IA Tax Conference 2026: Realignment in Real-Time

Alan Paterson, Head of Indirect Tax, aberdeen

Alan Paterson is the Head of Indirect and Operational Taxes at aberdeen having been with the company for the last eight years.

Alan graduated from Sheffield University with a Masters Degree in Mathematics and subsequently qualified as a Chartered Tax Adviser at PwC in Edinburgh. Over a thirteen year career at PwC in London and Sydney, Alan worked with a broad range of Financial Services clients on VAT, GST and other indirect tax matters

Alan is the current Chair of the IA VAT Committee, and has spent recent months in that role engaging with both HM Treasury and HMRC around the conclusion of the Investment Management VAT Review. Alan is a member of the EFAMA VAT Taskforce.

Anzhela Popova, Head of Tax Product, Citi Custody

Anzhela is responsible for developing and driving custody tax product strategy and roadmap globally. Anzhela has an extensive tax advisory experience having worked for EY in three different countries with a heavy focus on providing tax advisory support to custodians, asset owners (including sovereigns) and asset managers. Anzhela represents Citi at various industry committees, including UK Finance, AGC and AFME, and is a member of a working group on EU FASTER Directive. She has also written for the specialist tax press on several topics including the OECD’s TRACE regime.

Alison Lockyer, Senior Policy Advisor, Stamp Taxes on Shares, HMRC

Alison is co-lead for the Stamp Taxes on Shares Modernisation project in HMRC and has been working in this role for 6 years. In that time she has, developed the policy thinking with input from the joint industry working group, the legislation for the Securities Transfer Tax (STT), and driven the work across HMRC to initiate and develop the delivery of the digital service for reporting and payment of STT.
Alison joined HMRC from the Department for Transport (DfT) where she worked in various policy roles within the maritime directorate including spearheading the women in maritime initiative in partnership with industry and being the stakeholder lead for London International Shipping Week. Prior to working in DfT she had worked across various government departments over many years undertaking policy, project and programme management and finance roles.

Anshita Joshi, Head of Tax for Europe, Vanguard

Anshita Joshi is Head of Tax for Europe at Vanguard, responsible for leading tax strategy, governance, and risk management across the Vanguard European Group and its managed funds.

She joined Vanguard in April 2025, following seven years at the Investment Association as Director of Risk and Tax, where she shaped policy on UK, EU, and international tax and regulatory matters impacting the investment management industry.

Prior to that, Anshita spent over a decade at PwC in asset management tax roles across the UK and India. With over 20 years of experience, Anshita brings deep technical expertise and a global perspective to her work. She is an active contributor to industry dialogue through technical and policy-focused working groups.

Benjamin Angel, Director TAXUD, EU Commission

His career includes positions as Director for indirect taxation (DG TAXUD), Director for the Treasury and financial operations (DG ECFIN), Director for the economies of the Member States (DG ECFIN), Head of unit for financial institutions and stability mechanisms (DG ECFIN). He is a former member of the cabinet of three Commissioners for economic and monetary affairs (Yves-Thibault de Silguy, Pedro Solbes and Joaquin Almunia). He has a master’s in business administration from HEC Paris, a master’s in public administration from Sciences-Po Paris, a master’s in political science (University Paris Assas) and a PhD in law (University Paris Assas).

Chris Hewitt, Head of Tax, The Investment Association

Chris is the Head of Tax at the Investment Association.  He has worked at the UK Investment Management trade body since 2020.  His role includes responsibility for all tax-related policy areas of the organisation; including Withholding Taxes, VAT, Corporation Tax, Stamp, Capital Gains Tax and he supports on wider product related initiatives like Individual Savings Accounts, Pensions, Tokenisation and UK Investment Funds.

Dan Evans, Partner, PwC

Daniel Evans is a Partner who joined PwC’s VAT practice in 2004 and leads PwC’s VAT services in the Asset and Wealth Management sector. He is a prizewinning member of the Chartered Institute of Tax and an active member of the Investment Association’s VAT Committee.

Supporting a substantial number of businesses across the financial services sectors, primarily in Asset Management and Pensions, Daniel advises multinational mainstream asset managers, UK focussed wealth and alternatives managers and acts for many of the UK’s largest pension schemes. Daniel has led PwC's input in the HMRC guidance review consultations, and hosts PwC's monthly FS VAT update session.

