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The Alternative and Receivables Finance Forum returns this November as a two-day event. Join us to discuss current, new and avant-garde finance systems outside traditional banking, which have potential to replace financial institutions in their current format. We will look at the gateways for banks and other traditional liquidity providers to move into this space. Could we be on the verge of alternative finance becoming mainstream? Will decentralised finance become a new major source of delivering liquidity to the trade and receivables finance sector? How will other technologies continue to impact traditional markets? What can banks do to remain competitive and what are the practicalities of investing in the new technologies?

This November we will bring together panels of expert commentators from across the banking, fintech and non-banking finance sectors to discuss the opportunities set out by the new wave of innovative solutions and why banks, insurers, traditional platforms and others should take notice.

More information to follow soon.

Speakers
Tim Armstrong
Head of Receivables Financing & Data Science, Silver Birch Finance

Tim is a Director and Co-Founder of Silver Birch and leads their Receivables Financing and Data Science team. Tim has 22 years of experience of investment banking and financial services experience, including 8 years in the securitisation teams at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, syndicating both rated bonds and equity to a wide range of investors. He was also a Managing Director in the Innovation and Incubation team of a UK fintech and spent time in the corporate finance teams of Deloitte and KPMG. Prior to finance, Tim was an officer in the British Army and worked as an engineer with BP. Tim has an MA (Oxon) in Physics from Oxford University and an MBA from London Business School.

Diego Ballon Ossio
Senior Associate, Clifford Chance

Diego is a Senior Associate in Clifford Chance financial regulatory practice in London, specialising in advising technology companies, financial institutions and other market participants on regulatory aspects of digital asset trading and custody including in respect of strategic interactions with UK and EU regulators. Diego is a member of the UK Financial Markets Law Committee’s (FMLC) Working Group on Fintech and regularly participates in industry events related to digital assets and tokenisation. He gained significant experience in financial regulation working at the UK Financial Conduct Authority, and its predecessor organisation, from 2010 to 2015 and has been ranked by Legal 500 as a rising star since 2020.

Alistair Baxter
Head of Receivables Finance, Taulia

Alistair is Taulia’s Head of Receivables Finance. In this role, he has established and grown a technology-centric family of receivables financing products to further serve their customers’ needs. Before joining Taulia, Alistair spent over ten years in corporate and investment banking at RBS, followed by a short stint at Greensill Capital. He worked in Corporate Advisory, Leveraged Finance, and served as Head of Supply Chain Finance before joining Greensill to bring scale to a structured receivables product line. Alistair is London-based and holds a BSc. (Hons) in Statistics from the University of St Andrews.

Çağatay Baydar
Executive Chairman, Board of Directors, TEB Faktoring, Chairman, Executive Committee, FCI

Çağatay Baydar has 36 years of professional experience in financial institutions, such as banking, factoring, leasing, real estate development and auditing. He has been working in the factoring industry for over 33 years, and is one of the pioneers who introduced factoring to Turkey. Presently, he is the Executive Chairman of TEB Factoring, the largest export factor of Turkey, one of the biggest in the world and a joint venture of the worldwide financial group, BNP Paribas. TEB Faktoring has been chosen seven times as the Best Export Factor of the year by the members of FCI. Çağatay was the chairman of the FCI between 2011 – 2013 and 2016 – 2019, and has been elected three times as Chairman of the Executive Committee of FCI, the biggest factoring chain in the world.

Nils Behling
Co-Founder and COO, Tradeteq

Nils is a founder and COO at Tradeteq, the SaaS-enabled marketplace for private debt and real assets. Before entering the fintech space, Nils was a trade finance investor and a portfolio manager for Trafigura’s Galena Asset Management. As a director in Merrill Lynch’s FICC business, he structured complex funding and capital markets solutions for banks and real money clients. Nils started his career as a restructuring attorney with Weil, Gotshal & Manges, working on cross-border debt advisory, business reorganisations and work-outs.

Simon Bessant
Board Director, Global Head of Insurance, The Texel Group

Simon is a Board Director and the Global Head of Insurance at The Texel Group (“Texel”). Texel, established over 20 years ago, is a privately owned and independent insurance broker specialising in the field of credit and political risk insurance and reinsurance. We are focused purely on arranging, structuring and negotiating CPRI to provide clients with credit and concentration risk mitigation, balance sheet and regulatory capital solutions. Our company represents commercial, investment and multilateral banks as well as development financial institutions, using non-payment insurance to allow them to conservatively grow their lending book.

