BRIGHT GRAHAME MURRAY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Head of Audit and Assurance
Ahsan Miraj is Head of Audit and Assurance at Bright Grahame Murray and is responsible for the firm's compliance and regulatory matters.
Ahsan acts for a wide range of clients including high-net-worth individuals, with particular specialism in real estate, oil and gas, commodities, professional practices, AIM, manufacturing and organisations involved in financial services and the charity sector.
Specialising in audit, Ahsan enjoys focusing on owner managed businesses, getting to know his clients' objectives and helping achieve them. Whether this is providing strategic input, corporate structuring and general commercial advice, tax planning, raising finance or adding value through the audits of small larger private and international companies, Ahsan enjoys providing a high level of service and going the extra mile for his clients.
Other expertise includes acquisition and sale of clients' business, including due diligence, tax structuring of the transaction and working with other professionals. He also assists overseas entrepreneurs looking to trade on an international basis using UK entities and regularly advises them on general, financial, strategic and tax issues.
Ahsan is a keen traveller, in his spare time he enjoys watching cricket, going to the gym, spending time with family and supporting his team Manchester United.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Audit and Assurance Partner
- Director of BGM Lewis Hickie
Brian Clifford is an Audit and Assurance Partner at Bright Grahame Murray and also an Audit Director at BGM Helmores.
Brian looks after a significant portfolio of clients providing advice on a range of accounting and tax matters. He deals primarily with owner managed businesses, advising on statutory accounts, VAT, PAYE and tax planning. Brian's aim is to make accountancy for clients as simple and cost effective as possible.
In addition, Brian is a Director of BGM Lewis Hickie, a specialist Service Charge Accounting practice.
Away from work, Brian enjoys cricket, cooking, wine and gardening.
Cheryl Thomas is Partner in the Tax team at Bright Grahame Murray.
Cheryl provides business tax advice to clients in a variety of sectors and is experienced in dealing with owner-managed businesses. In addition to providing tax compliance services to both SMEs and larger groups, she regularly advises on the tax implications of various corporate matters, such as acquisitions and disposals, financing and restructuring. Cheryl's experiences have led to a particular specialism in the property sector.
After training as a Chartered Accountant, Cheryl joined a top ten accountancy firm where she qualified as a Chartered Tax Adviser. She spent ten years there specialising in corporate tax, before joining Bright Grahame Murray.
Away from work, Cheryl enjoys running, long walks and spending time with her family.
David is a Corporate Tax Partner at Bright Grahame Murray. He works with an extensive portfolio of clients, particularly large international groups, across a broad range of sectors including real estate, insurance and transport.
He has particular experience at providing advice in relation to the corporate interest restriction, group and consortium relief, capital allowances and financing transactions.
David qualified as a Chartered Tax Adviser while working for a top 25 accountancy Firm and joined Bright Grahame Murray in 2021.
Away from work, David enjoys following most mainstream sports, playing football, cycling and spending time with his family.
David Wakefield is Head of Private Client Services at Bright Grahame Murray.
David advises clients on a wide range of tax and trust related matters, having gained broad experience in all aspects of direct taxation. He has specialist knowledge and practical experience of domicile and residence issues affecting individuals, trustees and companies, offshore trusts and capital taxes. David's priority is to provide pragmatic solutions that meet clients' requirements. He also regularly helps non-UK trustees and companies with their UK tax compliance and reporting responsibilities.
David trained as a Chartered Accountant with a medium sized London practice and then chose to specialise in taxation. After assisting clients on UK corporate tax matters, David gained what is now the Chartered Tax Adviser qualification. He then spent five years in the specialist tax department of a major Jersey trust company. After returning to the UK he was at the helm of a tax group in the London office of one of the country's leading private client accountancy firms, subsequently joining Bright Grahame Murray in 2007.
Away from work, David enjoys spending time with his wife, daughter and guitar collection. The faithfully restored and very noisy Ducati comes out occasionally in the summer.
Gavin Barker leads the VAT Service at Bright Grahame Murray
Gavin looks after the complex VAT affairs across a portfolio of clients providing advice on a broad range of VAT issues. He is also responsible for the implementation of Making Tax Digital for VAT within the firm and setting up a new VAT helpline.
Prior to joining Bright Grahame Murray, Gavin was Head of VAT at Ayming UK.
Away from work, Gavin's large family takes up a lot of his time, although he does try and find time to play drums and guitar, albeit to ever diminishing ability!
Jessie is a Partner in the Private Client Tax team at BGM and works with individuals, partnerships and trustees on all aspects of their tax affairs. Jessie has extensive experience on a wide range of private client tax issues, both compliance and advisory, with particular expertise on individuals with domicile and residence issues as well as those with offshore trusts and with family or business interests outside the UK.
