Secrets of Successful Tax Leadership in MENA's Tech Industry | Stuart Ramsay
Stuart Ramsay, now Director and Group Head of Tax at AD Ports Group (note: episode was filmed while he was still at Dubizzle Group), joined us to discuss building a strategic in-house tax function from scratch in a fast-growing MENA tech company. In this episode, he shares:
• A major leadership challenge (moving from a 50 000-employee logistics giant to a 5 000-employee tech scale-up with no existing tax team) and how he solved it through a “mini tax due-diligence” in his first 30 days.
• Real-world results, including cutting potential compliance filings from 100 to 12 through entity rationalisation and introducing private GPT translation that saves roughly $200 and three days per Arabic tax return.
• Best practices for UAE corporate tax Day 1 readiness, VAT specialisation, and low-budget tech adoption that other in-house teams can replicate.
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Where to find Stuart Ramsay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-ramsay/
Where to find Stevi Frooninckx: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevifrooninckx
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In this episode, we cover:
(0:00) Intro and Stuart’s journey from Glasgow to Dubai
(4:03) Why the GCC moved from 5 % VAT to a 9 % corporate tax
(18:25) Pillar II plus UAE CT: using one data set for both regimes
(32:27) From DP World to Dubizzle: smaller company, bigger influence
(40:05) The power of saying “I don’t know” to win executive trust
(42:18) Mini tax due-diligence: a 30-day map of filings and risks
(43:45) Filling blind spots: hiring a VAT specialist and adding AI translation
(47:15) Two career rules: balance hard-soft skills and embrace change
(54:02) Final advice and closing
