Raya Abu Gulal
Raya Abu Gulal is an award – winning, multilingual legal advisor with over 15 years of experience. She founded a boutique legal consultancy in 2012 with a focus on the Middle East market. She has advised both SME’s and multinational companies based in the GCC region, as well as clients spanning the US, Europe and MENA on a broad range of corporate and commercial matters focusing on establishing businesses, GCC market entry and setup requirements, corporate restructuring, joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, commercial agreements, employment matters, compliance/regulatory filings and general business matters.
Prior to setting up her boutique legal consultancy, Raya gained extensive legal experience working for two leading international law firms: Simmons & Simmons and Reed Smith.
Raya speaks regularly at global conferences, seminars and roundtables. In 2017, she won the award “Legal Consultant Of The Year” from the Arab Woman Awards. Raya is active in various womens’ development initiatives in the MENA region and is the founding member of the Women Lawyers Group-Middle East. Raya was also appointed as an Advisor for the Middle East for the Diplomatic World Institute (Brussels). She is viewed as a trusted advisor and subject matter expert by both private clients and public sector bodies.
Raya holds an LLB law degree from the University of Westminster and successfully completed the Legal Practice Course from the College of Law in London. She is fluent in Arabic, Dutch and English.
Raya is described by her clients as “Incredibly knowledgeable, especially on corporate management and governance with an intuitive ability to think out of the box and propose practical solutions for a range of complex scenarios”.