Glenn Blackman
Editor, FundingVoice, Managing Partner, FundInvoice

Glenn Blackman MBA is the Editor of FundingVoice magazine, a free monthly e-publication for SMEs, about business funding and growth. He is the managing partner at FundInvoice LLP, a multi-award-winning business finance quotation search and support service. Having been involved with the business finance sector since 1988, he has worked with a spectrum of lenders from small independent providers to high street banks. He has extensive experience both inside and outside of the finance sector, having been a business strategy and marketing consultant. Glenn is the author of several books, and lives in East Sussex with his wife and young children. He can be contacted at info@fundinvoice.co.uk

John Bugeja
Managing Director, Trade Advisory Network

John Bugeja is a highly experienced trade, supply chain and invoice finance specialist with more than 40 years’ experience in senior leadership roles with HSBC, NatWest, RBS, Barclays and Lloyds Banking Group. John is now Managing Director of Trade Advisory Network Limited, a trade, supply chain and invoice finance advisory network, delivering product development and innovation, operating model design and implementation, training and education and deal structuring and placement solutions to banks, alternative finance providers, fintechs, technology service providers and corporates. John is often called upon to act as expert witness when trade and supply chain finance related disputes go to tribunal or court. Key areas of expertise include origination, risk and governance, product management and development, business development, organisation design, change management, process facilitation, training and management development. John is passionate about promoting the development of supply chain finance in all its forms and was a member of the drafting group that wrote the ICC rules for Uniform Rules for Digital Trade Transactions (URDTT). John is also co-author of LIBF’s Certificate in Supply Chain Finance, FCI’s Supply Chain Finance online learning module and the  ICC Academy’s Advanced Supply Chain Finance online course, a core module of their CTCP programme.

Louis Carbonnier
Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Hokodo

Louis is the co-founder and co-CEO of Hokodo where he leads commercial strategy and product development. Hokodo is a fintech startup offering a Buy-Now-Pay-Later solution designed specifically for B2B merchants and marketplaces. Taking care of credit checks, collections and risk management, Hokodo empowers e-commerce merchants to offer instant trade credit online – even for first-time buyers. Hokodo’s products are backed by Lloyd’s of London via the SCOR Syndicate, a unit of SCOR SE. Louis was previously the head and founder of the Digital Agency at Euler Hermes (now Allianz Trade), the world’s leading trade credit insurer and part of the Allianz Group. The Euler Hermes Digital Agency (EHDA) was launched in 2015 and quickly became one of the most recognised corporate innovation teams in the financial services sector, with its tech-driven innovations and unparalleled vision to shape a better future for B2B trade. Louis started his career in strategy consulting at Oliver Wyman where he was a Principal in the Financial Services practice. He has consulted for more than 30 leading financial institutions across Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific.

Renaud Chalmet
Managing Director, Deputy Head of Corporate Receivables Securitisation, BNP Paribas

Renaud joined the business management securitisation team at BNP Paribas in 2001 and then the origination and structuring team in 2006. He led the arrangement and the management of numerous corporate securitisation transactions financing different types of assets – trade receivables, handset receivables, car inventory, car fleet, equipment leases and insurance premium funding. He graduated from Institut Mines-Telecom Business School and the Dauphine University (Paris) with a degree in Finance and Information System.

Alex Chesculescu
Director, Structured Finance, HSBC

Alex is a Director in HSBC’s Structured Finance division in London, leading and underwriting securitisations across all major asset classes in Europe. During his 15+ years in investment banking, Alex has worked in London, Hong Kong, Paris and New York. Prior to HSBC, Alex worked for a real estate private equity fund and in JP Morgan’s European Securitised Products Group. He holds an MA in Modern Languages from Oxford University.

Gunnar Collin
Head of Sales, Trade Finance, Enigio

Gunnar is a senior operations and banking professional with over 30 years of experience from the financial sector in different organisations, geographies and cultural settings. His focus has been on Trade Finance and Operations in senior leadership roles. Gunnar is now fully focused on making sure that Enigio’s ground-breaking inventions and services will be known and implemented wherever there is a need for digitalisation and transformation. The key areas where Enigio’s trace original solution is a game changer are foreign trade and the financial industry where paper versions of negotiable instruments and documents of title are still widely used. Other areas benefitting from Enigio’s solutions are any organisation using or storing large volumes of paper documents and records.