Daniel Taylor, Deputy Director and VAT Technical Lead, HMRC

Daniel Taylor is the Deputy Director and VAT technical lead within HMRC’s VAT Policy team. He is responsible for Reliefs, Deductions, Financial Services and Overseas Repayments. Daniel has over thirty years’ experience within HMRC, of which over twenty years has been spent in VAT policy. This has included place of supply of services policy, as well as negotiating on EU Exit and the Windsor Framework.  Daniel is a Chartered Tax Adviser.

David Currie, Global Head of Indirect Tax and Transfer Pricing, BlackRock

David Currie is BlackRock's Global Head of Indirect Tax and Transfer Pricing. David is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland ("ICAS"), a Fellow member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation ("CIOT") and has a postgraduate MSc by Research (Taxation) degree from The University of Birmingham for his dissertation on 'The VAT exemption for the management of Special Investment Funds: a review of their design, impact and alternatives'. David is a member of Investment Association’s (“IA”) VAT Committee and Tax Strategy Group, the European Fund and Asset Management Association’s (“EFAMA”) VAT Task Force , the Irish Funds VAT Working Group, and the ICAS Tax Board.

David Wren, Partner - Operational Tax, KPMG

David has worked in operational taxes and information reporting for 20 years. His work includes tax policy, business change and implementation of technology, through to reporting, remediation, and engagement with tax authorities. He has extensive experience of implementing tax technology for reporting, governance, and reconciliation purposes.

David advises on a wide range of operational tax issues, including all aspects of Automatic Exchange of Information for banks, asset managers, digital platforms and cryptocurrency, withholding taxes under the US QI regime, international reclaims and reporting, and domestic regimes in the UK including savings and pensions.

David leads the UK’s Financial Services work on anti-tax evasion and the UK’s Corporate Criminal Offence requirements and supports clients with developing risk mitigation and control frameworks to manage both customer tax evasion and tax avoidance risks.

David has an increasing focus on new reporting regimes including crypto assets, withholding taxes and fintechs as well as the role of the financial services sector in successful anti-tax evasion.

Gabby Donald, VAT Director, BNY

Gabby is responsible for VAT for Bank of New York for the UK and EMEA and has over 20 years of experience in financial services VAT focussing, in particular, on the asset management and banking sectors. Gabby is also the chair of the Chartered Institute of Taxation’s Indirect Taxes Committee and representative at the Joint VAT Consultative Committee. In these roles and as a representative on the IA VAT Committee and UK Finance VAT Working Group, Gabby has been closely involved in UK VAT and Financial Services VAT policy development and advocacy, including the FS VAT Guidance re-write.

Gavin Kan, Partner, KPMG

Gavin is a Partner in the KPMG Asset Management Tax team. He joined KPMG in July 2023 after spending 9 years as Head of Product Tax at M&G Investments and was previously at another Big 4 firm. At KPMG, he supports clients with designing and structuring new fund products and operating them through the fund lifecycle – managing tax compliance, investor/investment tax related matters, and dealing with changes in tax law that impacted fund structures. Gavin supports a range of asset management clients including managers of public assets, private credit, infrastructure and private equity/venture capital, as well as institutional investors who make investments into managed funds.

Helen Miller, Director, The Institute of Fiscal Studies

Helen joined the IFS in 2007. She has almost two decades of experience analysing UK fiscal policy and providing trusted advice to policymakers.

Her work has been published in top peer reviewed journals and covered across all main media outlets. She is an excellent and experienced media commentator. She has served as a trustee to the Royal Economic Society.

Imran Razvi, Senior Policy Adviser, Pensions & Institutional Market, Policy, Strategy & Innovation, The Investment Association

Imran Razvi is Senior Policy Adviser, Pensions & Institutional Market at the Investment Association. Imran leads the Association's policy work on pensions and retirement, covering a range of topics in institutional investment management. Since 2019 Imran has worked on the development of the Long-Term Asset Fund regime and its operational implementation in the Defined Contribution pensions and retail markets as part of the Association's work to broaden investor access to private markets. Prior to the Investment Association, Imran began his career as an Economist at the Department for Work and Pensions before working as a senior policymaker on pensions reform at the Department.

Jez Schembri-Stothart, Head of Financial Services Taxation, HM Treasury

Jez is currently the Head of Financial Services Taxation at HM Treasury, which is part of the International & Corporate Tax division at 1 Horse Guards Road.

