Saira Nishtar has 20 years of demonstrated history of in-house and private practice legal experience across the Middle East and Africa in the chemicals, FMCG, retail, and food and beverage sectors. Saira has vast experience advising organisations on the legal aspects of establishing, expanding, and streamlining their business and operations across the Middle East and Africa. Her areas of expertise are setting up manufacturing facilities and companies, establishing distribution and export arrangements, termination of commercial agencies, corporate governance, joint ventures, acquisitions, divestments, cross-border transactions, ecommerce, marketing services, logistics, supply chain related matters, commercial and litigation strategy.

In private practice, Saira worked at the law firms of Afridi & Angell in Dubai, Fulbright & Jaworski in Riyadh, and Fakhruddin G Ebrahim in Karachi. In 2002, in the early years of its inception, she was legal counsel at the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority, Pakistan. For over a decade, Saira has held senior leadership roles in multinational companies such as AkzoNobel, (then the world’s largest coatings company) and Mondelez, (a leading global snack foods company which comprises the global snack food brands of the former Kraft Foods Inc.). Saira was Senior Counsel, Middle East at AkzoNobel, where she was a part of the leadership team leading the company’s strategic agenda to establish a firm footprint in the region. At Mondelez, Saira was Chief Counsel for the Middle East and Africa business.