Simon Connor
Senior Associate, Clifford Chance

Simon is a Senior Associate specialising in securitisations, structured finance transactions, forward flow/factoring arrangements, asset-backed commercial paper conduits and asset-based lending. Simon has considerable experience advising arrangers, originators and investors on complex cross-border securitisations (both public and private in nature) across the spectrum of asset classes, including trade receivables, lease receivables, telecommunication receivables, corporate and consumer loans (including CBILS, RLS and RLS2), and residential mortgages.

Bertrand de Comminges
Managing Director, Global Head Trade Finance Investments, Santander Alternative Investments, SGIIC, SAU

A renowned industry expert, Bertrand is currently the lead portfolio manager for the global Trade Finance strategy at Santander Alternatives Investments, SGIIC, SAU, Santander Holdings´ private investments arm. Previously, Bertrand worked for eight years at HSBC wherein his last role he was responsible for the European business development activities for Global Trade and Receivables Finance. Previously, he was HSBC’s Global Product Head of Structured Solutions and Global Head of Solutions Structuring, among other roles. Before HSBC, Bertrand worked at JP Morgan as EMEA Head Structured Trade Advisory and for RBS/ABN Amro, where in his last role he was EMEA Head of Trade. Bertrand is Co-Chair of the International Trade & Forfaiting Association´s ITFIE working group (Trade Finance Investment Ecosystem), whose efforts are targeted to make Trade Finance an investable asset class for institutional investors. Bertrand is also a Subject Matter expert in the ICC’s Global Supply Chain Finance initiative. Bertrand is a Chartered Actuary, has a full-time MBA from the London Business School, and an MSc degree in Economics and Business Sciences from UCM. On the private side, Bertrand is a trustee of educational charities and is a single father of five young children.

Waldo de Vleeschauwer
Founder & CEO, Artis Finance

With over 15 years' in buy-side private debt and equity experience across EMEA and Asia, Waldo has deep knowledge in structured trade and working capital finance, securitisation, loan syndications, origination, asset and portfolio management spanning multiple sectors, commodity groups and finance products. Prior to founding Artis, he co-founded Africa Merchant Capital’s Trade Finance business, where he was Managing Director and Chairman of the Credit Committee. He was formally Head of Structured Finance and Credit and GLI Finance and served on the board of Legion Trade Finance. He holds a B-Tech (Honours) in Financial Information Systems from Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

Sean Edwards
Managing Director, Head of Legal – EMEA, Special Adviser – Global Trade Finance Department, SMBC Bank International, Chairman, ITFA

Sean Edwards is Head of Legal at SMBC Bank International plc, part of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group. He is a Special Adviser to the Trade Finance Department of the bank and in the Trade Innovation Unit. Sean is Chairman of the International Trade & Forfaiting Association (ITFA). He helped draft the Uniform Rules for Forfaiting (URF) and the Standard Definitions for Techniques of Supply Chain Finance published by ITFA, ICC, FCI, BAFT and the EBA. He is a former member of the Executive Committee of the ICC Banking Commission and the ICC Working Group on Digitalisation in Trade Finance. Sean is a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Finance Expert Group. He is a non-executive director of KomGo S.A. Sean has written for all the major trade finance magazines and is on the editorial board of Global Trade Review (GTR). He has presented at many conferences.

Francesco Filia
CEO, Fasanara Capital

Francesco heads all portfolio management and research-related activities at Fasanara. Prior to co-founding Fasanara, Francesco was Managing Director and EMEA Head of the Midcaps and Principal Investors group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, a top producing investment practice comprised of 15 professionals. In his role, Francesco directed Bank of America Merrill Lynch operations across Europe, Middle East, and Africa with responsibilities on multi-strategy, multi-assets portfolio solutions. Prior to joining Merrill Lynch in 2000, Francesco was a research analyst at JP Morgan Securities where he published several research white papers covering areas such as derivatives modelling, fixed income and volatility strategies. Francesco is a graduate of Bocconi University in Milan and a scholar of Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam.