Prior to his current role he has worked in the Business and International Tax group as well as other tax and spending policy jobs across Treasury. Before joining Treasury he worked at the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office as part of the Civil Service Fast Stream.

Jo Crookshank, Partner, Simmons & Simmons

Jo leads the firm’s indirect tax financial services advisory practice and is also the lead tax partner for a number of financial services clients, including some of the world’s leading banks and investment advisers. She has more than 20 years of experience advising clients on complex domestic and cross-border tax issues, including thirteen years at a Big Four practice prior to joining Simmons & Simmons.

John Allan, Director of Innovation and Operations and Director of Engine, The Investment Association

John is responsible for the regulatory policy and FinTech work of the UK asset management trade body. The Innovation & Operations Unit aims to build the industry & innovation capacity through IA policy development on technological change, DLT, crypto and AI, as well as promoting fund modernisation and supporting firms on operational policy including resiliency and cyber security.

The Engine connects best-in-class FinTech innovators to forward-looking investment managers to transform how the world invests.

John Owen, CEO, The Investment Association

John Owen is Chief Executive of the Investment Association, bringing extensive experience across government and financial services. He joined the IA from EY, where he was a Partner in Financial Services Risk Consulting, advising firms on regulatory strategy.

Before this, John spent two decades in the civil service, holding senior roles across HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office and No10. From 2022 to 2025, he served as Director for Financial Services at HM Treasury, where he led the strategic direction of domestic financial services policy and oversaw delivery of the UK’s post‑Brexit regulatory framework. John was also Chief of Staff to the Cabinet Secretary, one of the most senior civil service advisers in No10.

Throughout his career, John has worked closely with ministers, senior regulators and officials, and business leaders, providing advice and strategic direction at the very highest level.

Kathy Vawter, Head of Asset Management Tax, Legal & General

Kathy is the Head of Asset Management Tax at L&G, where she has responsibility for all tax matters impacting the Asset Management division. Kathy is involved in international expansion, strategic planning for new product launches across public and private markets, as well as the tax operations of existing funds. Kathy has over 20 years’ tax experience, previously with Big 4 as well as at a custody bank. Kathy sits on the IA Tax Strategy Group and the Irish Funds International Tax Specialist Group.

Laura Allwright, Partner, Simmons & Simmons

Laura is a corporate tax partner in the London office of Simmons & Simmons. Her core clients are in the asset management, investment funds and financial institutions sectors. A significant part of her practice focuses on fund structuring, including carry and team co-invest, as well as advising the “house” on a range of tax issues – in particular, Laura is also an employment tax specialist with broad experience of structuring termination packages, cross-border assignments/relocations, consultancy arrangements, employee share acquisitions and more

Lucy Smith, Head of Product Taxes, Schroder Investment Management

Lucy has been specialising in asset management taxes since qualifying as a chartered accountant with Deloitte & Touche in 1998.  Following several years in-house at Threadneedle, Lucy has worked at Schroders for 19 years where she manages a team of specialists, who are responsible for supporting and advising the business on all areas of product and operational taxes across Schroders’ public asset fund range and the Cazenove wealth business.

Mariano Giralt, Global Head of Business Development and Strategy, RAQUEST

Mariano Giralt is the Global Head of Business Development and Strategy of the Tax Tech RAQUEST. Mariano is a Financial Services and Digital leader in the field of tax, and an International Tax Lawyer with strong focus on tax and regulatory solutions in Securities Services. With more than 25 years of experience, he worked at Bank of New York, JPMorgan and Cuatrecasas Law Firm where he covered various executive roles, including Global Head of Tax & Regulatory Services, Head of EMEA Digital, Regional Manager, and Tax Advisory. Mariano holds a Leadership Program at Cambridge University, a Masters in Finance from the London School of Economics; a Masters in Laws from Georgetown University, Washington DC; a Degree in Research in International Law from the University of Barcelona; a Degree in Tax Consultancy and Management from ESADE Law School Barcelona; and a Law Degree from the University of Zaragoza. Mariano is a frequent host, keynote speaker, moderator and panellist at leading industry conferences and events and has compiled several thought leadership papers and publications. 

Mark Kirwan, Investment Tax Manager, St James’s Place

Mark is the Investment Tax Lead for St James’s Place. Mark provides technical tax expertise and strategic guidance across SJP’s product range. Partnering with the business to ensure that investment solutions are aligned with tax legislation, regulatory requirements and clients’ needs.

