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7-8 November 2023
Dubai Chambers
Deira, Dubai

Factoring and supply chain finance are becoming prime contributors to economic growth in the MENA region and interest in the products are at an all time high. By facilitating trade, reducing financing costs, optimising working capital and improving cash flow, businesses can invest in expansion, modernization and innovation. This makes the region more attractive for international trade and investment, promoting economic growth and development. The second annual MENA Supply Chain Finance forum will open its doors this autumn for those keen to learn about the current state of the new framework of supply chain finance in the MENA region including developments after the introduction of the Factoring Law (Federal Decree Law No. 16) of 2021.  MENA Supply Chain Finance 2023 brings together leading industry experts from around the region and beyond, service providers and regulators to uncover the industry’s top opportunities and challenges. This is an essential annual supply chain finance industry event for everyone involved or interested in MENA receivables and payables finance.


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MENA SCF 2023 will address the following topics:

 

•              Future business drivers and models for SCF and factoring in the MENA region

•              Unlocking liquidity through SCF

•              Addressing the challenges of SCF’s potential to deliver ESG objectives

•              Realising fully digitalised end to end processes for SCF

•              Regional focus on factoring and SCF in Saudi Arabia and Egypt

•              Harnessing the power of AI in SCF

•              Supporting SCF and factoring partnerships between banks and fintechs

•              Shar'iah compliance SCF and factoring

•              Regulatory and legal progress and challenges in the MENA region

 

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Abdelrahman El-Beltagy
Islamic Factoring Specialist, efcom

Though young in age, Abdelrahman El-Beltagy has been breathing Islamic Finance for his entire life. Born in Riyadh and growing up in Cairo in a family of Islamic Finance scholars, he is now a finance and investment student at Cairo University. During his young professional life, he has held roles at Contact Financial Holding, First Abu Dhabi Bank Egypt and is now a member of efcom’s efCommunity with focus on Islamic factoring.

K. Nizardeen
CEO, Credit Investment Bank UAE, Vice Chair, ICC Banking Commission, ICC UAE

Mr Nizardeen (CDCS, CTFC & CFP) is a highly experienced banker with over 30 years of banking experience in Transaction Banking, Global Operations, Transformation, Trade Finance and Islamic Banking. He is a technology leader in the banking industry with experience across multinational and local banks with a strong track record.

Mr Nizardeen is currently is the CEO at CIB, UAE / Malaysia, following his tenure as Head of Transaction Banking at Emirates Islamic Bank (ENBD Group). He is an ExCo member of the ICC Banking Commission, Vice Chair of ICC UAE and a member of the ICC Digitisation working group which released the recent eUCP and eURC. Mr Nizardeen is a regular speaker at international conferences, a trainer and a well-known writer with many articles on banking, trade finance, digitisation and Islamic banking.

He has led transformation changes to many areas across the banking industry especially in the transaction banking, trade finance, operations and Islamic banking areas which have enhanced efficiency and reduced cost. Mr Nizardeen invented and implemented the world’s first Islamic internet banking platform for end-to-end trade finance transaction processing and blockchain powered Islamic inspection system. He has also successfully established global operating models across many leading banks by consolidating, strategising, restructuring, outsourcing and implementing/replacing core banking systems.

Tom O’Brien
Sales Manager, China Systems Middle East, Co-ordinator, Steering Committee for the Banking Commission, ICC UAE

Tom is a Sales manager at China Systems Middle East, an industry leading trade finance, Supply Chain Finance and payments software provider. China Systems’ flagship solutions, Eximbills Enterprise and Customer Enterprise, empower some of the largest Islamic and conventional financing institutions in the region. Tom also acts as the co-ordinator of the ICC UAE steering committee of the Banking Commission.

Andrew Pierce
Managing Director, Head of Origination & Structuring – Securitised Products, MUFG Bank

Andrew joined MUFG in 2008 as part of the Securitisation Structuring team. He previously worked for Deloitte and is an ACA Chartered Accountant. Andrew has developed the product offering at MUFG beyond securitisation, serving clients with a range of working capital products, including Account Receivable Purchase Schemes, Inventory Finance, Carbon Finance, Insured Receivables financing and is a specialist in off balance sheet financing solutions. He has over 15 years’ experience across a range of asset types, with a multi-jurisdictional focus.