Alexis Garatti
Senior Climate Change Manager, Sustainability Office, Allianz Trade

Alexis Garatti has worked as a Climate Change Manager in the Sustainability Office of Allianz Trade since 2021. He was previously the Head of Economic Research of Allianz Trade starting from 2017, focusing on ESG, structural policies, and the US economy. Prior to that, he held the position of Global Head for Economic Research in Taikang Asset Management, providing multi-asset analysis and developing strategic as well as tactical calls for a global equity portfolio. He collaborated with various asset managers and investment banks during 8 years in Hong Kong, including Citic Securities and Haitong Securities, the two major brokers in China. He started his career as an economist in Natixis’ Research Department, spending three years in Paris and two years in London. He first covered the UK and European Nordic economies, then focused on the US and the Eurozone. He holds a PhD in macroeconomics with a focus on macroeconomic shocks and monetary unions, and the IFID (International Fixed Income & Derivatives) Certificate of the ICMA (International Capital Market Association).

Bob Gravestijn
Strategic Ideator and Business Booster, The Value Department

Bob Gravestijn is a digital business model enthusiast and specialises in business model innovation, ecosystems, partnerships and platforms. He is recognised for his expertise on supply chains, working capital, business sustainability management, and web3: the blockchain-based web including cryptocurrencies, NFTs, decentralised finance, and more. At present, Bob works both as a strategic ideator and business booster at The Value Department, and as a business developer for ABN AMRO Bank. In addition, he's a subject matter expert for the Global Supply Chain Finance Forum, has been featured in BCR's World Factoring Yearbook 2022 and has spoken at several events, including WTO's Global Trade and Blockchain Forum, and SCCMP EDGE conference. For Bob, helping others and businesses reaching their full potential is the most rewarding part of his work.

Chris Hall
Executive Director, Financial Solutions, WTW

Chris Hall is Executive Director, Financial Solutions at WTW, where he is the financial institution business development leader, joining in July 2021 and based in London. His previous role was as Senior Underwriter for Liberty Specialty Markets, with a particular focus on short-term assets and digitalisation. Prior to this he was as Head of Trade Asset Management (TAM) for Lloyds Bank’s Global Transaction Banking, responsible for the development of the secondary market trade finance offering. Previously he spent 9 years at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Chris holds a LLB in Law from the University of Bristol and has attained Associate Membership of the Corporation of Treasurers (AMCT). Chris is also a serving board member of the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA).

Shikha Kalra
Senior Director, Demica

Shikha is a senior originator at Demica which is globally one of the largest working capital finance platforms providing receivables and payables solutions to funders and corporates. She has many years of experience in banking, finance and advisory roles across the US, Europe, Asia and Middle East, the majority of which have been focused on receivables and supply chain finance. Prior to Demica, she was with Rabobank, where she spent over 11 years, in the New York, London and Mumbai offices, in working capital finance and trade receivables securitisation teams in a variety of roles such as Origination, Structuring and Portfolio and Transaction Management. At the start of her career, Shikha was also involved in setting up of large-scale microfinance programmes in India for a few years, followed by a stint at ICICI Bank, Mumbai. Shikha has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Dilawar Khan
EMEA Head of SCF Origination and Structuring, MUFG

Dilawar (Dil) Khan, EMEA Head of SCF Origination and Structuring, joined MUFG in 2016 in San Francisco and moved to London in 2019. As part of MUFG EMEAs working capital solutions team, Dil leads the origination for payables and confirmed receivables transactions in EMEA. Prior to his current role, Dil covered technology, media and telecom clients in the US for MUFG (and previously for HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank) for working capital solutions including Receivables Purchase, Distributor Financing and Supply Chain Financing. Dil started off his career in corporate coverage prior to moving into the working capital space. Dil has a BSc, an MBA and an MSc in Accounting and Finance from London School of Economics.

Dr. Gabriella Kindert
Board Member and Non-Executive Director, Alternative Credit Expert

Dr Gabriella Kindert is a senior banking and investment professional specialising in alternative credit and private markets. She gained over 20 years of international experience in managing investment portfolios over the cycle for leading institutional investors and global investment teams of alternative and fixed income strategies. She held various managerial positions at Fortis Investments Structured Credit, BNP Paribas Asset Management as Global Head of Loans and at NN IP as Head of Alternative Credit. She is currently a Non Executive Director, advisor and board member at several companies focusing on private credit markets (CVI, Neptune Leasing, SME Finance, EG, VER Capital, Dot Investing, ThirdSphere). She holds an M.A. in History, Economics, MBA in Accounting and Finance and a Ph.D. in Finance.