Mark has 25 years’ experience in tax, the majority in Financial Services, across both industry and in practice with KPMG. He has specialised in Investment Taxes including global withholding taxes for the last 15 years.

Mark Pickard, Head of Savings Policy, HMRC

Mark Pickard joined the Treasury in 2013 and since 2021 has led HMRC’s Savings Policy team. Current work includes digitalising ISAs, reducing the cash ISA subscription limit, and considering the future design of the Help to Save scheme and First Time Buyer ISA.

Martin Killer, Partner, Financial Services Tax, Grant Thornton UK Advisory & Tax

Martin is an experienced tax partner with a demonstrated history of working in the financial services industry, advising banks, fund managers and insurance companies on operational taxes. Martin is a qualified chartered accountant. He is a leading advisor on FATCA, CRS, Qualified Intermediary and other information reporting regimes both within the UK and internationally including ISA, BBSI and OI requirements.

Martin has worked with a range of wealth and asset managers and stockbrokers, advising them on compliance in relation to global operational tax regimes, undertaking transaction due diligence, compliance reviews, implementation workshops and technical training. He also advises institutions on withholding tax reclaims and other transactional taxes impacting products and trading strategies.

Martin holds relationships with key personnel at HMRC and IRS, and financial trade bodies dealing with the implementation and ongoing monitoring of operational tax regimes.

Prior to joining Grant Thornton, Martin spent 21 years at two of the Big Four firms in their financial services tax practices advising on a range of tax issues in the UK and internationally. Martin previously led a compliance team within a global financial institution’s FATCA implementation programme.

Martin Shah, Senior Partner, Simmons & Simmons

Martin Shah is a Senior Partner in the corporate tax team at Simmons and leads the financial services tax practice. Martin’s broad-based practice encompasses advisory, transactional and disputes work, with an emphasis on clients in the asset management and investment funds sector. His focus includes advising on funds and other investment products, together with structural tax issues for banking, asset management and insurance clients. He also has extensive experience advising on tax issues arising from mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, integrations and spin-outs in the investment management and wealth management space. Martin is a member of the Tax Committee of the Law Society of England and Wales and chairs its VAT and Duties Sub-Committee. Clients praise him as “incredibly well rounded” and “extremely commercial'.

Mhairi Jackson, Head of Funds and Asset Management Policy, FCA

Mhairi Jackson leads the FCA’s Funds and Asset Management policy area, where she is responsible for setting and overseeing the policy direction for the UK asset management sector. She has overseen the development of the UK’s new fund authorised fund structure, the Long-Term Asset Fund, and has worked closely with the Bank of England in reviewing fund liquidity requirements.

Mhairi represented the UK at ESMA and is currently vice Chair of IOSCO’s Committee for Funds and Asset Management Policy. Prior to this, Mhairi reformed the UK retail derivatives market and was responsible for the implementation of areas of MiFID II.

Mhairi has extensive regulatory and risk experience of the asset management sector, having led the FCA fund supervision team, and worked in Advisory Compliance at State Street Global Advisors and Operational Risk at Man Group.

Rachel Vandervord, Head of Product Tax Europe, Vanguard

Rachel is European Product Tax Lead at Vanguard and has >10 years of experience within asset management tax. Rachel maintains responsibility for all tax matters impacting the Vanguard European fund range, providing strategic support on product launches and changes, as well as becoming heavily involved in operational taxes management. Before joining Vanguard, Rachel was a manager in the asset management tax team at Deloitte, specializing in investor tax reporting.

Richard Parkin, Head of UK Retirement, T. Rowe Price.

Richard is based in London and works with the firm’s distribution and investment teams in supporting clients with the design, development and implementation of retirement investment solutions and associated propositions. He also acts as a spokesperson on retirement for the firm in the UK.

Richard joined the firm in March 2026 having started his career as a defined contribution investment consultant in 1991 before moving into asset management. He has held senior product development and policy positions with UBS Global Asset

Management and Fidelity International. More recently he was head of retirement at BNY Investments having spent 5 years running his own strategy consultancy.

Richard has a degree in mathematics from the University of Warwick. He is also a non-executive director and Deputy Chair of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme and chairs the Investment Association’s Retirement Income Committee.