Salman Sharif
Executive Director, Head of Trade Sales, UAE, Standard Chartered Bank

Salman Muhammad Hassan moved to United Arab Emirates in February 2017. His prime responsibility is growing the Trade business and setting the strategic direction for Trade, Transaction Banking within Corporate & Institutional Banking for the bank in UAE.

As Head of Trade Sales, Salman is responsible for end to end management of trade sales, including revenues, costs, origination, governance, and compliance. He has been key in influencing the wider team to deliver sustainable results including sales revenue, product, and implementation by enhancing trade product knowledge for coverage relationship managers, compliance, and other key stakeholders. He has been closely involved in structuring solutions for Corporate and Institutional Banking clients & helping clients and the UAE as a country achieve long term goals. His current focus is on large transactions with emphasis on sustainability, risk distribution, supplier finance, growing exports and digitizing trade finance for the wider industry. He has represented the bank on various forums including SMART Dubai’s Banking Industry Working Group.

Salman has been with Standard Chartered Bank for over 20 years, principally with Corporate and Institutional Banking, with various earlier assignments in Karachi and Doha. His last assignment was the Executive Director and Head of Transaction Banking with Standard Chartered Bank Qatar. He has overall banking experience of 25 years of diversified leadership, relationship, origination, conduct, governance, product, digitization, business management & planning roles with HSBC, ABN AMRO Bank, & Standard Chartered Bank. With specific focus on Digitization, Cash Management, Trade Finance, coupled with Consumer Banking & Wholesale Banking product experience.

Salman has studied business with a Bachelor of Science, achieving High Distinction, majoring in Economics, from Pennsylvania State University.
Other than being a Certified Scuba Diver, Open water distance swimmer, Water-skiing, Boogie Boarding, he is a keen sportsman. He enjoys training, coaching, and helping others achieve their potential. Salman is a Pakistani citizen and is married with 2 children.

Latif Sheik
Business Development Manager, Factoring & SCF, Comarch Middle East

With over 14 years of extensive experience, Latif’s key areas of expertise include factoring, supply chain finance (SCF), receivables finance, open account, and open banking solutions. In his current role at Comarch Middle East, Latif focuses on helping banks in the Middle East to launch or streamline their trade and invoice management processes, specialising in SCF and factoring solutions. He collaborates with leading banks and factors in the region and is recognised for his expertise in implementing cutting-edge platforms that have the potential to redefine the business banking experience. Latif is a seasoned professional with a proven ability to understand business needs and build rapport with key decision-makers. Based in Dubai for the past 12 years, Latif has overseen relationships with banks in the overall GCC markets, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and Egypt. Moreover, he plays a vital role in guiding customers streamlining and bringing automation into the back-end process of factoring, receivables management, and reconciliation, areas of paramount importance in the world of finance.

Olena Shyrokova
UAE Representative Chair, International Trade Council

Olena Shyrokova, President of the Ukrainian Business Council Dubai and Northern Emirates and Vice Chairman of ICC UAE Commission on Trade and Investment, is a distinguished licensed attorney with a stellar academic background, including a degree from Taras Shevchenko National University. Holding an LLM in Law from the University of Middlesex, Olena boasts 9 years of expertise in corporate and contract law, with a significant 6 year stint in the United Arab Emirates. She is renowned for her insightful articles, such as Pylyp Orlyk's Constitution, and others.

Umar Tariq Pirzada
Business Planning Strategy and Transformation Director, Almajdouie Motors

Umar T. Pirzada (UTP) is a futurist and eternal optimist who believes the world can become any practical reality which the human mind can imagine. If we can think it, we can do it. From a professional standpoint, he is a technologist at the core and has further developed business acumen over his career and has found his niche as a strategic adviser and enabler for technology driven business transformation, with expertise in the finance, treasury and taxation domains.

