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Gathering leading minds in alternative finance together to discuss the recent and future development of the industry, Alternative and Receivables Finance Forum is returning this November to offer an even bigger and better experience. Amid the global pandemic, market shifts and extreme changes to the way businesses operate, the receivables finance market has already changed dramatically in recent years. Join the Forum to get a better understanding on how to use this shift for the success of your future business. 

The event will be held in London. For those who cannot join us in person, we are also offering an online option. 

Speakers
Sabih Ali
Head of Strategic Partnerships Development, MarketFinance

Sabih has over 10 years’ experience helping startups grow. As a passionate technologist, Sabih strongly believes that collaboration and partnerships are the key to unlocking potential and solving business problems. Most recently, he has led partnerships at one of the UK’s fastest growing AI startups and now leading alternative lender, MarketFinance.

Marc Bajer
Senior Advisor to the Board, PetraTrade Finance

Marc has over 42 years of experience in DCM, SCM, alternative lending, syndicated lending, leveraged lending, insurance, asset management, trading and sales. His responsibilities have included Global Head of Debt and Structured Capital Markets, Global Head of Syndicated Loans and Leveraged Loans and Global Head of Conduits/SIVs. He has also founded non-bank lending platforms and has been the CEO of a global insurance business.

Marc currently advises non-bank and next-gen lenders in the development of their fundamental strategy and direction, the assessment of their strategic risk and the evaluation of market opportunities.

Frédéric Bourgeois
Managing Director UK&I, Global Head of Single Risk Business Development, Coface

Frédéric Bourgeois was appointed Managing Director of Coface UK & Ireland in September 2012. He joined Coface in 2004 after 7 years as a financial analyst at Natexis Bleichroeder, covering French, Swiss and German banks and insurance. First in charge of investments and reinsurance within Coface, Frédéric added treasury and refinancing responsibilities, as well as the trading desk specialised in Foreign Exchange guarantees on behalf of the French State, to become Group Finance & Reinsurance Director in 2011. Since joining Coface UK&I, Frédéric also added the responsibility of developing the Single Risk business globally.

Harold Brako Harold Brako
Partner, Addleshaw Goddard

Harold is an experienced commercial litigator and a Finance Litigation and Disputes Partner at Addleshaw Goddard. He advises clients in relation to all aspects of dispute resolution including claims for and against lenders, fraud claims and asset recovery involving urgent injunctive processes, contractual / commercial disputes, reviews and enforcement of security and insolvency proceedings. With a particular expertise in banking, asset based lending and receivables financing disputes, Harold and his team provide advice to the major UK clearing banks, international banks and a wide range of finance sector clients (which include Private Equity and other independent funders). Harold is consistently noted as a leading individual in both Legal 500 and Chambers directories. His team are also distinguished by both directories as Tier 1 Banking Litigators.

Simon Cureton
CEO, Funding Options

Simon Cureton is Chief Executive Officer at Funding Options, where he's using his extensive experience in the alternative finance sector to ensure the company is at the forefront of Open Banking and other innovations within the industry, and delivering those benefits to its customers. Before joining Funding Options, Simon was one of the founding members at Esme Loans. Prior to that, he worked for RBS International as part of its transformation programme, as well as other world-leading financial companies including Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Deutsche Bank.

Shiona Davies
Director BDRC Continental & Editor, SME Finance

Shiona Davies is an acknowledged expert on SME finance and the author of the SME Finance Monitor, a half-yearly report looking into SMEs and their access to finance. This independent report, published by BVA BDRC since 2011, is used by government, banks and business groups to inform the debate around lending to SMEs. It has been quoted widely in the national and international press and Shiona regularly presents its findings at events and conferences. Shiona’s background is in financial services: having started her career with NatWest, she moved to the research agency in 2000 and has been involved in a number of major assignments for financial and public sector clients, including the SME Finance Monitor and the new Independent Service Quality Survey for business current accounts, with results published online and in all major bank branches.

