Hani Ashkar is the Territory Senior Partner for the Middle East region of PwC, which comprises the GCC, Levant and North Africa. He is a member of PwC’s global Strategy Council, which is chaired by PwC Global Chairman Mohamed Kande and which agrees on the strategic direction of the PwC network and facilitates alignment for the execution of strategy. Hani also represents the Middle East on the EMEA Leadership Team. He joined PwC in 1994 and was admitted as a partner in 2004.

Prior to his appointment as Senior Partner for the ME, Hani led the growth of our Deals business into its market leading position, adding business recovery, forensic, deals strategy, corporate finance and capital projects and infrastructure services to our leading transaction services practice. Hani has also led our practice in Saudi Arabia and is currently the country senior partner for the United Arab Emirates. Hani started his career with PwC as an auditor, before completing a secondment to London, where he specialised in transaction services for private equity and corporate buyers and also participated in a number of flotations.

Hani has advised numerous regional and multinational corporate and private equity investors on mergers and acquisitions across the Middle East region, with a particular emphasis on Saudi Arabia and the GCC. Over the years, he has been involved in hundreds of transactions involving a cross section of industries. Hani is an active board member on regional external boards in the ME region including the AIWF (www.aiwfonline.com), which supports and enhances the role of women in the social and economic development of the Arab region, and the Pearl Initiative (www.pearlinitiative.org) and the Board Directors Institute (http://www.gccbdi.org) which help to create a corporate culture of accountability and transparency in the GCC. He is a graduate of McGill University in Canada and is a fluent Arabic and English speaker.