A proven performer throughout his career, he has earned the reputation of being able to generate ideas, develop them into strategy and deliver impactful organisational change through the successful execution of global, large-scale projects and programmes. He aspires to continue enabling positive change in the world while utilising his unique combination of business and technology expertise to help organisations get super-efficient and embrace the future with confidence.

During a career of 20+ years, he has spent 16 years in aviation with the Emirates Group based in Dubai, UAE, and recently moved to KSA in December 2022 as the Business Planning, Strategy and Transformation Director for Almajdouie Motors Co. LLC (part of Almajdouie Holding Company LLC) based out of Dammam.

Hisham Abouldahab
Corporate Treasurer, Mansour Automotive Company

Hisham Abouldahab has more than 20 years’ experience in the field of corporate treasury with exposure to multi-scope and many geographical regions including Egypt, Iraq and the sub-Saharan African countries. His role has expanded to managing working capital solutions, trade activities, as well as FX and credit risk management. He is experienced in funding structures and corporate restructuring that serve business needs. Hisham is also an expert in managing working capital solutions for companies with high and fast liquidity turnover.

He is a member of the Association for Financial Professionals and the AFP MEA Treasury Advisory Council. He is Chairman of the Egyptian Corporate Treasurers (ECT), the voice of the market, which provides Egyptian treasurers with training, access to best practice, and representation with regulators.

Hisham is Vice Chairman of the Egyptian Consumer Financing Federation, which builds bridges between the consumer finance entities in the Egyptian market NBFIs and the regulator, as well as providing help for newly established entities with regulators’ requirements through training and sharing experiences. The Federation plays a key role in exempting all consumer finance entities from VAT by raising and negotiating the issue with the regulator and engaging with the tax authorities.

Federico Avellán Borgmeyer
Chief Partner Officer, efcom

With nearly 30 years banking technology experience, such as transaction and payment processing, credit card personalisation, payment and other transaction terminals, AI applications in finance, cryptography, DLT and factoring solutions in many C-suite positions across business planning, finance, M&A, R&D, marketing and sales, operations and after-sales with World Card International, DataCard Corporation, Gemplus/Gemalto, FidelioNetworks, FirstData Corporation, Postbank POS Transact, Tech4Fin Deutschland and Factoring Blockchain Solutions, Federico is the strategic architect and now executer for efcom's new global marketing and sales approach. Federico is also Senior Partner at the Amontis Consulting Group, Executive Board Member at Sevar AG, Board Member at Meshed Systems and holds an MSc from Technische Universität Berlin, MBA Visiting Scholarship from University of Illinois and lectures in Entrepreneurship at the Computer Science Department at the University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt. He has lived and worked in the Americas, EMEA, mainland China and speaks Spanish, English and German.

Maninder Bhandari
Director, Derby Group

Maninder Bhandari has 35+ years of multi-national experience across Latin America and the Caribbean, Miami, Hong Kong, Singapore and the MENA region in regional leadership roles, board positions and as the CEO of multiple businesses. Throughout his years at HSBC, ABN AMRO and the Bank of New York Mellon in regional and global positions, he has seen multiple downturns and crises yet has steered the businesses to strategic growth. At the Bank of New York Mellon, Maninder had responsibility for over 30 countries in the MENA region. His quest for inorganic growth and leadership led him to be a founding partner of a private equity fund, investing in mid-cap companies in the IT, education and health care sectors. He was a board member of the investee companies prior to his sale of his interests in the fund. Whilst growing the fund via raising growth capital and investing in cross-border deals, he was also partner and director in a group providing non-core back office services. This group now has 13 companies and 3,000 staff. Maninder sold his interests to a US-based Nasdaq listed multi-national. Concurrently he was an advisor to a UAE financial institution and spearheaded a team to set up a new onshore bank in the UAE to promote trade with Africa and Eastern Europe – the new frontiers of growth. Currently, as CEO of a four-company group, Maninder has led the group to financial stability despite trying circumstances requiring a strategic turnaround. He enjoys public speaking and has written articles published in finance magazines and in daily newspapers on wide-ranging commercial subjects. He remains on the editorial board of a global trade publication based out of London and continues to be a speaker at and chair of trade conferences. Maninder is a Singaporean citizen and has an MBA.

