Judges
Karen Jones
Citywealth
Editor & CEO
Karen founded Citywealth after a career at News International, The Times, and Sunday Times in the legal, financial and recruitment sections. She also ran the Legalease flagship title Legal Business/Asia Pacific Legal 500, and launched Legal Business Awards and Legal 500 parties. Karen then took over In Brief magazine, where she grew the organisation from a buyout where it had gone bankrupt to a successful £500,000-a-year publishing and events business. Her work as a Citywealth CEO was recognised by four New York Stevie Awards: Women helping women (2014, 2015), Innovator of the year (2015), and Entrepreneur of the year (2015)
Riccardo Barone
Tavecchio & Associati
Partner
Riccardo is a Partner at Tavecchio & Associati, boutique tax firm based in Milan and top ranked by Chambers and Partners HNWI (Tax Advisors). Riccardo advises private clients, entrepreneurs, and executives on their domestic and international estate, tax, and legal matters. Specializes on developing solutions related to cross-border tax and wealth structuring and to relocations from and to Italy. Comprehensively advises clients on estate and succession planning as well as on income, wealth, estate, gift, and real estate taxation matters. He was voted 2022 Citywealth Future Leaders Partner of the Year IFC.
Sam Ahuja
Schillings
Partner
Sam Ahuja has over a decade of experience specialising in the field of reputation and privacy and brings a wealth of commercial experience to Schillings’ legal team.
Sam’s work spans a range of defamation, privacy and commercial issues for both high net worth individuals and international corporate clients. He also has a particular focus on the tech and fintech sectors, having formerly worked as Senior Legal Counsel at Revolut. In that role, he built out a number of reputation resilience processes as well as advised on how best to tactically engage with the media and contain information risks.
Sam is particularly experienced in advising corporates and high net worth individuals operating in multiple jurisdictions, as well as working closely with founders, entrepreneurs and early-stage start-ups.
Aware of the increasing importance of online reputation for organisations, Sam also focuses on ensuring his clients’ digital profiles are resilient and able to withstand attack. Sam was awarded Gold for ‘Lawyer of the Year – Partner’ at the Citywealth Future Leaders Awards 2022.
Mark O’Neill
Affinity Group Limited
Group Commercial Manager
Mark joined Affinity in 2013, and spent three years in the accounts department before moving to the administration team. Mark initially worked within our yachting sector portfolio, before moving to the eGaming team.
Marks experience assisting clients in the gaming sector led him to become Manager for the eGaming team. Mark oversaw the egaming team grow from 2 to 10 team members, and applied his expertise and leadership skills to guide the team to provide an excellent level of service.
Mark has also worked within our Fintech client portfolio, which has involved him working on a number of innovative cases.
In 2022, Mark joined the Group function as Group Commercial Manager which involves him developing our business across our key sectors, including egaming, fintech and yachting. Mark frequently attends various conferences around the world and local events to present Affinity as a leading multi-jurisdictional Corporate Service Provider.
Mark’s role also involves him commercially analysing our markets to identify opportunities to expand our Group in new sectors and jurisdictions.
Hiral Kanzaria
Rawlinson & Hunter
Director
Hiral is an experienced Director based in Rawlinson & Hunter LLP’s Business Tax Group and provides tax advisory and compliance services to a diverse range of clients. Clients range through from owner managed SMEs to large multinational groups; and he advises on a range of tax areas, including corporate structuring and restructuring, employee share schemes, tax risk management, R&D tax incentives and international taxation.
In addition, Hiral advises on transactional / mergers and acquisitions tax; and has advised on a number of buy and sell side transactions, principally in the technology and real estate sectors. This has included undertaking tax due diligence, advising on transaction structuring and also advising shareholders on the tax implications of transactions.
He is an Associate of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, and an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation.
Iwan Williams
Shakespeare Martineau
Partner
Iwan has a deep knowledge of all aspects of estate and succession planning and has extensive experience of advising high net worth individuals and business-owning families in relation to a wide range of succession and tax matters.
