Natalie Al-Samarrai

Natalie Al-Samarrai

Dubai Campus
Assistant professor
Programme Director BSc Accounting and Finance

Contact details

Address
University of Birmingham Dubai
Dubai International Academic City
Block 2, PO Box 341799
Dubai, UAE

Natalie is an Assistant Professor in Accounting and Finance and based at the Dubai campus. Natalie teaches on both the BSc and MSc degrees and is also one of the Programme Directors for BSc Accounting and Finance in Dubai. 

She is a Chartered Accountant, originally from the UK and after leaving private practice she has enjoyed a lecturing career that has spanned almost two decades both in the UK and the UAE.

Her research interests are Management Accounting and Business Strategy.

Qualifications

  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
  • Member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales (ACA) (2022)
  • MSc Professional Accountancy (2016)
  • Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (DTLLS) (2014)
  • Qualified A1 Assessor (2009)
  • Fellow of The Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (FCCA) (2008)
  • BSc (Econ) Accounting and Management (2004)

Biography

Natalie joined The University of Birmingham in March 2022 and is based in Dubai. She is a Chartered Accountant with both the ACCA and ICAEW and has been teaching chartered accountancy for 18 years in both the UK and UAE. She is originally from the UK where she gained a BSc and MSc in Accountancy and prior to a career in professional lecturing, she was a Chartered Accountant in private practice in the UK. 

Natalie has extensive teaching experience including having worked for Kaplan, one of the largest accountancy training providers in the world, both in the UK and UAE where she most recently held a senior leadership position as the ACCA Product Head in Dubai before joining UoBD. She therefore brings a wealth of both academic and real-life experiences to facilitate learning in the classroom. Natalie has also been the External Quality Assessor for the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT) VAT qualification in the Gulf region, has sat on a university strategic advisory board in the region prior to her role at UoBD and was one of the Programme Directors for BSc Accounting and Finance at The University of Birmingham, Dubai between 2022 and 2025.

Natalie has a passion for teaching and believes that with a little hard work, anything is possible which many of her students over her career would agree with by winning global, regional and national prizes in their unseen chartered exams. 

Natalie’s research areas of interest include investigating the impact of changes in digitalisation on management accounting and bringing these insights into the classroom.

Teaching

  • MSc Accounting and Finance - Management Accounting module
  • MSc Construction Management – Marketing and Financial Management module
  • BSc Accounting and Finance – Business Analytics 3rd year module
  • BSc Accounting and Finance – Business Communications A & B 1st year modules
  • BSc Accounting and Finance – Management Accounting 2nd year module

Research

Research interests 

Management Accounting and Business Strategy.