Veronika Koroleva
Partner, gunnercooke llp

Veronika Koroleva is a partner at a challenger law firm gunnercooke llp. She has extensive experience in a wide range of structured commodity finance transactions, trade finance, receivables finance and supply chain finance. Veronika has previously led trade and commodity finance practice at the world’s largest law firm and was recognised as a leading practitioner in trade and commodity finance and in emerging markets finance by Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners.

Ano Kuhanathan
Head of Corporate Research, Allianz Trade

Ano Kuhanathan is an EDHEC Business School alumnus and a PhD graduate in economics from Paris-Dauphine University. He held various positions in the financial industry in trading, research and consulting. He was the Eurozone Economist at AXA Investment Managers from 2016 to 2018. Before joining Euler Hermes in 2020, he was the Head of Economic Advisory and Advanced Analytics at E&Y Advisory. Ano regularly teaches economics, sustainable finance and applied data science at Neoma Business School. He has been the Head of Corporate Research at Allianz Trade since April 2022.

Karol Leszczyński
Factoring Product Development Manager, Comarch Factoring SA

Karol is an enthusiast of the AGILE methodology, certified Scrum Master, Professional IT Product Owner and a graduate of Management and Marketing in the Public Sector at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He has 10 years of experience in corporate banking at Raiffeisen Bank and BNP Paribas as Relationship Manager and Sales Director for Factoring for the southern region of Poland. Since 2019, Karol has been a member of the Business Banking Unit at Comarch and is Product Development Manager of the Comarch Factoring Platform, where he is responsible for the development of the Comarch Factoring Platform in line with the latest business trends and market analyses. Karol’s main responsibilities include the transformation of the platform from a monolithic structure to microservices and development towards a cloud application. Karol is also the owner of a factoring blog.

Jeff Longhurst
Consulting Director, Finativ; Non-Executive Director and Advisor, Invoice Finance and SME Finance

As a Non-Executive Director and Advisor in the Invoice Finance and SME Finance sectors, Jeff works with traditional and Fintech invoice finance providers such as Muse, and with suppliers to those providers such as Credebt and itsettled. He is a Consulting Director within the business services and strategic advisory group, Finativ. Jeff has over 40 years of experience in invoice finance and asset-based lending – over 20 years as CEO/Managing Director working in clearing bank subsidiaries, specialist asset-based lenders and independent invoice finance providers. Responsibility to shareholders ranged from those in the UK to the USA, South Africa and France. His track record sees him focused on growing businesses, including setting up and selling his own invoice finance business and helping businesses that are underachieving to reach their full potential. A past Chair of the Invoice Finance and Asset Based Lending Board of UK Finance and former CEO of The Asset Based Finance Association, he was also a member of the Executive Committee of the EU Federation for Factoring and Commercial Finance. Jeff has an MA in Law from Trinity Hall, Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Credit Management.

Anna-Lena Marx
Associate, Clifford Chance

Lena is an Associate in Clifford Chance's structured debt team. She specialises in structured receivables finance transactions and acts for a wide range of corporates, lenders and intermediaries on factoring, supply chain finance as well as securitisation transactions. Lena also has extensive experience in advising on the financings of other related asset classes including letters of credit, corporate loans and consumer loans. She has particular expertise in the regulatory aspects of structured finance.

Martin McCann
CEO and Co-Founder, Trade Ledger

Martin McCann is CEO and Co-Founder of Trade Ledger (www.tradeledger.io), the world’s first open digital banking platform that gives banks the ability to assess business lending risk in real time. Martin has over 20 years’ experience as a passionate technologist, business leader, investor, academic researcher, and public speaker specialised in the digitisation of business.

