Norton Rose's global Islamic finance chief Neil Miller is set to leave the firm to head up KPMG's new global Islamic financial advisory business.

Miller will leave the firm as of 2 April to join KPMG in Dubai, with his role as Islamic finance head at Norton Rose subsequently split between three partners.

Bahrain partner Mohammed Paracha will head up the practice for the Middle East and Africa, while Farmida Bi will be responsible for the group in London and Europe and Davide Barzilai will look after the practice for the Asia-Pacific region.

Norton Rose's Islamic finance practice, which currently has around 50 partners across the firm's network of offices, advises Islamic financial institutions, conventional banks, major corporations and governments.

Miller said: "I've been in the legal world for more than 20 years and when I was approached by KPMG to launch this practice for them I felt it was a great opportunity to do something new.

"I will be looking at their existing resources and working with them to develop a global Islamic financial advisory function going forwards. This will be an exciting challenge for me joining a world-class firm with a great reputation to develop a sector that is only growing."

Miller's departure will leave eight partners in Norton Rose's Dubai office and a total of 15 partners across the region in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Riyadh and Dubai.