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.

Anurag Chaudhary
CEO, Pinnacle Trade Finance

Anurag has overall banking experience of 25+ years in corporate and transactional banking covering sales, structuring, credit, international trade, product management, distribution and portfolio optimisation. He was part of Citibank’s Global Trade and Supply Chain businesses Exco for 7+ years and responsible for one of Citibank’s global trade product pillars. He managed Citibank’s trade distribution and syndication team globally and was responsible for investor relationships across 100+ global and regional banks, and institutional investors/ asset managers. Subsequently, he worked as a strategic management consultant with IBM USA and Ernst & Young (EY) London nad Swiss teams to help banks and corporates to digitalise and transform their global trade finance and supply chain businesses.

Currently, he is leveraging his investor relationships to arrange incremental <1-year working capital finance funding for (a) “unrated” corporates with turnover $500mn-$1,000mn, (b) non-investment grade corporates rated B’s and BB’s, (c) emerging market banks and (d) factoring and leasing firms.

Arif Choksy
Chief Financial Officer, Bahra Electric

Arif has extensive corporate experience gained globally and regionally with national and multi-national organisations such as Ducab and Unilever. His expertise include hands-on strategy formulation and execution, business and organisation restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, risk management for hedging, capital restructuring/ funding options and business turn-arounds. He worked for Unilever Group for two decades in various senior roles in finance, IT and commercial, and in various locations including South America, the UK and Pakistan. He joined Dubai Cable Company (Ducab) in 2001 and was Ducab’s CFO until March 2019 and Company Secretary and Advisor until December 2019. Arif has served on the boards of AEI Cable UK, JBK Qatar and BICC MET Bahrain. He joined Bahra Electric in August 2020 as Chief Financial Officer.

Rahul Daswani
Founder, LHD Research

Rahul has 20+ years of diversified experience in digital transformation, corporate treasury, financing and process excellence. He was a Six Sigma Quality Black Belt at GE Capital and a Risk Underwriter at Citibank before becoming a Regional Treasurer at Nokia. Then he moved to Microsoft Treasury to develop financing programmes for emerging markets and now he is founder of LHD Research, which provides knowledge and advisory solutions.
He is based in Dubai and is dual qualified as Chartered Accountant from India and Chartered Treasurer from the UK.

Raja Debnath
Managing Director, Veefin Solutions

Raja is the Managing Director and founder of Veefin Solutions, a global thought leader in SCF solutions. Raja Debnath is an SCF and MSME technology and advisory professional-turned-entrepreneur. He is a former IFC Senior Global Advisor for SCF and SME Banking and has advised over 25 financial institutions globally. He set up the SCF and SME banking advisory practice team at IFC South Asia and launched their SCF programmes in multiple countries across Asia and Middle East.

Brendan Du Preez
Senior Vice President, Global Head Trade Product Management, Global Transaction Banking, Mashreq Bank

