Ankura welcomes senior trio to technology and forensics practice

26 October 2021 Consultancy-me.com

Ankura has bolstered its technology and forensics practice in the Middle East with a trio of senior professionals.

US-headquartered Ankura, which has around 1,500 consultants globally, has beefed up its Data & Technology division in the Middle East with the arrival of Paul Walker, Andrew Pimlott and Muthmainur Rahman. All three cross from a rival consultancy, and feature among a wave of seven recent senior hires across Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific.

“I am delighted to share that I have recently joined Ankura to lead the Data & Technology service line in EMEA and APAC,” Walker stated in a post on LinkedIn. “Over the years I have been fortunate enough to work with some incredible professionals in the technology space and together we have built market leading practices. Thank you to Ankura who shared our vision and ambition to both create a Data & Technology practice of the future.”

Paul Walker, Andrew Pimlott, Muthmainur Rahman, Ankara

 According to Walker, who was most recently based in Dubai as FTI Consulting’s head of Technology for the EMEA, the aim is to grow Ankura’s technology footprint across several jurisdictions, including in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The emphasis will be on building up the firm’s machine learning and artificial intelligence capacity, as Ankura looks to deliver automated services in areas around monitoring and early detection of non-compliance, risk, fraud, and financial and cyber crime.

Pimlott kicked off his career at KPMG in the UK before joining EY’s London forensics team two years later, gaining experience on engagements in the US, Europe, South Africa and Middle East en route to being made a partner. From there he joined the partnership of Deloitte, responsible for leading the firm’s Forensic Technology practice in Financial Advisory across the Middle East, before being recruited by FTI Consulting as a senior director in 2018.

Starting out at EY in London in 2007 following a BSc in Computer Science with King’s College (having since added and executive MBA from ESMT Berlin), Rahman spent a decade at the Big Four firm steadily rising the ranks until his appointment as director in forensic technology in 2016, with a focus on forensics data analytics specialised in financial crime. Since 2018, he has been a senior managing director at FTI Consulting in Dubai.

Fellow senior managing director appointees in Ankura’s Data & Technology division include Christopher Marks in APAC, Ankura country leader Amit Jaju in India, and Brian Stuart and Simon Placks in the UK.

“We are delighted to have welcome an exceptional group of talented professionals to our EMEA and Asia offices where their broad expertise across a number of sectors and specialisations will provide immense value to our clients,” said Ankura’s Global Head of Data and Technology, Olaf Larson, who joined the firm from Accenture at the beginning of last year. “We are excited to have them onboard and to help us drive our focus on data and technology.”