About Us

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Holly is the Director at Brightfinch Limited, which she established in 2018 following a successful career in international trade and compliance. 

With over fifteen years experience, Holly has extensive knowledge of UK and EU customs procedures. 

Specific areas of speciality include authorised economic operator (AEO), temporary storage (ETSF), customs warehousing, excise authorisations and guarantees. Holly has been managing projects in these areas for over five years. 

Holly works with the Institute of  Export & International Trade as a Trainer and Tutor, and is an ICC Registered Trainer of Incoterms 2020.

Claire works as an International Trade Advisor at Brightfinch, and supports Holly in all areas of the business. 

With  a background in the banking industry, Claire also has over 6 years experience in customs consultancy and application management. Specific areas of expertise include AEO, customs warehousing and inward processing. 

Claire also completes customs reviews for clients, customs audits and MSS analysis, alongside bespoke research projects. 

Experienced international trade advisor who will be managing client projects in all areas of compliance and approvals

Zeeshan is a Customs and International Trade consultant with a BSc (Hons) in International Management with French from the University of Manchester. 

He gained a broad range of experience having worked as a consultant for the Customs and International Trade team at Ernst & Young advising multinational firms across all major industry groups.  

He then went on to manage export focused companies in the food sector and has also worked for the Department of International Trade as the energy sector lead for the North West advising businesses on growth through exporting. 

He joined us from Rhenus Logistics where he was a customs and compliance consultant.  

Humphrey has more than 14 years of  experience in providing technical advice in trade and investment reforms in Africa. 

Humphrey was involved in training companies on trade compliance for import and export procedures, preferential rules of origin, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phyto-sanitary requirements, Incoterms as well as trade policy reform in eastern and southern Africa. 

Humphrey has worked for governments of Zambia and Ethiopia as trade expert on trade integration agreements such as the EAC, COMESA, SADC and the African Continental Free Trade Area.  

Humphrey now supports the team at Brightfinch with customs projects, with a particular focus on rules of origin and approved exporter status applications, AEO and customs warehousing.

Maniba joined the business following a year in customs entry and IPAFFS / TRACES testing, and is currently supporting projects, managing project administration and studying a Level 5 diploma in world customs compliance and regulations.  

Sue’s role is to keep the cogs of Brightfinch moving by supporting the team in all areas of business support from finance to HR.

Sue  has a background in business administration and management, having previously worked in the Transport & Shipping industry, before moving onto Recruitment for 10 years.  Later moving on to work for a Customs Compliance Consultancy, where she originally first met Holly.

Andrew is a specialist in international tax, land and property issues and  also a lecturer on VAT issues. 

Andrew advises accountants and individual businesses on all  aspects of VAT, but in particular, issues concerned with land and  property, charities, cross-border trading, Internet trading, security  demands, and arrears of VAT. 

Andrew has articles published regularly  in the accountancy press and is author of Bloomsbury Professional Value  Added Tax. He is also part of the editorial management team of Indicator  – FL Memo Ltd behind ‘Tips & Advice Tax’ and other specialist tax  publications and is author of their ‘VAT Tips’ newsletter. Similarly,  Andrew contributes articles to ‘Small Business Tax & Finance’.  Andrew was part of editorial team of Croner CCH and edited the Land and  Property section of their ‘British VAT Reporter’, and also wrote regular  articles for the sister publication ‘VAT News’. Andrew was appointed by  leading publishers, Gee, to edit and update the international trade  chapter of their ‘VAFB’ VAT handbook.