Jyoti Mistry

Partner

PricewaterhouseCoopers Zambia, Zambia & East Africa

Biography

Jyoti is the lead tax partner for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Zambia. She heads the biggest tax practice in the country and was the first to develop tax as a separate specialism in Zambia.

She is a Fellow member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales and Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants. She studied at the University of Kent in Canterbury and graduated with an honors degree in accounting and finance.
Jyoti’s professional career started with Price Waterhouse in the UK where she initially worked as an auditor before deciding to specialize in corporate tax. She moved to Zambia to work for Deloitte Zambia in 1997 and within a short period of time, she found herself developing and heading the tax practice there.

Jyoti joined PwC Zambia as a Director in 2002 and since joining the firm she has grown the local PwC tax practice both in terms of size and capacity. Today, in addition to normal tax compliance services, PwC Zambia is able to offer multiple tax specialist services covering amongst other things, advice on international and cross border taxes, mergers and acquisitions, transfer pricing, international assignee services, PAYE, withholding tax, VAT and Customs and Excise.

Jyoti services a wide variety of local and multinational clients in various industry sectors including agriculture, financial services, mining, manufacturing, telecommunications, construction and information technology.
During her career Jyoti has dealt with numerous multinational entities and global organisations ranging from brand defining companies such as Sabmiller, Coca-Cola, Multichoice to World Bank and International Finance Corporation. She has assisted numerous new investors successfully set up business in Zambia; some of these such as First Quantum, have gone on to become well know global players in their industry.

Whilst she deals with all major tax disciplines, Jyoti specializes in corporate and international taxes. Jyoti has taken part in many technical and non technical workshops. Jyoti regularly undertakes and presents on various tax technical subjects such as Transfer Pricing, Base Erosion and Profit Shifting, Value Added Taxes, Mining Taxes and Carbon Tax Trading to name a few. She also speaks on investment issues – examples include the recent conference on Partnership for Investment and Growth in Africa sponsored by DFID in September 2018, Zambia International Mining & Energy Conference in 2016, the IBFD (International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation) conference in Livingston in June 2015 on Mining Taxes in Zambia, etc.

Jyoti regularly contributes to the lively debates on tax revenue and tax policy in Zambia. She is responsible for producing PwC Zambia’s annual Budget Bulletin and is a key presenter and panelist of the Firm’s annual budget forum. She is passionate about developing and mentoring staff, assisting them realise their career aspirations by developing specialist tax skills and good professional etiquette. In 2014 she won the ZICA Accountant of the Year Award for the private sector.

Jyoti is keen to improve and grow the quality and number of educational opportunities available to people from poorer backgrounds. She believes that formal education should be supplemented by practical skills development/ training. Above all, she encourages and seeks to enhance student learning by teaching/mentoring them about basic human values.