's leading financial centres, including New York, London and Hong Kong, prior to moving to the UAE, Will brings a global perspective and a collaborative approach to provide clients with practical and innovative solutions.

Courtenay is a Director at Control Risks and leads the business intelligence practice for  Middle East and North Africa. He has more than 20 years of experience in the public and private sectors focusing on security and intelligence issues. In particular, Courtenay has extensive experience in delivering business intelligence, due diligence and corruption investigations to clients in frontier and emerging markets. 

Prior to joining Control Risks, Courtenay worked for a leading multinational accounting firm, leading  its corporate intelligence practice for the Middle East and North Africa. Prior to this, Courtenay managed the Asia operations of an Australian security advisory firm. Courtenay has had a long career working on Middle East-related political and security issues. Before entering the private sector, he was employed with the Australian government for 13 years, including in a senior diplomatic posting to the Middle East. Courtenay holds an honours degree in engineering and has studied Arabic.

Emre is a shipping professional with 15 years of experience in several operational and commercial roles of leading global players, currently as a Director in Hapag Lloyd is leading the Middle East/ISC - Europe Trade team based in Dubai.

Leading teams with revenue optimization and pricing responsibilities for more than 9 years, he is passionate about the enhancements that new technologies are bringing to this field over the last decade.

Emre holds an Executive MBA Degree with distinction from INSEAD with a focus on strategies to enhance digital experience with an entrepreneurial mindset. He also holds B.Sc. Eng. In Civil Engineering from Istanbul Technical University.