Partners & Directors

Farouk Mohamed

Farouk is Chairman for Grant Thornton, UAE. Besides the overall management of the firm, Farouk's client portfolio covers some of the biggest names in the country including; prominent multinational companies, some of the largest local public shareholding companies and many privately owned businesses.

Having long and varied business experience of more than 35 years, Farouk has particular interest in audit of financial institutions e.g. banks and insurance companies.

He has wide experience and exposure in assurance, tax and management consultancy services, including preparation of documentation and company structure for IPO and listing within the local and international financial markets.

Hisham Farouk

Hisham Farouk is the Managing Partner of Grant Thornton United Arab Emirates. His role encompasses the overall management of the business, business development, and assurance and advisory services in the UAE.

Hisham began his career in assurance services. He further went on to develop advisory capabilities for the firm. He has advised multinational, regional and local family businesses on a wide range of issues including compliance and regulatory matters, as well as conducted numerous valuation exercises, due diligence reports and feasibility studies.

Hisham is a registered auditor with the UAE Ministry of Economy and is a licensed insolvency practitioner with the DIFC and has acted as liquidator for multiple companies in the UAE.

Expertly acquainted and versed with efficient procedures and legalities of setting up businesses, Hisham is a highly recommended advisor to establishments in the UAE and its Free Zones

Hisham is a member of Corporate Finance Faculty and Young Arab Leaders - UAE Chapter.

Hisham is a sought-after public speaker and has presented speeches on a wide range of financial and business issues. He also finds time and give presentations to school groups and youth organizations. 

Bernard Tapera

Bernard is an audit partner and heads up the Assurance department at Grant Thornton UAE. He has extensive experience in the audit of diverse industries including construction, hospitality, manufacturing, airline and civil aviation and financial services. He looks after the audit of the firm's largest construction group with consolidated annual turnover in excess of US$ 1.7 billion.

Bernard specialises in audit and financial reporting services to our firm's US clients in manufacturing and financial services sector in a portfolio that includes significant SEC subsidiaries. Areas of expertise also include Sarbanes Oxley reporting, and preparation of US GAAP financial statements for non-audit clients.

Bernard provides advisory services for financial service clients registered with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). Such advisory responsibilities include acting as a compliance officer and leading on compliance audits carried on behalf of the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA). Other areas of expertise UK GAAP audit and financial reporting, Financial Services Authority (FSA) compliance reviews, PPP/PFI reviews and accounting evaluation.

Bernard sits on the Grant Thornton International (GTI) quality review team his responsibilities include reviewing other member firms within the network for compliance with GTI quality control requirements and making recommendations to address any issues.

Bernard is also the key contact for quality control relating to the Assurance department, liaison with external regulators, such as the Dubai Financial Services Authority and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Bryan Erwin J. Tenorio

Bryan Erwin J. Tenorio is an Audit Partner with 17 years of combined international experience in audit, accounting, and quality control. Mr. Tenorio comes from the Baltimore office of Grant Thornton USA and brings with him years of exceptional global experience in audits and quality control.

Mr. Tenorio has been with Grant Thornton USA for nearly 10 years, served both US publicly-listed and non-public companies in various industries. He also served as the divisional audit specialist for the Grant Thornton International (“GTI”) Asia-Pacific region from 2005 to 2008 and, later on, as one of the global quality control specialist for GTI from 2009 until this appointment.  He is a Certified Public Accountant and is licensed in the United States and the Republic of the Philippines.

Mr. Tenorio had worked for a big four firm in the US and also to a former big six firm in the Philippines before joining Grant Thornton USA.  He majored in accounting and graduated from San Beda College (Philippines) with a bachelor’s degree in commerce.  Recently, he took and completed advanced finance courses and earned credits towards a master’s degree in finance at Johns Hopkins University (USA).

Mohamad Nassar

Mohamad is Partner – Business Risk Services for Grant Thornton, UAE. He is a US certified professional as a CIA and CCSA in addition to being a Public Accountant. He has 19 years of professional experience in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE. He worked in Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young offices of Cairo, Jeddah and Dubai for about 10 years before joining the Dubai Government as an Internal Audit Manager for 4 years. Then he returned to Egypt in 2004 to join British Petroleum (BP) as the Internal Control & Assurance Manager for another 4 years.

Throughout his career Mohamad has been involved with a variety of engagements for various industries such as airport management, duty free, trading, manufacturing, oil & gas exploration and production, constructions, telecommunication, advertising, logistics, educational institutes and governmental authorities. Mohamad has established a number of internal audit functions for organizations that never had one before. He developed its charters, operational and technical manuals and organization charts. Mohamad has conducted many training courses in Egypt and the Gulf area in the areas of his specialization, viz., corporate governance, internal audits, fraud investigation and detection, risk assessment and management, in addition to his participation as a speaker in several international conferences in the same areas of his specialization.