She is also familiar with UK domestic private client matters including profit extraction, property matters and the interaction of private client and business tax issues. She works with her clients guiding them through the complexities of the legislation to find tax efficient solutions to their issues to meet their objectives. In doing so she takes an holistic approach to tax, to ensure that tax compliance services provided are of the highest quality while also fully integrating tax advice given on particular issues.
Jessie qualified as a Certified Chartered Accountant in 2009 and has spent more than 10 years working in tax before joining Bright Grahame Murray in 2017. Jessie is a native Mandarin speaker.
Away from work Jessie enjoys travelling and spending time with her family.
Louise Delamere is a Partner in the Corporate and Personal Tax team at Bright Grahame Murray.
Louise provides advice on a wide range of business tax issues for clients from corporate and unincorporated businesses, professional partnerships and limited liability partnerships across a number of different sectors. She has extensive experience in dealing with the numerous tax issues facing property developers and investors and also owner-managed businesses including corporate restructuring, EIS, SEIS and share option schemes including EMI.
Away from work Louise is an enthusiastic skier and enjoys learning about Gothic literature and architecture at Strawberry Hill House.
Matthew Eade is an Audit Partner at Bright Grahame Murray.
Michael Guillem is a Consultant specialising in the property sector and family trusts at BGM Helmores.
Michael has over twenty five years' experience of working in the charity sector. He has been involved in the setting up of new charities and has provided consultancy services to a broad range of charities. He is also a trustee of a grant making trust.
Michael is also a Director of several property investment companies, and has considerable experience in both the residential and commercial property sectors.
Prior to joining the merged firm of BGM Helmores in 2017, Michael was the senior principal of Helmores, having been with the firm since 1982.
Away from work, Michael enjoys playing badminton, walking, kayaking, paddle boarding and spending time with family.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
Nancy is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
She trained with a firm specialising in music and royalty audits. After she qualified she changed to service charge audits and certification and all aspects of resident association management accounting including statutory accounting and compliance .
She joined BGM Lewis Hickie as a consultant following the merger of her small, but successful practice, N Lewis & Co.
Nancy originates from a farming background in North Devon which has given her an interest in country walking which she combines with travelling throughout the world.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Audit and Assurance Partner
Paul Davis is an Audit and Assurance Partner at Bright Grahame Murray.
Paul's client base ranges from multi-national manufacturing groups, charities and not for profit sector, sports and football clubs, couriers, consultancy businesses, society lotteries providing audit, accounting, taxation and business advisory services from small owner managed to multinational businesses.
In addition, Paul runs the firm's sister company BGM Lewis Hickie Limited, a specialist Service Charge Accounting practice. He is also a member of the ICAEW Valuation Group, having a wealth of experience in preparing business valuations.
Away from work, Paul enjoys an outdoor life being a keen runner and cyclist including having cycled from Land's End to John O'Groats and from London to Barcelona.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Fellow of the Institute of Residential Property Management
Richard was the founder of Hodgson Hickie, one of the pre-cursor firms to BGM Lewis Hickie Limited and maintains an active interest in running of the firm as a consultant.
Richard is a fellow of the Institute of Residential Property Management and a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.
He lectures for the Association of Residential Managing Agents on Residential Service Charge Accounts and is also on their advisory panel.
He is a published co-author by the College of Estate Management of 'How to manage your own block of flats'.
Robert Moore is Managing Partner at Bright Grahame Murray and is responsible for the day-to-day running of the practice.
Robert looks after a significant portfolio of clients covering many sectors including property, FCA regulated businesses, together with not-for-profit organisations. He is an RI and responsible for audits together with tax planning for clients and strategic advice.
Job Titles:
- Tax Director - BGM Helmores
Trever Turton is a Tax Director at BGM Helmores.
Trever looks after a significant portfolio of clients, providing advice on a range of personal tax matters, as well as mentoring junior members of the team. He has additional specialisms in Payroll matters, particularly P11Ds, PAYE Settlement Agreements and the Construction Industry Scheme. Trever's mantra is "the client comes first".
Trever joined Bright Grahame Murray four years ago after spending many years at a top fifteen firm of Chartered Accountants.
Away from work, Trever is an enthusiastic skier; an active rugby player and Honorary Treasurer (for more years than he cares to remember) of UCS Old Boys RFC; and a very proud father of three young adults.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Personal Tax Consultant
Warren Hertzberg is a Personal Tax Consultant at BGM Helmores.
Warren acts for a wide range of clients, both individuals and family owned companies. He advises them on all aspects of direct taxation, including sale of businesses and family taxation planning.
After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant at a medium sized London firm Warren broadened his taxation experience at a major city firm. He then joined a medium sized London practice where he gained extensive experience in all aspects of corporate and personal taxation and where he remained as a Partner until joining Norman Alexander & Co as a Partner in 1990. He subsequently joined Helmores in 2010 and joined BGM Helmores as a consultant in 2017.