Brendan du Preez’s career spans more than 20 years across various roles within operations, sales, risk management and product management. He started his career as senior business accountant at Clover South Africa and then progressed to ABSA Corporate Bank South Africa where he had the responsibility of running the Transaction Management Unit for Structured Trade and Commodity Finance. Brendan moved to Barclays where he was accountable for the setup, implementation and integration of a Transaction Management Unit to support the Corporate Finance business across Africa. Following his Barclays stint, Brendan joined Standard Chartered Bank as Head of Transaction Management Unit Africa with accountability to establish a team and system to support business expansion across Africa. Following this role, Brendan had held various other senior roles within Standard Chartered Bank, most notably, Head Operations South Africa, Structured Trade Product Management Head for Africa, Global Product Management Head, based in Singapore, with a specific focus on strategic open account and documentary trade growth products and Southern Africa Head of Product Management. He was the Product Head for Structured Trade and Commodity Finance at Barclays Africa Group. Before joining Mashreq, as SVP Global Head of Trade Product Management, Brendan was the Head Trade and Working Capital Finance Core Markets at Standard Bank. Prior to this role, Brendan was the Group Head of Open Account, Supply Chain and Working Capital Finance at Standard Bank Group with accountability for strategic direction and growth of the business across the Standard Bank Group. He holds a B.Com Accounting Degree from the University of Potchefstroom South Africa. He has published and contributed to trade related articles in trade industry publications. He has also been both a panellist and speaker at key trade industry conferences. He has represented Standard Bank at the Global Wolfsberg / ICC Working Group on Anti-Money Laundering in Trade Finance, ICC Global Supply Chain Finance Forum and BAFT African Council.

Amr El Haddad
CEEMEA Head of Working Capital Solutions, Kyriba

Amr is an accomplished and commercially astute banker and fintech leader with exceptional expertise in Trade Finance, Cash Management, and Working Capital tech solutions. His experience covers business management and leadership, sales, product management, as well as solution structuring for all Corporate, Financial Institutions, and Sovereign Funds client segments.

Amr started his career with Citibank in 1998 and ended his tenure there in 2009 as the MENA Trade Sales Head. During his time with the bank, and among many other achievements, he earned the GTS Chairman club membership 3 times in 4 years for overachieving his targets and for designing innovative solutions. He was also nominated as the best sales officer in Europe, Middle East and Africa more than once.

He spent 12 years with JP Morgan where he started as MENA Head of Trade Product Management. In few years, he expanded his responsibility to look after EMEA Traditional Trade. His responsibilities were expanded once more to cover funded solutions within Core Trade globally. During these years, he structured and commercialised a number of complex solutions for companies in the oil industry in the Middle East, for Islamic banks in the same region, for large US energy companies, for telecom and sports companies in Italy, and also for Point of Sale companies in Latin America. He pioneered and implemented a global project to reclassify all Trade Finance solutions under the 3 pillars of the cash conversion cycle which included standardising several products, rolling out new ones, simplifying contractual agreements, designing new marketing and sales material, and sales training.

As a believer in the power of technology to accelerate growth, Amr moved to head up Working Capital SaaS Solutions in Kyriba where he is formulating the go-to-market strategy and financial plans for the business, drawing a heat map of opportunities in CEEMEA region, and helping to design the value proposition for different sectors. Amr helps Kyriba’s customers in the region through their digital transformation journey.

Amr is also a Board Member in the International Trade & Forfaiting Association Middle East where he facilitates the expansion of trade and related solutions in the region. He advocates the adaptation of advanced trade finance solutions, helping regulators, banks and corporates understand the benefits and implications of digital trade.

Amr has been based in Dubai since 2008 and has strong business relationships with many companies and banks across MENA countries and beyond. He has represented his employers many times in regional forums like GTR and global ones like SIBOS.

Backed by his regional experience, Amr writes articles in an e-magazine to share his views on Trade Finance business. He has got a deep appreciation for equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Shereen Elansary
Head of Supply Chain Finance & Custody Division, Qatar National Bank Alahli

Shereen is the Head of Supply Chain Finance and the Custody Division at QNB Alahli, the first bank in Egypt to provide a comprehensive solution including B2B finance through special tailor-made lending programmes, digital payments and collections. She has 30 years' banking experience, mostly in corporate and investment banking at QNBAA, working with multinational corporations. She is a board member at GSK Egypt representing QNBAA and at QNB Life Insurance Company. She is a member of the credit committee at QNB Alahli. Shereen has both a Bachelor's degree and a Master's degree in Business Administration from the American University in Cairo.

Gianluca Elmosi
Group Treasury Director, Al Dahra Holding LLC

Gianluca has more than 20 years’ experience in corporate treasury management in prestigious multinational companies from oil & gas, telco, chemicals, agriculture and other sectors, specialising in M&A, debt raising, cash pool, risk management, structured financial debt, interest rate coverage, cash management and capital funding.

