Henry
Smith
Henry is head of Control Risks’ business intelligence and due diligence practice in EMEA, which is a team of 60+ analysts and intelligence professionals across the region. The practice is responsible for delivering intelligence to inform decisions about acquisitions and investments; disputes and litigation strategy; regulatory and misconduct investigations; and diligence of higher risk or strategically important relationships and hires. Henry is an experienced advisor to private equity and credit firms, infrastructure funds, corporates, and their legal advisors, on political risk management, sanctions and foreign investment screening, and best practices in intelligence gathering and due diligence. Henry’s relevant sanctions experience includes:
- Investigative diligence into corporate transaction targets and their ownership and control to inform a high value corporate transaction.
- Several sanctions workshops for corporate and financial services clients seeking to improve their understanding of the political drivers of sanctions and how to approach compliance with sanctions.
- Managing a remedial exercise for a corporate to review the sanctions exposure of over 100 third parties in Turkey after the company identified sanctions compliance failures associated with Syria and Iran.
- Multiple pre-relationship sanctions compliance focused due diligence engagements on agents, distributors, clients and other third parties in Iran, Iraq, Libya, Russia, Syria and Yemen.
- Scenario planning exercises for organisations considering the legal, reputational and operational impact of sanctions on their business plans in a sanctioned jurisdiction.
Before Control Risks, Henry worked for an advisory company that supported companies and investors in North Africa. He joined Control Risks as a Middle East and North Africa-focused political risk analyst in our London and then Dubai office. During this time in Dubai, Henry managed our business intelligence and political risk team supporting clients in Iran, and the delivery of retained analysis and advisory relationships with clients in the GCC and broader Middle East region.