Our leadership team

Samar is a PwC Partner and PwC Academy Middle East Leader with more than twenty two years of experience in driving transformation, building organisational capabilities at scale, and leading talent and executive development.

Samar is an expert in leading the workforce transformation agenda. She has extensively worked with global clients and across the Middle East on learning strategy formulation, executive coaching and talent development, succession planning, transformational leadership and digital learning solutions.

Samar’s driving force as a leader is to create an ecosystem built on care, collaboration and trust to help people unlock their potential and create a positive impact on their lives. She passionately advocates lifelong learning, and is committed to fostering a culture of continuous development through equal opportunities to all for skills-based learning.

Gavin is a PwC Partner and Professional Development Head with 25+ years of experience as an upskilling and assessment specialist.  

Gavin is an expert in the development of learning journeys for organisations and individuals, assessment and certification development and a finance and leadership expert. Before joining PwC Academy, he served as Director of Qualifications for ICAEW and as Director of Finance and Tax programmes for BPP Professional Education.Gavin has delivered training programmes to 30,000+ students and delegates from 3,500+ organisations across the globe.  

Taimur is a PwC Partner and Professional Qualifications Head with 18+ years of experience in the professional education sector and investment management industry.

Taimur leads the professional qualifications and certifications team that delivers a wide range of globally recognised qualifications to organisations and individuals. He specializes in designing and developing training programmes aimed at building skills and competencies and has been instrumental in introducing professional qualifications pathways in public and private sector organisations in the GCC. Taimur is a veteran in finance and investment management disciples and has upskilled thousands of delegates across the region.  

Mary is a Director with 20+ years of experience in professional services firms as a multi-skilled leader with a proven track record in achieving tangible business outcomes.

Mary leads the Regional Operations and Project Management function and specialises in the Academy’s operational excellence, resourcing, compliance, and organisational restructuring initiatives. Before this, she managed a portfolio of PwC multinational audit clients in the Middle East as part of the Assurance lines of service. Mary is a CPA specialised in Audit and Assurance and has trained for qualifications such as CPA and ACCA.

Essa is a Director with 15+ years of experience in Technology implementation, Digital upskilling and E-learning.

Essa specialises in advising clients on emerging technologies, IT, cyber and data privacy training. Before joining PwC Academy, Essa was involved in different application development, integration and business process automation projects. Essa leads all digital upskilling solutions and has managed several e-learning, technology development and implementation projects for public and private sector clients across the GCC.   

Kavita is the Head of Learning Solutions at PwC Academy Middle East with over 15 years of experience in learning, development, education, and programme management. She leads the learning solutions hub, content development team and is responsible for the design of bespoke learning journeys for clients. Having worked in service organisations for over 15 years in Canada, UK and UAE, she has extensive experience in learning, talent development, and education business management. Her areas of expertise include designing and commercialising new products and bespoke development programmes, leadership development, project management and oversight, people and experience management, transformation and strategy implementation.