Currently he is the Group Treasury Director at Al Dahra Holding, a prominent leader in the agribusiness fueled by an active foreign investment strategy. Prior to joining Al Dahra in 2015, for which he oversees the business in several regions managing all aspects in treasury operations, Gianluca was Director of Treasury in Muntajat, the Qatar Chemical and Petrochemical Marketing and Distribution Company, developing and managing Muntajat's financial market risks including interest rate, liquidity, credit risk, FX risk and insurance.

Before moving to Qatar in 2012, in his earlier career, he worked several years in General Electric as Global Treasurer of the GE Energy Contractual Services Business and in NTT Docomo (Buongiorno) for which he held the role of Global Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations.

He has a B.A. in Business Administration from Cattolica University in Milan.

Gianluca, among his passions, is a go-karting professional pilot and he won the 2017-2018 GCC Rotax Championship for the category RD1 and actively still racing

Norhan Ezzat
Head of Global Transaction Banking, Arab African International Bank (AAIB)

Norhan Ezzat, CFA, is a highly accomplished finance professional with a strong background in structured trade financing and digital payments capabilities. Her experience spans multi-national, regional and Islamic banks covering the MENA and Asia Pacific regions. She has been instrumental in driving large-scale business digital transformation programmes, serving in oversight as well as execution roles. The programmes covered the rollout of market-leading transaction banking products, systems and channels for corporate, FI and SME clients, in addition to driving end-to-end process re-engineering and automation for trade finance, payments and transaction services.

She is currently heading Global Transaction Banking at Arab African International Bank across Egypt and UAE, having established the regional business from the ground up with product development, advisory and structured solutions teams and built full trade finance and cash management proposition for corporate, FI and SME clients. She orchestrated the formation of product and journey squads within the digital factory to build innovative structured trade finance solutions, and also led the establishment of partnerships with fintechs and payment platform providers to offer supply chain financing programmes and digital solutions for B2B collections. Additionally, Norhan has a solid foundation in Islamic banking. While working at ADIB UAE, she successfully led the development of structured Islamic trade financing solutions and digital platforms, catering to the specific needs of global and regional clients seeking Sharia-compliant solutions. Her in-depth knowledge of trade finance and Islamic banking principles facilitated the development of innovative products as she built a custom-made Islamic financing platform to enable end-to-end execution of various Islamic trade financing transactions digitally. The platforms received prestigious accolades, such as being awarded as Best Cash Management Platform in the Middle East and Best Global Islamic Trade Finance Provider by Global Finance. Prior to that, Norhan worked in Standard Chartered Bank UAE where she held various positions in global and regional teams across Transaction Banking, Corporate Banking and Financial Markets.

Maria Fernanda De Genaro CFA
Senior Manager, Corporate Treasury, Zanders

Maria Fernanda De Genaro is a senior manager in the corporates practice at Zanders since 2019. She has over 15 years of experience in the corporate treasury function delivering strategic advice, treasury system implementation and interim leadership to companies in diverse sectorsand industries globally.

Maria has worked in Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East, where she is currently based in. She is a CFA charter holder since 2017 and holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics.

Doaa Hafez
General Manager, Head of Technical Functions & Alternate Head of International Factoring, Egypt Factors; Executive Committee Member, FCI

Doaa is a senior commercial finance executive with extensive experience in the development and implementation of receivables finance and other innovative working capital solutions in Egypt. She has 24 years of experience in the finance and management fields. For the past 16 years, Doaa has been working with Egypt Factors, a member of FIMBank Group. She has acquired significant expertise in the areas of client relationship management, factoring operations, product structuring and development and operational risk and controls. Doaa is currently General Manager of Egypt Factors and a member of the Executive Committee of FCI as well as a member of the FCI Education Committee. Doaa is the first female member from Africa and the Middle East of FCI’s Executive Committee.

