Olga Belyakova is a Partner in the Commercial practice group in Kyiv office of CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang and a Co-head of the Technology, Media and Communications (TMC) sector group in Central and Eastern Europe. With over 20 years of focus in these sectors, Olga is best-placed to deliver innovative solutions and pragmatic advice on IT outsourcing, data protection, cybersecurity, cloud technology, IP and employment issues, as well as operational issues regarding data centres, AI, fintech and social media platforms. Specifically, Olga is constantly involved in the structuring of employment relations between the companies and software developers, including suggesting and creating proper equity incentive schemes at various management levels, non-solicitation and confidentiality commitments of IT staff and tax structuring of the IT businesses with the use of appropriate foreign jurisdictions for purposes of creation of enforceable shareholders relations. Importantly, as a highly-acclaimed specialist in data protection, Olga constantly advises clients on legal issues in relation to the processing and protection of personal data, including with the help of cloud-based technology. In particular, Olga’s expertise includes drafting data protection policies and data transfer agreements, different types of consents in various sectors. Olga also assists leading IT outsourcing and product companies on the transfer and protection of IP rights, as well as software development services agreements.

Jeremy Edwards is a partner and the head of the Employee Benefits Group in Baker McKenzie’s London office. He advises on all aspects of employee share plans and employee taxation. Jeremy has over 20 years’ experience as a share plan lawyer and two years’ experience as a corporate lawyer. He is currently serving on the advisory panel of ProShare and is a regular speaker at share plan conferences held in the United Kingdom.

Jeremy has substantial UK experience, including implementing plans for UK-listed companies and dealing with issues arising for UK-listed companies, including advising on executive remuneration developments, UK tax issues and the position on cessation of employment and dealing with share plans in the context of corporate transactions.

Jeremy has extensive experience in connection with the implementation of share plans globally and working with multinational clients.

Gemma is a Director specializing in the area of cross-border incentive compensation. Her particular focus area is equity compensation, working with multinational corporations helping them manage their global compliance for employer reporting and withholding on incentive compensation in relation to internationally mobile employees.

Gemma has worked extensively with clients on their end-to-end processes for compensation with large multinational companies, covering a number of core elements such as tax and legal due diligence, data specifications, technology integration and implementation, employee communications, global mobility equity policy consulting, process/design documentation, global corporate recharge policies, payroll compliance and consulting, assignee consulting, internal controls documentation, obtaining tax rulings, annual filings and project management.

Along with experience of working on the end-to-end compliance process, Gemma has spent a great deal of time assisting clients with rectifying payroll compliance failures, from tax authority investigates to voluntary disclosures.

Gemma joined the firm in 2008 in our London office and has spent nearly 10 years in our New York and California markets before moving back to our London office at the end of 2021. She graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in Accounting and Finance and received her Chartered Tax Advisor (CTA) and Associate Tax Technician (ATT) qualifications from the UK. In addition she is certified as a Global Professional in Human Resources (GPHR).

She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation (UK), National Association of Stock Plan Professionals and the Global Equity Organization.

Christopher Potash is an executive compensation lawyer with broad-based experience in tax, corporate, securities, and other laws and regulations affecting executive compensation, and is the head of the Firm’s executive compensation practice. He represents both public and private companies, both US and international, from closely held businesses, to private equity funds to Fortune 100 companies.

Global Head of Share Schemes with several years experience in the Financial Services Industry.

Specialising in cash and equity based deferred compensation, all employee local and global plans, employee engagement and also get involved with remuneration committee activities.

Active member of the share plans industry currently chairing an issuer only Share Plan User Group (more commonly known as SPUG), also sit on the ProShare advisory panel and the Global Equity Organization Board.

Paul joined Unilever PLC in 2010 and is based in their Kingston office. He is a member of Unilever’s Global Equity team that is responsible for managing the operations of their global employee share plans. 

During his tenure at Unilever, Paul has had a variety of roles including the UK & Ireland Reward Manager where he was responsible for all compensation and benefit activities across the UK and Ireland markets and global reward roles partnering various divisions and functions in the delivery of their strategic reward and talent objectives. More recently, Paul has also been part of a central operations team focusing on the successful implementation of the annual pay review following changes to Unilever’s overall reward framework. 

Prior to joining Unilever, Paul worked in the financial sector undertaking reward roles at Barclays and American Express and has also worked for a number of consultancies including Towers Watson, Mercer and ORC.

Sarah Fearnley is a Client Relationship Manager for Equity Plan Services at J.P. Morgan Workplace Solutions. Sarah has 17+ years’ experience in share plans, focusing on broad-based plans globally and specialising in UK Share Incentive and Sharesave Plans. 

Sarah applies her long history in the share plan industry to support her clients with achieving their employee share ownership goals.