About the speakers

Chris Downing, Sage

Chris is the Director for Accountants and Bookkeepers at Sage, with nearly 20 years of experience as a partner at a top 100 accountancy firm. A respected voice in the profession, Chris is passionate about technology adoption, AI, and automation to drive efficiency and growth for accountants and SMEs.

He regularly speaks at industry events, sharing insights on advisory services, compliance, cash flow, and finance systems. With a deep understanding of the evolving role of accountants, Chris helps firms navigate change and embrace digital transformation to deliver better client outcomes.

Paul Malin, PMC Tax 

For over 30 years Paul has helped UK taxpayers resolve their tax investigations and disputes. Paul is a now a self employed consultant, but his career has included working for top accountancy firms including EY, Grant Thornton and Haines Watts.

Paul helps taxpayers under any form of tax investigation. To date he has helped many taxpayers resolve their UK tax problems. This can be a taxpayer who is an individual, partner, company, settlor or beneficiary of trusts. The taxes involved can be either direct taxes (such as income tax, corporation tax etc.) and/or indirect taxes (VAT, import duties etc.).

Tim Palmer CTA ATT, Palmer Training Partnership

Tim is one of the UK's best known and popular tax presenters. He lectures frequently all over the UK on a wide variety of taxation subjects and also presents regular live tax webinars. Previously, Tim was a senior Tax Manager with Howarth Clark Whitehill LLP, advising on all areas of tax and NIC for the firm to their clients. He was also a member of the tax department of P&O where he specialised in Corporation Tax and the Construction Industry.

Additionally, Tim writes regular tax articles for numerous publications. Away from his lecturing, Tim is a tax consultant with Gravita Chartered Accountants, London www.gravita.com.

Tim can be contacted at tim@palmertraining.co.uk 

Angela Robson, Vantage Fee Protect

Angela has worked in tax since 1995, working for 20 years in private practice as a Tax Manager where she gained experience in all areas of accountancy and taxation.

Angela has dealt with clients ranging from high net worth individuals to owner-managed companies, sole traders and partnerships. In the last 20 years Angela has provided tax advice and consultancy in the advice line industry, including for a period of time managing the service provision of a major UK tax advisory team.

 Tony Cochrane, VITA

Tony Cochrane is a Chartered Tax Adviser and Associate of the Institute of Indirect Taxation. He is a member of the ICAS Indirect Taxes Committee and a Director at VITA. Tony has 20 years’ VAT experience, beginning his career with HMRC before moving into national and Big 4 practice. He advises businesses ranging from SMEs to multinationals, with deep technical expertise and experiences in various sectors. He is a regular presenter at ICAS and R3 events and recently joined HMRC on an industry panel discussion. He is regularly invited to write for tax and general media publications.

Paul Brown, In-Accountancy

Paul is the tax director at IN Accountancy based near Stockport. Having started his career with the Inland Revenue Paul worked predominantly with “Big 4” accountancy firms for a number of years including a spell working in Perth, Western Australia. Since his return from Australia Paul has worked for a number of firms providing commercially focussed tax advice to a broad range of owner managed businesses.