The differences between Halal standards in different countries and how to choose a right certification body to reach your halal target markets without any contraventions

Katie Doherty

Katie, a graduate of International History from the London School of Economics, has worked at IMTA since 2012. Katie has developed expertise in international customs and trade as well as food regulations. She received a distinction for her Diploma in World Customs Compliance and Regulations with The Institute of Export in 2019. Katie took over as CEO of IMTA in April 2019.

Richard Werran

Richard’s food career began as a food technologist and spans almost 40 years and has worked in all aspects of international food ingredient and food manufacturing sectors. Richard pioneered the import, processing and distribution of Non-GMO soy lecithin from Brazil designing and building a unique soy lecithin processing plant in the UK. Richard founded Cert ID Europe a UKAS accredited certification body, FoodChain Europe and Cert ID Asia; as BSI’s EMEA Regional Director for Food and Retail Supply Chain he drives BSI food initiative across the region. Richard is an acknowledged expert on genetic modification and is a Fellow of the IFST and the Society of Food Hygiene & Technology.

Wuraola Ogundimu

Wuraola is an International Trade & Investment and investment Consultant with over six  years’ experience in assisting companies from different regions with their business expansion plans and market penetration into the Middle East. With a specialism in food and beverage, Wuraola has supported several companies to expand into the Middle East successfully. She has generated more than AED 25 million worth of project wins for her F&B clients in the past two years. Some of her key activities include lead generation, business strategy; competitors’ analysis; sector and industry updates; and distributor and partner search.

Wuraola worked with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumers service to promote agricultural products into the Middle East. She successfully organized a mission of Middle Eastern buyers into Virginia. In her experience, she has conducted webinars, trade mission and markets visits on behalf of her clients. She has experience working with C-level executive from both private and government agencies across the Middle East, US and UK. 

Wuraola has an MBA from the University of Wollongong, Australia with specialisation in International Trade.

Dr. Rushdi Siddiqui

Rushdi Siddiqui, a US Citizen, is a proven international executive with 25 plus years of experience, work and travel, in 25 emerging market (Muslim majority) countries with Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, and consulting/advising/mentoring roles on solutions. He has been recognized as top 50 global Islamic finance personalities, 2015/19 Islamica500.com; featured in a chapter in book called Leaders in Islamic Finance,  has over 25 international awards; lead team to create world’s Dow Jones Islamic Market Index, including Islamic Sustainability Index; lead team at Thomson Reuters to create world’s first Islamic Inter-bank Benchmark Overnight Rate (IIBOR), SAMI Halal Food index;  Mentor at Singapore based VC firm, www.questventures.com, for Islamic economy start-ups/SDGs; Vice Chairman of www.oneagrix.com (B2B halal E-commerce platform); former advisor at Wall Street Blockchain Alliance; former member on the Islamic Finance advisory Board of Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC); former member on Malaysia’s Securities Commission International Islamic Advisory Committee; former Mentor at McKinsey YLA in Malaysia, Advisory Board member at Malaysia based IFN Fintech, etc. He is a co-founder/CEO of www.vaistra.co, a global content and ecommerce platform for start-ups linked to the UN SDGs, to address the high information search costs of sustainable products to responsible consumption, and vice versa. He has introduced a virtual course and accelerator, Start-ups & UN SDGs: Why You Should Care to Lead, at https://www.mams.ac.in/ in Kerala, India, for MBA students.  He is presently leading efforts for launch www.iportal.live  a global Islamic economy education and application platform, connecting ambition to knowledge to action in Malaysia. He actively comments and posts of social media on blockchain, SDG linked start-ups, sustainability, Islamic finance, impact investing, Waqf, etc. He has spoken in over 300 conferences to media interviews to by-lined articles in Islamic finance, halal industry, venture capital, start-ups, sustainability, etc.

İhsan ÖVÜT

Mr. İhsan ÖVÜT in 2000, was appointed as the director of Agreements and Foreign Relations Directorate confucted and supervised all international agreements of the TSE visits of foreign delegates, relations with Turkic Republics, Islamic Countries as well as TSE Foreign Representation.

Following his succesful tenure as the Director of several Directorates between the 2000-2011, he was appointed as th Head of Training Department of the TSE.

In 2014 İhsan ÖVÜT became the Secretary General of Standards and Metrology Institute for Islamic Countries (SMIIC), İhsan ÖVÜT was unanimously re-elected 2017 and is still on active duty as the Secretary General.

Throughout his career in TSE and SMIIC, Mr. İhsan ÖVÜT organized several regional/international meetings, drafted and signed cooperation agreements, took part in official international visits and delivered presentations in various events as the head of delegations, he made major contributions to the preparation process of SMIIC Statute under the Organizations of Islamic Cooperations (OIC) and has led the development of OIC/SMIIC standards and also carried out projects in ECO-Region and Eurasia Region. During his term in SMIIC and under his leadership, various projects and tasks have been successfully accomplished including the restructuring of the Institute, revision of all internal regulatios along with the founding Statute, foration of halal conformity assessment system, OIC Global Halal Quality Infrastructure, improving technical infrastructure of SMIIC.