John Davies
Founder and Chairman, Kompli-Global

As a victim of significant orporate fraud in 2014 (the perpetrators have just been jailed), John Davies, Founder and Chairman of Kompli-Global PLC, was motivated to build a business that exposed potential wrongdoing of corporates and their officers that is simply not easily identifiable with the naked or untrained eye. The insight reports provided by Kompli-Global are commissioned by Magic Circle Law Firms, award-winning corporate advisors and compliance teams globally to help them combat financial crime. He is also heavily involved in a wide range of industry initiatives and is Chairman of the Association of Alternative Business Finance. For example, during the Covid-19 crisis he was asked to join a panel of sector experts, that included the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, for Q&A sessions organised for a wide range of parliamentarians by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking. Topics discussed included the CBILS/BBLS and post-Covid recovery. John is also a member of the CBI’s SME Council and a member of the Financial Ombudsman SME Advisory Group.

Thomas DeLuca
Advisory Board Member, SME Finance Forum

Thomas J. DeLuca is Global POS Lending Tribe Lead at ING Bank in Amsterdam. A member of the SME Finance Forum Advisory Board since inception, Tom has over 25 years of experience in digital transformation and technology innovation in merchant payments, consumer finance, and MSME financial solutions. Prior to ING Bank, Tom was a founder of AMP Credit Technologies in Hong Kong, providing loan origination automation technology to banks focusing on innovative solutions for SME finance in Asia and Europe. Prior to that, Tom was a co-founder of Planet Payment, one of the first multicurrency payment processors to merchant acquiring banks, which floated on NASDAQ and was subsequently taken private. Before his entrepreneurial initiatives, Tom was an attorney at American Express in New York, where he provided legal and strategic advice to the merchant services division on general commercial issues pertaining to credit card transaction acceptance. Tom received his B.A., J.D. and M.B.A. from St. Johns University and his LL.M. in international trade and business transactions from Fordham University.

Andrei Dikouchine
CFO and Founder, 3S Money

Andrei is a renowned veteran of the UK banking industry with a wealth of leadership experience in top UK, US and global financial institutions. The highlights of his 20+ year career in finance include senior positions in London and New York with Salomon Smith Barney / Citigroup, serving as Head of M&A / Investor Relations at SUEK (one of the largest mining conglomerates in the world), and membership of the Board of Relendex (a premier peer-to-peer lending platform in the UK). For over a decade, Andrei has taught Advanced Financial Modelling on the London Business School’s Master in Finance Programme.

Andy Dodd
Managing Director, Hitachi Capital Invoice Finance

Andy is a long standing advocate for invoice finance and has spent over twenty five years working within the invoice finance industry mainly in the UK market. With a passion for technology, Andy and his colleagues have been working towards delivering a broad range of cashflow solutions to their clients making the access to invoice finance as simple and as quick as possible but also addressing the issues many of their clients face in managing their cashflow which funding doesn’t necessarily solve.

Iain Gunn

Iain has over 35 years’ experience as a trade credit insurance broker, helping protect businesses from SME’s through global corporates to banks and financial institutions. Policy structures range from traditional whole turnover, to principal customer and single situation, placed with specialist insurers in both the company market and Lloyd’s of London.

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).

Nicholas Heller
Co-Founder and CEO, tomato pay

Nicholas Heller is Co-Founder and CEO of tomato pay, a simple, QR-code based payments platform used by businesses and sole traders who want to receive payments in a fairer, faster and more affordable way. Previously, he was heading the New Business Development group at Google, leading teams working on new product incubation and exploratory efforts in technology. His career spans 25 years with extensive experience in technology, media and finance, as a serial entrepreneur, advisor and investor. He is passionate about creativity, technological disruption, sustainability and projects of positive consequence. Nicholas holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Western, and an MBA from the University of Cambridge.

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.

Betül Kurtuluş
Regional Director, Central, Eastern & South-Eastern Europe & Middle East, FCI

Betül Kurtuluş has 25 years’ experience in the factoring and leasing industry. She started her career at Anderson Consulting and joined the factoring industry in 1992. Prior to Strateji Factoring, Betül worked at Toprak Banking Group. Until 2018, she had been General Manager at Strateji Factoring, also a Board Member of Yatirim Leasing.

Betül Kurtuluş served as a Board Member of the Association of Financial Institutions of Turkey since 2016. The association consists of three major industries: factoring, leasing and consumer finance, with members of 103 finance companies.