Roger Exwood, Senior Investment Tax Advisor, Pictet Asset Management

Roger has worked in asset management taxation since 1994. In roles for Deutsche Asset Management, UBS Asset Management, BlackRock and now Pictet Asset Management he has particularly focussed on product taxation (for both listed and private assets) , but also covered corporate, VAT and M&A tax aspects. He has held regional responsibility for Europe, Asia and Latin America. He has a long standing involvement in tax public policy work, covering issues round the world and working in particular with EFAMA, where has was chair of the tax committee for many years.

Ross Henderson, Commercial Director, S&P Global

Ross is a Commercial Director at S&P Global with more than 20 years of tax experience within the global financial services industry, supporting a variety businesses & product. Currently Ross is focused on new tax data solutions and digital tax transformation that is underway across the global eco-system.

Sarah Filbee, Head of Tax, Jupiter Asset Management

Sarah is the Head of Tax at Jupiter Asset Management with responsibility for global group and fund tax related matters. Sarah has over 30 years tax experience, having first qualified as a Chartered Accountant at PwC and later qualified as a Chartered Tax Advisor while at Lehman Brothers, where she worked as a Tax Director across various areas including Fund Taxes, VAT and Payroll for 9 years. Sarah is currently the Chair of the Tax Strategy Group at the Investment Association and previous Chair of the Tax Committee, as well as a member of the Irish Funds Association International Taxes Working Group.

Silvana Grossi, Senior Tax Product Manager, Northern Trust

Silvana Grossi is a Senior Tax Product Manager in Global Custody at Northern Trust, based in London. She leads Northern Trust’s Tax Product work on Germany’s MiKaDiv reform, focusing on practical requirements, operating model and vendor strategy to support relief at source, reclaims and reporting. 

Since March 2023, Silvana has been closely involved in MiKaDiv delivery across the industry. Prior to Northern Trust, she led Tax Operations Change and Platform Ownership for withholding tax at Morgan Stanley, including acting as program lead for MiKaDiv implementation across impacted entities. Before that, she held senior tax leadership roles at Bank of America, running tax operations teams and owning material change initiatives across withholding tax, including Qualified Intermediary (QI) reporting and compliance.

Suzi Evans, Managing Director, Alpine Edge Consulting

Suzi is a recognised expert in international transfer taxes such as UK stamp duty, stamp duty reserve tax and similar regimes overseas as they apply to the financial services industry. With over 20 years "Big 4" experience in London, Birmingham and Luxembourg, Suzi now runs her own consulting firm, Alpine Edge. With a deep specialism in global investment structures, Suzi’s work focusses on supporting institutional investors, investment managers, custodians and other asset servicers with in kind transitions such as complex (cross border) fund reconstructions and investor product switches. Suzi participated in the design of the UK Authorised Contractual Scheme and continues to support HMRC and HMT with the design of new UK Stamp Taxes on Shares and the IA tokenisation of funds initiative. As an active member of the UK Chartered Institute of Tax Advisors (CIOT), Suzi is a global conference speaker, published author and a member of both the UK Government’s Stamp Taxes on Shares Working Group and CIOT Stamp Tax Practitioners Group.

Theo Patsias, Executive Director, J. P. Morgan Asset Management

Theo has over 20 years asset management tax experience spanning six years at EY where he qualified as a Chartered Accountant prior to joining JPMorgan. As part of JPMorgan’s EMEA Corporate Tax team Theo has provided product tax advisory support for the Asset & Wealth Management and Fund Services businesses on all aspects of domestic and cross-border fund taxation and is now leading product tax advisory for the International Consumer Bank

Thomas Daffern, Tax Director, PwC United Kingdom

Tom has been a Director in the PwC Asset & Wealth Management Tax team since 2022, specialising in operational taxes matters impacting investment funds, managers, custodians and investors.

Prior to that, Tom was the Head of UBS Asset Management Tax – EMEA. The EMEA Head of Tax position covered all operational tax matters globally for over 500 funds domiciled principally in Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the UK. This included European investor tax reporting and technical analysis across all key investment jurisdictions for withholding tax, capital gains and transactions taxes.

Tom joined UBS in September 2018 and prior to that, he worked as an investment funds tax specialist at Northern Trust and Aviva Investors. Tom has been a Chartered Accountant for over 10 years and is a member of the Tax Committee at the UK Investment Association.