Syed Imtiaz Hussain
Regional Head of Product and Propositions, Global Trade and Receivables Finance (GTRF), HSBC

Syed Imtiaz Hussain is currently the Regional Head of Product & Propositions for Global Trade & Receivables Finance, MENAT. Since joining HSBC in 2007, Imtiaz has worked in GTRF across ASP, MENAT and Europe, including on-the-ground regional MENAT experience as Head of GTRF Sales for SABB and as FIG GTRF Head of MENAT. Prior to joining HSBC, he also worked at HDFC Bank, Deutsche Bank and Citibank, rounding out his 23 years of industry experience in trade 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.

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.

Mark Mandula
Senior Vice President, United Capital Funding; Chief Learning Officer, BCR Publishing

Mark is an internationally recognised factoring expert, speaker, author, serial entrepreneur and servant leader. He is Senior Vice President of United Capital Funding, a Tampa Bay, Florida B2B and B2G SME commercial finance professional services firm. He was Principal/ Managing Partner from 2000 to 2017 when the firm was acquired and has also served in a National Sales Director capacity. Since formation, United Capital has grown 80 times in annual employed capital to B2B and B2G SMEs and is projected to exceed US$1 Billion in NFE in 2022. Mark has also become an equity owner of BCR Publishing, and will serve as Chief Learning Officer. In this new role, he will lead the expansion of programmes and best of breed events for BCR on a global basis. He believes that “power in knowledge, but only when shared.”

Prior to joining United Capital in 2000, he was principal and shareholder in an investment banking firm that completed over 200 bank industry mergers and acquisitions over a 20+ year span. Following that, he was owner and CEO of a leading credit industry business and was nominated as an Entrepreneur of the Year. He holds an MBA and BBA in Finance and is a 2012 graduate of the Certificate in Private Capital Markets from the Graziadio Graduate School of Business at Pepperdine University, Malibu, California. He has been actively involved in multiple non-profit boards including Eckerd College, Tampa Bay Research Institute and others.

Mark is a regular speaker and has participated in over 250 international conferences and has had more than 1,200 articles published online and in ABA Banking Journal, Mergers & Acquisitions, BCR, FCI and other commercial finance global industry publications both online and in hard copy. He has also contributed to several editions of the World Factoring Yearbook, published by FCI and BCR on a global basis.

Pamela Mar
Managing Director, Digital Standards Initiative, ICC

Pamela Mar is the Managing Director of the Digital Standards Initiative (DSI) of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), based in Singapore. The DSI is a public private partnership backed by the ICC, Asian Development Bank, World Trade Organization, World Customs Organization and the Singapore government, that accelerates the digitalisation of global trade in three areas: convergence on digital standards, legal and policy reform, and digital readiness across the public and private sectors.

Prior to joining the DSI, Pamela was Executive Vice President for Supply Chain Futures, and then EVP for Knowledge and Applications for the Fung Group, a Hong Kong based multi-national supply chain manager where she was also the first Group Head of Sustainability. She was named one of Asia’s ten A-list sustainability leaders in 2019, and is a recognised industry leader in this area. Prior to moving to Hong Kong, Pamela was based in Shenzhen, China, as a Director of Global Finance for TCL Multimedia Technology, the first major Chinese company to go global by buying a major foreign brand.

Prior to TCL, Pamela ran Greater China for the World Economic Forum, based in Geneva for five years. Pamela was born in New York and went to university in the USA, but has spent the majority of her life abroad. She speaks English, French and Chinese, and holds a Bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Yale University and an honors MSc from the London School of Economics.