Since January 2019, she has been appointed as a Regional Director responsible for Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe and the Middle East. She has a university degree in Economics.

Jeremy Levy Jeremy Levy
Partner, Baker Mckenzie

Jeremy Levy is a Partner in Baker McKenzie’s Structured Capital Markets Team in London, working in the areas of securitisation and structured finance. Jeremy regularly advises sponsors, originators, arrangers and trustees on securitisation and other structured finance transactions across multiple jurisdictions and involving various asset classes (including trade receivables, residential mortgages, auto loans and consumer loans). Jeremy also regularly advises buyers, suppliers and platform providers on all types of supply chain finance transactions. Jeremy has considerable experience in establishing new structures and vehicles and has been named a Next Generation Lawyer and a Next Generation Partner by the Legal 500.

Gary Lowe
Managing Director and Global Head, Global Credit Insurance Group, Standard Chartered Bank

Gary founded, built, and leads the global distribution desk which places bespoke synthetic hedges of the structured loan and credit book into the insurance market in order to mitigate credit risk, improve return on equity, and optimise capital usage. He began his banking career in 2005 and has had experience of M&A, Project Finance, and Corporate Finance Portfolio Management, before establishing the credit insurance desk in 2012. He is regularly invited to speak at industry conferences globally to share and discuss his subject expertise. He is a fine wine enthusiast and collector; has a passion for Chelsea FC; enjoys skiing and travel; and lives in Wimbledon with his wife and two sons. He holds MA and BA (Hons) degrees in Classics from Robinson College Cambridge.

Amit Mallick
Global Open Banking and Open API Lead, Accenture

Amit has 20 years of consulting and technology experience in Financial Services Industry. He currently leads the Open Banking/Open API Business for Accenture globally and has strong subject matter expertise in Open Banking, Open Finance and the associated API economy and has published multiple white papers and thought leadership articles on these topics.

In his current role, Amit has been engaged with the many of the top UK and European banks in addressing the Open Banking and Open API agenda and has been involved in multiple projects involving work around Open Banking Strategy & Operating Model, PSD2 program delivery, Developer Portals, API technology Enablement and API Ecosystem setup. Amit has published white papers and thought leadership articles on these topics. Amit’s latest thought leadership on Open Banking business and monetisation models can be accessed here https://bankingblog.accenture.com/author/amit-mallick

Martin McTague Martin McTague
Chairman, Policy and Advocacy, Federation of Small Businesses

Martin is the Policy and Advocacy Chairman for the Federation of Small Businesses. He has been a member of the FSB for over 20 years, promoting the interests of our local members through the Darlington Branch Committee, as Vice Chairman of the Regional Committee, and as Chairman of the Local Government Policy Unit. He currently owns and manages three businesses offering public policy, engineering and IT consultancy services. Martin leads the policy team to make sure small business issues are understood and represented in Westminster, Whitehall and Brussels.

Simon Mills
Barrister, Commercial Team Leader, Five Paper

Simon Mills is an experienced commercial law barrister and leader of Five Paper’s Commercial Team. He provides a modern litigation and advisory service across all areas of law in banking and finance, insolvency, commercial fraud and asset recovery. Simon is widely recognised as the leading barrister practising in factoring, invoice discounting and receivables finance. He is consistently recommended in the main legal directories, and sources have recently said “Simon will really fight the corner of his clients and gets the job done – he’s highly regarded … “A great barrister when you have a big fight on your hands. Not afraid to roll up his sleeves, he is a hard worker who is lovely to work with.” (Chambers and Partners 2021 & Legal 500 2021). He is editor of Salinger on Factoring (6th Ed., 2020) and Goode on Proprietary Rights and Insolvency in Sales Transactions (3rd Ed.) by Prof. Sir Roy Goode. He has just finished writing the new edition of Atkin’s Sale and Supply of Goods and Services (Vol. 35), ably assisted by Joe McBrien.

Pushkar Mukewar
Co-founder and CEO, Drip Capital

Pushkar Mukewar is the Co-Founder and CEO of Drip Capital. At Drip, he is responsible for defining the strategic direction and managing the product, business development, and operations of the company. In his 13-years-long career, he has worked across various geographies and has an in-depth understanding of the global financial services industry. Pushkar realized the huge potential of addressing the working capital gap for small businesses in emerging economies and this became his inspiration behind starting Drip Capital in 2016. Drip offers a unique trade financing product targeted towards small businesses engaged in cross-border trade by making the underwriting and financing of international B2B transactions seamless.