Khurram Bhatti

Khurram Bhatti is an Audit Partner at Grant Thornton and spent seven years at Grant Thornton in Pakistan before transferring to the UAE. He is an Associate member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Pakistan, Associate member of Pakistan Institute of Public Finance Accountants, Member of Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment-UK for Islamic Finance Qualification and Master in Business Administration with major in Marketing.

Khurram leads real estate services department of the firm. He has varied experience of more than 10 years. He specializes in auditing of real estate projects, construction, government service organisations, insurance, financial institutions, manufacturing and trading industry, hospitality sector, media entertainment industry, automobile industry, metal trading, oil and gas sector and aviation industry. During his time with Grant Thornton in Pakistan, he headed all real estate sector clients. Other areas of expertise include specialist services including special agreed upon procedures, outsourced accounting, business advisory, feasibility studies, internal audit function, project valuations and forensic audits.

Khurram is an expert in Islamic Finance Consultancy and has thorough knowledge about the Islamic commercial ethics, Islamic corporate governance, Islamic financial techniques and assets and fund management.

Mandeep Singh

Mandeep has over 14 years of experience across consulting and line functions and has assisted clients across a range of market entry and growth strategy initiatives. He has also worked on various organizational development initiatives, including culture studies, leadership development, career management and competency assessment solutions. He is also one of the foremost experts in the field of employee engagement having completed over 400 assignments in around 21 countries.

Mandeep previously worked in Grant Thornton's India office where he was responsible for a variety of high profile consulting assignments.

Simi Nehra

Simi Nehra joined Grant Thornton to develop the Abu Dhabi practice. He has over 10 years experience in financial advisory services, including expertise in; corporate finance, due diligence, business valuations, M&A and debt advisory. Simi led several advisory mandates in the Middle East and North Africa region spanning various industry sectors. He has also provided transaction support to high profile IPOs on the UAE financial markets and advisory services to UAE government entities.

Prior to joining Grant Thornton UAE, Simi held senior roles in a regional investment banking team and a private equity business where he focused on corporate finance, private equity investments and project finance. Prior to this, he held the position of manager, M&A Advisory, at Deloitte Corporate Finance based in DIFC.

Simi is a Chartered Accountant (ACA) and Corporate Finance (CF) designate from the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales. Before he arrived in the Middle East region from London, he practiced alongside leading audit professionals with Ernst & Young.

Grant Salter

Grant is Director of the Hospitality, Tourism and Real Estate Advisory Division at Grant Thornton UAE in Dubai. His role involves business development, management and carrying out of consultancy projects in the United Arab Emirates, and the wider Middle East.

Grant Transferred from Grant Thornton South Africa where he was responsible for a variety of high profile consulting assignments. Amongst others he was deeply involved in providing consulting services relating to the planning for the FIFA 2010 Soccer World Cup. These services included economic impact assessments and business planning for the stadia.

In early 2007 he established the Hospitality, Tourism and Real Estate Advisory Division at Grant Thornton UAE in Dubai and has grown this business to become a formidable player in the region. He has worked on advisory assignments with various government authorities in Dubai and International property developers in the Middle East and South Africa.   

Danny McLaughlin

Danny is our Consultant Director of Fraud and Forensic Services. He has more than 19 years experience conducting fraud investigations, providing fraud risk management services, fraud awareness education and conducting regulatory engagements. Danny brings extensive experience and knowledge about  fraud detection, prevention and response for the benefit of our clients.

He has assisting client throughout the World. Having performed engagements in the UK, Europe, Africa, the USA as well as Latin America and the Far East. He has worked in the Middle East since early 2010 and has led a number of fraud investigations at banks, insurance and retail sector clients as well as anti-fraud assignments.

Prior to joining Grant Thornton, Danny worked for more than 15 years with the forensic practices of Ernst & Young in the Middle East and for KPMG Forensic in both the UK and Dubai. Danny’s earlier career was in the UK Public Service where he investigated fraud and corruption by Civil Servants and government suppliers working in the construction and property sectors. He has also been worked as a Human Resources Officer, as an Industrial Relations Officer and in a wide range of general management roles.

He has done extensive work with clients in the finance, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, media, broadcasting, manufacturing and defence sectors.  He has also performed fraud related work for many not-for profit, public sector and educational organisations.

Danny is an accredited Counter Fraud Specialist.