Sarah N’Sonde
Head of Sector Research, Coface

Sarah N’Sondé is the Head of Sector Research at the credit insurer Coface Economic Research Department; managing a team of economists and data scientists. Sarah is an economist with 18 years of experience, specialising in international macroeconomics, financial risks (sovereign ratings, country risk analysis, corporate and sector risk) and economic diplomacy. Her expertise in economics includes both developing and advanced economies. Her career history includes experiences in different types of organisations. Prior to Coface, she worked as a freelance economist consultant and as a financial services and prosperity officer at the British Embassy. She also previously worked for some years as a sovereign credit analyst at the international ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. She is an adjunct professor, teaching country risk analysis for a Master’s degree programme at the French university Paris Dauphine. Sarah holds a Master’s degree in International Economics from the University Paris Dauphine, a Licenciatura en Economicas from the Autónoma University in Madrid. She also holds a DESS, the French professional equivalent to a MPhil, in Economic Expertise and International Project Management from the University Paris Est Creteil Val de Marne. Sarah speaks French, Kikongo, English and Spanish.

Martin Opfermann
CFA, Director, Lead Portfolio Manager Trade Finance, Allianz Global Investors

Martin Opfermann is a senior Portfolio Manager within the Alternative Asset Management team at Allianz Global Investors and is leading the firm’s trade finance activities. Martin joined the firm in 2017 from Allianz Investment Management SE, where he was Head of Credit and in charge of Allianz Group’s credit allocation. In 2009, he spearheaded Allianz’s strategic shift into private markets and executed several debt investment strategies. Prior to that, Martin worked in the Fixed Income team of Allianz Lebensversicherungs-AG. Martin graduated from University of Mannheim as a Diplom-Kaufmann in 2002. He is also a CFA charterholder.

Özlem Özuner
Head of Operations and Finance, Allianz Trade

Özlem joined Euler Hermes in 2011 as CEO of Euler Hermes Turkey where she had worked for 9 years before joining Allianz Trade UK and Ireland as Commercial Director in 2020. As of October 2022, Ozlem joined Allianz Trade E-Commerce team as Head of Operations and Finance.

Özlem has more than 25 years of experience in financial services. She has held several leading roles in banking and finance, including Group Head of Corporate Banking, Group Manager of Retail Banking at HSBC Turkey. She is also familiar with the UK market as she spent time working in the UK as a Global Relationship Manager, Corporate Banking, HSBC, from 2001 to 2002.

Özlem is experienced in driving growth in SME portfolios as well as successfully establishing and managing relationships with large corporates. Ozlem’s area of interest are credit risk, payments and BNPL.

Rick Pearson
CIO, Pactum

Rick is the CIO of Pactum AG in Switzerland and was responsible with Clifford Chance for the first securitisation of insured receivables under the European Securitisation Act. Pactum is one of the most innovative players in the receivables finance industry having financed over US$7 billion of invoices since launch just over 3 years ago. They are also hoping to shortly be the first to launch a Sukuk note backed by receivables.

Baljit Rai
Director of Insurance Litigation, Clifford Chance

Baljit Rai has over 21 years' experience of acting in commercial litigation and arbitration disputes in relation to insurance and reinsurance matters, specialising in advising insureds on policy wordings and policy coverage issues. Baljit has particular specialisation in and regularly advises a number of major banks and other financial institutions on the use of credit insurance as a credit risk mitigant under the Basel Accords and the Capital Requirements Regulation.

Chris Rigby
Group CFO and Chief Investment Officer, Stenn

Chris is a co-founder of Stenn Technologies, a UK-based fintech platform serving SMEs engaged in global trade and those operating in the digital economy. Formerly, Chris was co-head of the Securitised Products Group at Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets, and has a background in investment banking and management consulting. He holds a law degree from Oxford University and a Master's degree in International Business.

Monica Sah
Partner, Clifford Chance

Monica Sah is a partner in the Financial Regulation Group at Clifford Chance LLP, specialising in financial markets and FinTech law and regulation. Previously, she was a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and Head of Legal for International Wealth Management. Monica advises global financial institutions (asset managers and sell side), disruptor blockchain providers and crypto services providers and issuers on a full range of legal and regulatory issues, including regulatory reform and implementation (e.g. ALMD5, SRD2, MiFID2/R), financial product structuring, custody issues, expanding and maintaining a multi-product and jurisdictional platform, initial margin product development, governance and financial institution and FinTech M&A. She is a leading advisor on Brexit structuring issues for both asset managers, banks and dealers and was a key regulatory advisor for the launch of VOICE, a social media platform. In Legal 500 UK 2023, Monica is rated a leading individual in Clifford Chance's Tier 1 FinTech Practice and Financial Services: Non-Contentious/ Regulatory Practice. Monica is rated Highly Regarded in IFLR1000 2022 for Financial Services Regulatory and is recognised as one of the leading female lawyers in the world in IFLR1000 Women Leaders 2022. She is also recognised in Who’s Who Legal 2022 as a Thought Leader in the Global Banking Regulation Review and recommended as a Global Leader in Banking – Regulatory, as well as being recognised as one of the world’s leading regulatory practitioners in the Banking Report 2022.

