About

‘I thoroughly enjoy all the challenges every day brings and the new and creative ways I learn to manage all the myriad of companies across all these different jurisdictions’, Aasma Khan says. ‘I get to work with fantastic firms, meet many interesting people and face “right out of a TV law drama” situations… almost every day’. Former Allied Investment Partners’ legal and compliance head, Khan already had a prestigious in-house legal career before she joined Tameer. Regional property developer Tameer Holding Investment continues to operate on an impressive global scale, as well as making a seismic imprint on Dubai’s skyline. Its pioneering legal head, Khan established the function in its entirety, when she arrived in 2009. ‘To put this initiative into perspective, this is a multibillion-dollar company that has delivered the tallest residential building in the world – Princess Tower’, Khan says. ‘With each new company or group of companies added to my portfolio of responsibilities, I have had to repeat this process to create proper legal function and support to the business’. Establishing all compliance and company secretarial frameworks, Khan built what is now a 15-strong team up on highly specialised lines, to reflect the value and complexity of the projects it supports. She has also constructed an extensive global panel of external counsel. Her innovative dispute resolution strategy has drawn notice not only inside her organisation, but also from the firms she instructs. ‘In the Middle East, very few companies are equipped to manage volume litigation or arbitration’, Khan says. ‘Because I have implemented a dispute resolution strategy consisting partly of risk management and process standardisation, I have been able to manage external legal costs to fixed exposures’.