Anders Nilsson joins Reed Smith as Managing Partner of its Middle East offices, Bringing Deep Knowledge of the Advanced Air Mobility market

Glob­al law firm Reed Smith has announced the appoint­ment of Anders Nils­son as man­ag­ing part­ner of its Mid­dle East offices.

Nils­son, who joined the firm in Novem­ber 2025, will over­see the firm’s oper­a­tions in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and its recent­ly opened office in Riyadh. He suc­ceeds Sachin Kerur, who has served as man­ag­ing part­ner of the Mid­dle East offices since 2018 and is leav­ing the firm to pur­sue entre­pre­neur­ial oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Gre­gor Pry­or, Reed Smith’s EME man­ag­ing part­ner, said: “Anders is an excep­tion­al lawyer with deep roots in the Mid­dle East and a clear under­stand­ing of what clients in the region expect from their legal advis­ers.

“His appoint­ment reflects our con­tin­ued com­mit­ment to invest­ing in the region and ensur­ing our clients ben­e­fit from strong, expe­ri­enced lead­er­ship. With the open­ing of our Riyadh office and grow­ing client demand across key sec­tors, Anders’ lead­er­ship will be instru­men­tal in dri­ving our next phase of growth and deliv­er­ing first-class ser­vice across the Mid­dle East.”

Nils­son brings more than 25 years’ expe­ri­ence, includ­ing 12 years prac­tis­ing in the Mid­dle East, advis­ing multi­na­tion­al clients on pub­lic and pri­vate M&A, joint ven­tures, strate­gic invest­ments and gen­er­al cor­po­rate mat­ters. He joined Reed Smith from Bird & Bird, where he served as head of the firm’s Mid­dle East offices.

Nils­son has a par­tic­u­lar focus on Gulf Coop­er­a­tion Coun­cil (GCC) — Africa cross bor­der trans­ac­tions as well as the avi­a­tion, aero­space and defense sec­tor, where his expe­ri­ence extends through­out the Mid­dle East, Europe and Africa.

He also advis­es some of the lead­ing glob­al play­ers with­in the area of future mobil­i­ty and trans­port. He has advised many of the world’s lead­ing avi­a­tion and aero­space com­pa­nies on their oper­a­tions inter­na­tion­al­ly as well as gov­ern­ment enti­ties in the GCC on avi­a­tion relat­ed mat­ters.

He has also advice inter­na­tion­al aero­space and defense com­pa­nies in rela­tion to UAE gov­ern­ment con­tract­ing and mat­ters relat­ed to its off-set pro­gram.

Com­ment­ing on his new role, Nils­son said: “I am hon­oured to take on this role at such an excit­ing time for the firm and for the region. Reed Smith has an out­stand­ing plat­form, a col­lab­o­ra­tive cul­ture, and a long his­to­ry of sup­port­ing clients in the Mid­dle East.

“I look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with our teams in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Riyadh to help clients nav­i­gate their most com­plex mat­ters and to con­tin­ue build­ing our capa­bil­i­ties across this dynam­ic and rapid­ly evolv­ing mar­ket.”

Nilsson’s appoint­ment comes at a time of sig­nif­i­cant momen­tum for Reed Smith glob­al­ly and in the region. The launch of the Riyadh office in 2025 marked the firm’s third new office open­ing that year, fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful launch­es in Atlanta and Den­ver.

Reed Smith has main­tained a long­stand­ing pres­ence in the Mid­dle East for more than 45 years, begin­ning with its Abu Dhabi office in 1978. The firm now has three offices in the region and more than 25 lawyers, includ­ing sev­en part­ners.

The Mid­dle East region remains a major strate­gic focus for the firm, with client demand expand­ing across sec­tors that close­ly align with Reed Smith’s glob­al indus­try strengths.

This includes ener­gy and nat­ur­al resources, real estate and large-scale infra­struc­ture projects, trans­port and logis­tics, finan­cial ser­vices, and the rapid­ly grow­ing enter­tain­ment and media indus­tries. With an on-the-ground pres­ence in three key region­al hubs, the firm is well posi­tioned to sup­port clients as oppor­tu­ni­ties across the Gulf con­tin­ue to evolve.