In particular, he works closely with landed estate owners, their trustees and professional advisers in relation to a range of taxation, trust and succession planning advice, acting as an integral part of the ongoing client relationship.
He also advises rural business owners and wealthy entrepreneurs on tax and estate planning issues, including passing assets to the next generation tax efficiently whilst retaining proper provision and control for the current generation. He continues to advise extensively on the establishment and ongoing management of several “Balfour” style partnership arrangements and the restructuring of estates to maximise tax efficiency.
Iwan was awarded the Silver award in the “Lawyer of the Year – Partner” category at the Citywealth Future Leaders Awards 2022. He is named as a key lawyer in Legal 500 2023 for Agriculture and Estates and was named one of eprivateclient’s Top 35 Under 35 in 2020.
He is a full member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.
Kate Stovold
Levison Meltzer Pigott
Partner
Working at a boutique family law practice in London, Kate specialises in the resolution of private family law matters, with a focus on financial claims arising on divorce or separation. Kate is also experienced in the negotiation and drafting of pre and post-nuptial agreements. Complementing her specialist knowledge of financial litigation, Kate also advises parents in relation to disputes about the care of and financial provision for their children. Kate has experience in acting for parents who are seeking to move the family to another part of the country or abroad.
Kate is regularly recognised in the legal directories in which she is commended for her “bespoke and pragmatic strategy”, “effortless class” and as being a “joy to work with for her complete commitment and passion”.
In 2022, Kate won two awards at Citywealth’s Future Leaders Awards: Family Partner of the Year – Gold and Outstanding Individual of the Year – Silver.
Peter Turnbull
RBC Brewin Dolphin
Wealth Adviser, Assistant Director
Peter joined RBC Brewin Dolphin in 2018 and is a Wealth Adviser in the 1762 team. He provides clear and comprehensive financial advice to private individuals and their families regarding pensions, investment strategies, income planning, estate planning, and life and income protection.
Peter is a member of Resolution and has experience writing expert witness reports in relation to financial claims arising from divorce. He is uniquely placed to assist family lawyers and their clients, providing advice on both a pre-settlement and a post-settlement basis. Peter is also regularly appointed as a shadow expert to assist with pension sharing cases involving complex lifetime allowance issues.
In 2022, Peter won the Gold award at Citywealth’s Future Leaders Awards: Financial Advisory Individual of the Year.
Lorna du Sautoy
BDB Pitmans
Legal Director
Lorna advises high net worth individuals on the legal aspects of the acquisition and sale of prime and super prime London residential property and other luxury property assets including country mansions and estates, racing stables, vineyards, country house hotels, golf clubs and more. She also advises on the legal aspects of construction, design and development of property and secured lending transactions. Her international client base includes high net worth individuals and their companies, overseas and institutional investors, family offices, charities, banks and trusts. Lorna works closely with agents, brokers, planners, developers, lenders and other bodies and is passionate about providing practical, responsive and commercial advice.
Emma Nash
Rayden Solicitors
Partner
Emma is a Partner with Rayden Solicitors and is a family solicitor and commentator with over 10 years of experience in private family law and international family law. She has been writing about family law since before she qualified and is regularly featured in mainstream and legal media. For the last 2 years she has been listed as a recommended lawyer in Spears500 and in the CityWealth Leaders List. In 2021, she launched The Family Law Language Project, a project to help make family law more accessible and reduce conflict by improving the understanding and use of language.
Niall Gallagher
Evelyn Partners
Associate Director
Niall Gallagher is an experience investment manager with Evelyn Partners, having joined the business in 2018. He co-manages a diverse client book consisting of: private client families, corporate pension schemes, and family OEICs. He joined the industry in 2009, having spent time at Close Brothers and Brewin Dolphin.
As a member of the investment research team, Niall leads on the global insurance sector, and is a CFA charter holder. He also works on the AIM Portfolio Service and has experience across a variety of sectors and asset classes. He was awarded the Editor’s Choice in the 2022 Citywealth Future Leaders awards.