Rebecca Shepherd
Senior Associate, Clifford Chance

Rebecca is an English law qualified senior associate in Clifford Chance’s banking and finance practice. She is 15 years qualified, spent 6 years in the Istanbul office and is currently based in London. Rebecca specialises in financings in growth markets across Africa, Turkey and the Caspian region. She focuses on projects, trade and export finance. Rebecca works with a number of industry bodies in the development of policy, recommended forms and industry know-how. She also works with clients on their LIBOR remediation and LIBER transition projects.

Sofia Spiers
Director, Credit Risk Insurance, Crédit Agricole CIB

Sofia is a credit risk insurance specialist purchasing insurance on a wide range of transactions across many asset classes (Real Estate, Aviation, Corporate, Infrastructure etc) and is heavily involved in developing structured solutions for Receivables and Supply Chain Finance. She is also actively exploring opportunities across financial markets products, such as derivatives. Prior to her time at Credit Agricole, Sofia worked in corporate finance at Deutsche Bank, Capital & Portfolio Management at RBS and in Lloyds Bank’s Financial Institutions Solutions team developing bespoke products to meet regulatory change. She holds a Master's degree in Engineering from the University of Oxford.

Lorna Strong
Lead global counsel for HSBC Global Trade and Receivables Finance (GTRF)

Lorna Strong, is lead global counsel for HSBC Global Trade and Receivables Finance (GTRF), a business that annually facilitates over USD740 billion of trade with access to 90% of all global trade flows. She provides legal advice and risk management to the business and senior executives; playing a lead role in shaping HBSC's contribution to current regulatory and policy debates on trade finance. As Deputy General Counsel, she manages HSBC legal counsel in over 50 jurisdictions, advising on areas as diverse as digital transformation and electronic commerce, blockchain technologies, international disputes, economic sanctions, and ESG financing. As an adjunct to her practice, she presents and participates in industry and academic forums, including as a member of the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce), Legal Committee.

Federico Travella
Founder and Executive Chaiman, NoviCap

Federico is a Belgian-Italian technology entrepreneur and co-founder and executive chairman of Novicap, a venture capital-backed financial technology platform that is building the operating system for working capital. Federico was previously a Managing Director at Rocket Internet where he was pivotal in scaling technology ventures in Asia Pacific and Africa. His most notable involvements were in Lazada (acquired by Alibaba; NYSE: BABA), Jumia and The Iconic. He holds a Master’s Degree in Marine Geology from Ghent University and is a Young Talent Fellow at IESE Business School. Federico also advises the EU Commission on its innovation and entrepreneurship agenda.

Jeroen van Vliet
Director, Value Chain Finance, Rabobank

Jeroen is a senior originator in the Value Chain Finance team of Rabobank. His focus is on originating and structuring multi-jurisdictional (trade) receivables transactions for large corporate and commodity trading clients of Rabobank. Jeroen has been in banking for over 15 years, with previous experience in the areas of credit analysis, corporate lending and relationship management

Richard Wulff
Executive Director, International Credit Insurance & Surety Association (ICISA)

After completing a Master’s degree in Economics, Richard Wulff started his career in 1989 as trade credit insurance underwriting manager and reinsurance director of NCM, a precursor of Atradius, in his native country, the Netherlands. He founded a reinsurance captive for the company in Ireland prior to moving on to Munich Re in Germany. At Munich Re, he managed the non-European credit, surety and political risk reinsurance department until 2008. He then moved to India to become the Chief Underwriting Officer of HDFC-ERGO Insurance Company, a general lines insurance business. Richard subsequently became Group General Manager, heading up the worldwide credit lines at QBE Insurance in Australia, before moving to Hong Kong in that role. He returned to Holland in 2017 to found RW Consulting, a consultancy company for trade credit insurance, surety and political risk (re)insurance. In February 2021, Richard joined the International Credit Insurance and Surety Association (ICISA), an association with which Richard has been actively involved throughout his career in trade credit insurance, surety and political risk insurance, where he currently holds the title of Executive Director.

