Paving the way for Women in Tax

The SPOKE team caught up with GFG Alliance’s very own trailblazers, Ola Barreto Morley – Head of Family Office – Tax, and Aparna Lakshminarasimhan – Transfer Pricing Director – Tax, who have started the first Women’s Tax Community in the Middle East, as a way of giving a platform to women working in all spheres of tax, to exchange ideas and knowledge, through a supportive network that connects women, promotes the sharing of ideas.  

1. Why did you set up the Women’s Tax Community?

Aparna – When Ola and I got together at GFG, we connected at a uniquely different level – one that involved shared experiences, admiration and learnings as women (and as moms) in leadership positions and in Tax. We wanted to extend our shared experience and connection to more like-minded persons that may want to associate with us, share with us their journeys and inspire us too. Hence, we decided to test the waters by first launching Women’s Tax Community – UAE (initially on LinkedIn) as a forum to connect for other women who resonate with our story and feel they can get value from the community we are trying to build.

Ola also arranged for us to connect with the original pioneers, Women in Tax (WIT), UK who were extremely supportive and encouraging of this initiative and guided us how to start and keep this activity going.

With the UAE gearing up for the much-anticipated corporate tax law, we thought the time was right to launch such a forum in the UAE.

2. What has the response been?

Ola – We have had a reasonably good response, most of our current members are heads of tax functions in their respective organisations or practice tax leaders in consulting. We have also had some of our closest male colleagues join the forum as a show of their support. Either way, we are happy with the response that we are receiving and are hoping to expand the reach of our community more as word spreads through the professional community.

3. What are your aspirations with building this community for women?

Ola – Women’s Tax Community is intended as a collaborative space that will offer networking/mentoring opportunities to empower, support and develop women working in Tax – whether in-house, in practice as advisors, as self-employed or with governments/tax authorities.

4. What kind of activities are you looking to undertake?

Aparna – Our initial focus has been on launching this forum, communicating its launch and garnering membership. As a launch initiative, Ola and I will be speaking about this forum and its objectives at the “UAE Tax Forum” to be in held in Dubai on the 15^th of February 2022. Additionally, we would look to undertake:

• Posting articles/thought leadership material on tax topics relevant to our members
• Encouraging our members to post about their own experiences, events, and thoughts – all in the space of relevance to women working in tax in the Middle East region.
• Creating opportunities for collaboration – in the business or mentoring space – for members.

Our members are encouraged to start activities or initiatives of their own and we believe through the combined creativities of all our members, we will be witnessing a much wider range of activities for the forum than those listed above.

5. What is the profile of women you are targeting?

Ola – We hope to connect and bring within our group – all women working in the tax function across all levels based in the UAE or in the larger Middle East region. We believe that an initiative such as this will benefit from the participation of a wider group of allies including men. Hence, men who are supportive of the cause are also welcome to join.