In the past, Pushkar was a venture capitalist at Saama Capital and was involved with several high growth start-ups in India, including Paytm, Snapdeal, and Bluestone. He has also been a Consultant with Oliver Wyman in the US, UAE, and Switzerland, where he advised many financial services clients on strategic and operational issues. He started his career at Capital One where he developed credit risk analytics for the subprime consumer loans business.

Pushkar holds an MBA degree from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MS degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta.

Nasrin Nourizadeh
Vice President, Head of the Business Development and Marketing, FCIA

Nasrin Nourizadeh is the Divisional Vice President and Head of the Business Development and Marketing at FCIA Trade Credit & Political Risk. FCIA is a division of Great American Insurance Company, which in turn is owned by American Financial Group. 2021 marks FCIA’s 60th anniversary supporting its clients for their trade credit insurance needs.

Nasrin’s core responsibilities include forging new business relations with top tier banks and financial institution, corporates, and brokers. She has successful track record of creating brand awareness and improved positioning of FCIA as a trusted, innovative, and consistent leader in the global trade credit insurance market. She collaborates with the executive management team in setting growth strategy, innovation and product development.

Nasrin brings over 20 years of experience in marketing and business development. Over the past 14 years at FCIA, she has contributed to many industry associations and conferences and been on the Board of Directors of ITFA America, formerly known as ATFA, over the past 10 years. Nasrin has a B.A. in Accounting and Marketing from the University of Pennsylvania, the Wharton Business School.

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.

Bart Ras
Managing Director, Working Capital Finance Origination, Pemberton Capital Advisors

Bart Ras is Managing Director in Working Capital Finance at Pemberton. He is responsible for solving clients’ most pressing issues related to the financial flows in supply chains. Prior to joining Pemberton in 2021, Bart held senior positions at Greensill Capital, HSBC London, Citibank, Philips NV and ING Bank. He has over 10 years’ experience in supply chain finance and was Head of Business Development for HSBC Global Trade and Receivables Finance in 2013 and 2016. Bart has been a part-time research fellow since 2017 at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands.

Alastair Sewell
Liquidity Investment Strategist, Aviva Investors

Alastair is responsible for developing and executing the firm's liquidity solutions business strategy, covering money market funds through to ultra-short duration bond funds. In this newly created role, he leads the strategy’s external relationships, drives new product launches, produces research and content and supports portfolio managers in achieving performance targets. Alastair joined Aviva Investors from Fitch Ratings, where he was head of fund ratings, responsible for producing ratings and research on money market and short duration bond funds in EMEA and Asia-Pacific. Prior to this, he was a CDO rating analyst in Fitch’s structured credit group. Alastair started his career at a UK local authority in 2003. He holds a BSc in Biology from the University of Bristol, an MBA from the University of Bath and a CFA Institute Certificate in ESG Investing. Alastair is a CFA charterholder.

Ben Sher
Chief Commercial Officer, Funding Xchange

Ben is a financial technology leader with 20 years’ experience in the sector across Capital Markets, Commodities and SME Finance. Prior to joining FXE, Ben held various leadership roles at SunGard and FIS for 10 years before delivering the growth of Cloud Lending Solutions in the SME Lending arena. He is passionate about leveraging technology to drive access to capital for SMEs and has regularly spoken in industry forums about the need for broader digital advancement across our ecosystem.

Lawrence Wood
Group Head of Credit & Risk, Ultimate Finance

Lawrence has 25+ years’ experience within the ABL sector across HSBC, RBS, GMAC and Aldermore and with Ultimate as Head of Credit for the last 6 years. Roles have been varied covering product development, portfolio management, risk management and business development. Lawrence rovides a key strategic role within the risk team, heading up the credit sanctioning function for both new and existing business across the Ultimate Finance Group and its entire product range.

Venue

Addleshaw Goddard LLP

60 Chiswell Street
EC1Y 4AG London (and virtual)
United Kingdom
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

 

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