Geoffrey Wynne
Partner, Sullivan & Worcester

Geoffrey is Head of Sullivan & Worcester’s London office and also Head of its award-winning Trade & Export Finance Group. Geoff is one of the leading trade finance lawyers. He has extensive experience in many aspects of banking and finance, specifically trade, structured trade and commodity finance, and related legal and compliance issues. Geoff has recently been involved in a number of initiatives for trade finance in the digital world including digital payment obligations. He is currently Co-Chair of the ICC Committee which wrote the recently published Uniform Rules for Digital Trade Transactions (URDTT). Geoff sits on the editorial boards of a number of publications and is a regular contributor and speaker at conferences. He is also the editor of and contributor to The Practitioner’s Guide to Trade and Commodity Finance published by Thompson Reuters. He is General Editor and contributor to A Guide to Receivables Finance, a multi-authored publication co-published by Sullivan, Deutsche Bank and the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA). The team which Geoff leads has won numerous awards, including Best Trade or Supply Chain Finance Law Firm at the Global Trade Review (GTR) Leaders in Trade Awards 2022, and Best Trade Finance Law Firm by Trade Finance Global (TFG) in its International Trade Awards 2022. Geoff is ranked both in Chambers UK 2023 in Tier 1 as a Leading Individual for Commodities: Trade Finance and included in the Hall of Fame by The Legal 500 UK, 2023.

Igor Zaks
Co-Founder and Chief Risk Officer, 40Seas

Igor is the Co-Founder and Chief Risk Officer of 40Seas, a fintech platform that digitises and simplifies cross-border trade financing for SMEs around the globe. Igor is a seasoned finance professional, with extensive experience in banking, blue-chip corporates and consulting. Prior to joining the 40Seas founding team, Igor held senior banking roles at Citibank, Daiwa and Eurohypo/Commerzbank, and served as a senior executive at Dell on the financing and risk management teams. He was also a Managing Partner at SCF Capital, where he played a key role in launching one of the first supply chain financing platforms, and is an experienced consultant to many companies in the fintech space. Igor is a frequent speaker at major corporate events and sits on the advisory/editorial boards of TRF News and World of Open Account. Igor holds a Sloan Fellowship MSc with distinction from the London Business School and a Global Professional LLM from the University of Toronto.

Venue

Clifford Chance

10 Upper Bank St Canary Wharf
E14 5JJ London
United Kingdom

Clifford Chance’s International Structured Debt Group is recognised as the pre eminent global securitisation, structured debt and receivables financing practice with market leading teams in the UK, Europe, Africa, the Americas, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East. We have more securitisation specialists than any other firm globally, with over 120 lawyers worldwide. The team frequently work together on a cross-border basis and our partners have consistently sought to expand securitization and receivables financing technology and expertise to other geographies.

We are at the forefront of innovation, establishing creative and ground-breaking solutions to the most complex of structured debt and receivables financing requirements. We are equipped with immeasurable expertise, an unrivalled depth of experience and are highly adaptive to regulatory and industry developments across all key product areas and jurisdictions. We also provide full US advice as an integrated part of any cross-border or global structured debt or receivables financing transaction.

The team's combined expertise spans the complete spectrum of asset classes involving both cash and synthetic securitisation and CLOs. We regularly structure and execute "market first" transactions across different asset classes. Our team is consistently at the forefront of RMBS, Covered Bond, Consumer ABS (including credit cards, personal loans and retail buy-now-pay-later finance), Auto ABS and SME lending ABS transactions, often advising on debut issuer transactions and latest structural features.

The team is also recognised for its expertise involving the use of innovative securitisation techniques (including working closely with our market leading leverage finance, funds and high yield teams), European portfolio disposal work (including NPLs) and associated asset backed financing, multi-jurisdictional receivables financing work and all forms of financing (including loan on loan, CMBS, repackings of commercial real estate assets and fund financings in the form of securitisation).

Webcast
Contact Us

Sponsorship

Georgina Jelly: georgina.jelley@bcrpub.com

Daniel Huszar: dh@bcrpub.com

 

Speaking

Noreen Meehan: noreen.meehan@bcrpub.com

 

Booking

Yongmei He: yongmei.he@bcrpub.com

 

Other enquiries:

info@bcrpub.com

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