Jeyapalan Kasipillai, Professor, Deputy Head of School and Chair of Malaysian Business, Monash University Malaysia

Professor Kasipillai completed his doctoral thesis at the University of New England, Australia and masters degree at the University of Stirling, Scotland. He is a fellow member of the following professional bodies namely CPA (Australia) (FCPA); Malaysian Association of the Institute of Secretaries and Administrators (FCIS) and the Chartered Tax Institute of Malaysia (CTIM). He is a Council member of CTIM and chairs its examination committee.

After graduating from University of Malaya in 1974, he joined the New Straits Times Group as a Journalist and later served the Inland Revenue Board for 15 years. He held the post of Assistant Director (Tax Investigations), prior to joining University Utara Malaysia as a lecturer in 1991. Amongst others, he serves as a member of the Editorial Committees of Tax Guardian, e-Journal of Tax Research, Australia and was appointed by Tax Notes International, USA in 2004 to be its official correspondent for Malaysia.

In April 2010, Jeyapalan was appointed as a Professorial Visiting Fellow by UNSW, Sydney. He has been conferred on numerous occasions the Monash Pro-Vice Chancellor Awards for excellence in research. He has authored over 14 books and his latest books published in 2013 are “A Guide to Malaysian Taxation” and “A Guide to Advanced Malaysian Taxation” Second Editions published by McGraw-Hill. He was also the editor Tax Avoidance, Evasion and Planning in Malaysia (2012). 

Shanker Iyer, FCA, OBE, Founder & Chairman, Iyer Practice Advisers

Shanker Iyer is the Founder and Chairman of Iyer Practice, a specialist advisory firm, with offices in Singapore and Hong Kong.

He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in London and was a Partner of a leading accounting firm in the UK for over 10 years. Besides his own practice, Shanker is actively involved in the Singapore business community. He is serving his fifth term as the Chairman of the International Fiscal Association, Singapore Branch, and is the immediate Past Chairman of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce. He is also Chairman of the SICC Tax Policy Committee.

Prior to these appointments, he served as President of both the British Chamber of Commerce and European Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. With extensive experience spanning almost four decades, Shanker has built an expertise in advising privately-held businesses and high net-worth individuals on a wide range of international tax and trust matters.

The Iyer Practice also advises on HR and Immigration matters and one of its entities is licensed as an Employment Agency by the Ministry of Manpower

Ng Sue Lynn, Executive Director, Indirect Tax, KPMG

Sue joined KPMG Kuala Lumpur in 2005 and has experience in both corporate tax and goods and service tax. She advises on Malaysian tax issues and has assisted numerous leading overseas and locally headquartered multinationals.

Sue is a member of the KPMG GST Strategic team. She has also undertaken a secondment in KPMG ASPAC in Singapore from 2011 to 2012. For corporate tax, her experience includes Malaysian corporate tax advisory and tax planning work in mergers and acquisitions and cross-border transactions (inbound and outbound). She also assisted in advisory engagements on structured financing transactions, which include the review of financial projections and tax assumptions used.

For goods and services tax, Sue is currently assisting clients in various industries in their GST implementation projects. Sue has conducted workshops for clients and internal staff on tax topics such as the mechanics of GST, mergers and acquisitions, withholding tax and stamp duty.

She has also assisted in writing newspaper articles on current tax issues as well as chapters of the annual publication, “Taxation in Malaysia” by KPMG.

Quah Boon Huat, Senior Economist, Malaysian Rating Corporation Berhad (MARC)

Boon Huat possesses well-diversified experience in the world of banking and finance, having taken on various responsibilities in the portfolios of corporate banking, foreign exchange sales and institutional equities sales.

His subsequent research stint at the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research led him to the OECD Development Centre in Paris where he was involved in generating policy recommendations to encourage stable, sustainable and equitable economic growth and development in Southeast Asia.

Upon fulfilling his duties, Boon Huat then returned to Malaysia for his present appointment as Senior Economist with Malaysian Rating Corporation Berhad. Boon Huat holds degrees in economics from universities in Malaysia and Japan.

Jeremiah Ravindran Gurusamy, Partner, Arianti Dipendra Jeremiah, Advocates & Solicitors

Jeremiah comes with a wealth of experience having worked in the corporate sector since 1997 prior to entering active legal practice. Prior to being admitted as an Advocate and Solicitor, he was attached to the legal documentation unit of the corporate banking arm of one of the leading banking groups in Malaysia. Jeremiah started his legal career in 1999 with a large Kuala Lumpur based law firm.

Over the years, Jeremiah has acted for a wide range of clients from various industries and has extensive experience in corporate banking, project financing, corporate and commercial matters, joint ventures, mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, trust and estate planning, private mutual funds, employment law, anti-trust and competition matters and personal data protection laws. He is a founding partner of ADJ - Arianti Dipendra Jeremiah, a corporate boutique firm. 

Jeremiah is an active member of the Bar Council and currently sits on the Arbitration & Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee and the Professional Standards and Development Committee of the Bar Council. He also serves at the Honorary Secretary of the Kuala Lumpur Bar Committee. Jeremiah regularly delivers talks to the Malaysian Bar, KL Bar, and to the Corporate Sector and is a guest lecturer to several private colleges and public universities.

Jeremiah was called to the Malaysian Bar in 1999. He holds a LL.B (Hons) Degree from the University of London, a Certificate in Legal Practice (C.L.P.) from the Legal Profession Qualifying Board of Malaysia and a Masters of Law (LL.M) from the University of Malaya. He is also a certified panel Mediator of the Malaysian Mediation Centre of the Bar Council.

Thenesh Kannaa, Managing Partner, Thenesh, Renga & Associates  (a.k.a. TraTax Malaysia)

Having spent the early years of his career in a legal firm, Thenesh Kannaa approaches tax from both the accounting and the legal perspectives. His key areas of practice are incentive applications, cross-border tax planning, corporate restructuring, business advisory and Goods and Services Tax (GST). Thenesh is a licensed income tax agent. He is a frequent speaker at events organised by professional accounting bodies, Kuala Lumpur state bar committee, statutory bodies and private institutions.

He is also a visiting lecturer at Brunei Institute of CPA and is adjunct to a university ranked within the top 100 in the world. He is active in reflecting his views by publishing articles on various local and international accounting newsletters as well as the mainstream media. He is also active in making submissions to the tax authorities, in relation to income tax as well as GST.

Thenesh is a member of the Chartered Tax Institute of Malaysia's Editorial Committee and the Technical Committee for Indirect Taxes. Thenesh has been trained by Royal Malaysian Customs on GST. He has hands-on experience in preparing Malaysian companies for GST compliance and has spent more than 100 hours conducting in-house GST courses for Malaysian companies from diverse industries and diverse sizes. He is co-author of Malaysia Master GST Guide (2014), as well as other books on direct taxes.