Sharon Ditchburn
Senior External Associate at GCC Board Directors InstituteSharon Ditchburn has 30 years’ experience in the fields of accounting, law, corporate governance, risk and compliance. Sharon is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia, Chartered Governance Institute, and CPA Australia, and is a member of the IFAC Professional Accountants in Business Advisory Group and the CPA Australia ESG Centre of Excellence. She is also a Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, holds an MBA specialising in Corporate Governance and Entrepreneurship, and was a co-founder of the ICSA Gulf Forum in 2005.
In 2004 she formed one of the first Compliance and Corporate Governance specialist firms in the Middle East. She has been an Authorised Individual with over 30 regulated financial services companies in the functions of Compliance, Anti Money Laundering and Finance. Sharon is certified to deliver Corporate Governance specialist courses, including the Director Development Program by the International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group), and presents regularly for Institutes of Corporate Governance, Directors and professional organisations across the GCC, Africa and Asia. As well as the Financial Services Industry, her experience covers the mining, information technology, engineering and professional services sectors, and includes related areas such as enterprise risk, technical due diligence, investor relations, and fast growth industry strategies and controls.
Hans-Martin Stockmeier
Senior External Associate at GCC Board Directors InstituteHans-Martin is Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Company in the Middle East. He joined McKinsey in 1991 in Frankfurt and later moved to the Firm’s offices in Istanbul and Dubai. Hans-Martin retired from the Firm as active partner in 2024 and now serves as Senior Advisor to McKinsey.
Hans-Martin served clients in financial services and in the consumer sector in the region:
In financial services, his client portfolio included several of the leading commercial banks and investment banks in the Middle East covering projects in strategy, organization, service operations and risk. In addition, he has worked with financial sector regulators in the region and in Asia. He has also served institutional investors like sovereign wealth funds, private equity firms and family offices.
In the consumer sector, he has served various clients in retail and fast-moving consumer goods. He has served some of the leading retailers in apparel, luxury and grocery retailing as well as food services. The engagements covered issues related to strategy as well as operational work and turn-around programs.
Furthermore, Hans-Martin built and led McKinsey’s Family Business Practice in the region. The practice serves owners and leaders on family-owned businesses on family and business governance, business portfolio and family office related issues.
Hans-Martin is an expert on corporate governance and led McKinsey’s relationship with the GCC Board of Director Institute from 2017 to 2024.
Prior to joining McKinsey Hans-Martin worked at Deutsche Bank and Union Bank of Switzerland in the banks’ retail and investment banking businesses. He holds a Ph.D. in Insurance Economics from Humboldt University and a Master of Science in Finance from the London School of Economics.
Markus Wiesner
Senior External Associate at GCC Board Directors InstituteMarkus is Regional Managing Partner of Heidrick Consulting for Asia Pacific, Middle East & Emerging Markets, based between Dubai and Singapore. As a member of the global consulting leadership team, he is responsible for developing and implementing the go-to market strategy and operating model for the firm’s fastest growing markets.
Markus is a trusted Advisor to senior executives and boards on strategic organizational and HR matters, with a proven ability to link strategy to the people agenda and create bottom-line business results. With over 20 years’ experience in consulting, his technical expertise spans across organizational design and change, leadership assessment and development, large scale HR transformations, culture shaping and top team effectiveness. Markus has completed projects in over 30 countries with major global and regional organizations.
Markus is an ICF accredited Coach, and a Chartered Director (IoD London). More recently, his personal consulting work has been focused on helping boards and senior teams on refining their leadership style and collaboration.
Before joining Heidrick & Struggles, Markus was the CEO for Middle East and Africa at Aon Hewitt. Prior to this, he spent a decade at Mercer, where he was the Managing Director for their Middle East business, after managing their Austrian operations.
Markus earned a PhD in economics and social sciences and an MBA from the University of Vienna where he was teaching organizational design and decision making in the MBA program for many years. He also has a masters in sport management from IE University in Madrid. He attended executive programs at the Harvard Business School and the Institute of Directors in London.