Izzat-Begum B. RAJAN

Izzat-Begum RAJAN has comprehensive expertise in the top management challenges facing major corporations, having held financial, operational, strategic, legal and tax leadership roles since the early 2000s. As an independent director for multinationals in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, she brings together a rare combination of skills to resolve regulatory, legal, tax and financial issues, in particular in dealings with the competent authorities. She also has solid experience of impact projects and social enterprises, acquired within the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN).

She has been teaching negotiation and dispute resolution since 2005, and has been an accredited mediator with the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) in London since 2012. Mediation, a confidential and cost-effective alternative to arbitration, allows her to help the founders and shareholders she advises to resolve the human dimension of the challenges that arise as their businesses grow.

Izzat-Begum spent almost two decades abroad (United Kingdom, Mali, Gabon, Denmark, Cameroon, United Arab Emirates and Kenya) before returning to France at the end of 2020. Since then, she has also advised governments and governmental organisations (France, European Union, Middle East, Africa) on the regulatory framework and the taxation of digital assets.

Drawing on her career and her doctoral research in tax law, she focuses primarily on the following sectors: emerging technologies (blockchain, tokenisation, artificial intelligence, metaverse); shipping, port operations and related services; major infrastructure projects; international investment and financial flows.

Izzat-Begum is a regular speaker at professional associations (e.g. Association Française des Femmes Fiscalistes, A3F) and international conferences on regulatory, legal and tax issues relating to emerging technologies. She has also lectured at the University of Amsterdam and Oxford University, among others.