Sarah Mikhail
Trade and Working Capital Product Lead, Middle East and Africa, JP Morgan; Member, Middle East Regional Committee, ITFA

Sarah leads core Trade and SCF product strategies and launches for JP Morgan’s Middle East and Africa cluster with emphasis on key markets such as Saudi Arabia. She has over 10 years of Trade Finance experience with Citi, Deutsche Bank, and Natixis. She holds a postgraduate certificate in Sustainable Finance from the London Institute of Banking and Finance (LIBF) and was honoured as one of Binance’s scholarship grant recipients, enabling her pursuit of a Master’s Degree in blockchain and crypto. Driven by her passion for merging Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles with cutting-edge technology, Sarah’s mission centres around the integration of these concepts into the realms of trade finance and transaction banking. She also serves as a committee member at the International Trade & Forfaiting Association (ITFA) Middle East Regional Committee (MERC) and acts as ITFA’s Ambassador for Emerging Leaders in the region. In her most recent role, Sarah served as the Global Business Development Director at Impel, an innovative fintech built on the XDC Network Blockchain, driving peer-to-peer instant settlement for institutions globally.

Carlo Minasi
Senior Manager, Arthur D. Little
CA Pankaj Mundra
Co-Founder and Chairman, 360tf; Co-Founder, Nimai; Steering Committee Member, UAE Banking Commission, ICC

Nimai was co-founded in 2009 by CA Pankaj Mundra with the vision of creating a global billion dollar company and has customers and associates in more than forty countries. Pankaj recently founded 360tf to keep Nimai ahead in the world of fintech and digitisation. His vision is to support SMEs globally by boosting their exports, streamlining trade finance and facilitating their global expansion. 360tf has been set up as the first ever dynamic fintech platform to enable trade finance globally.

Pankaj has more than 21 years of extensive professional experience in investment and consumer banking. Under his leadership, Nimai has raised cross border financing for its corporate, banking and non-banking finance clients from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, German, Swiss, Danish banks, UK and Hong Kong based funds, and envisions the same for 360tf.

He has served in the Institute of Chartered Accountants of the India and Dubai Chapter for seven years in various leadership positions. He led the Dubai Chapter, ICAI’s largest overseas chapter, as a chairman during 2016-17. Under his leadership, ICAI Dubai conducted fifty events within 52 weeks, while hosting approximately 135 speakers.

He started his career with ICICI Housing Finance in 2000 and joined Standard Chartered Bank in 2002, where he was instrumental in doing the first securitisation of the automobile and mortgage portfolio. He moved to Dubai in 2004 and joined ABN Amro Bank. In 2007, Pankaj joined as the Head of Finance for Mashreq Bank Financial Institutions Group.

Beenish Mustafa
Vice President, MENA Trade Sales, Treasury and Trade Solutions, Citi

Beenish has over 12+ years of experience in MENA, covering a portfolio of large local corporate and MNC clients, serving their requirements on Trade and Working Capital Solutions. Beenish’s role is to drive trade sales, for an array of products focusing on Payables Finance, Structured Trade, as well as Core Trade. Payables Finance comprises of Supply Chain Financing (a flagship & market leader product offering), Dynamic Discounting, and ESG linked solutions across the payables value chain of Citi, while Structured Trade comprises of Receivables Solutions and ECA backed structures. Beenish has depth of experience in driving the client portfolio for Trade, originating the key mandates from the market, working on the structure, credit, and execution of the same, in partnership with Product and Coverage partners, exhibiting leadership in aligning all resources to achieve top-notch results. She has extensive experience in implementing Supply Chain Financing solutions for clients in MEA market, and is well versed in local market challenges, and how technology can be leveraged to achieve to streamline the process. Prior to the current role, Beenish was the Trade Head for Jordan. Beenish has been working in UAE since 10+ years, prior to Citi, Beenish has worked at Standard Chartered UAE, where she held various roles as Financial Institution Sales and Corporate Sales. She had started her career with SCB in Pakistan. Beenish holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, from Institute of Business Administration (IBA, Pakistan).

Elat Niyas
Treasury Manager, Al Masaood Group

Elat Niyas is Treasury Manager at Al Masaood Group. Elat has over 11 years of experience in a wide range of treasury areas, including funding, cash management, systems, treasury control and accounting. He is part of the team leading the digital transformation across the group and his passion lies in digital transformation and service improvement. Elat has a Bachelor’s degree in Financial Management.  He started his career at an audit firm as a tax audit consultant and has done concurrent and statutory audits for major Indian banks.

Vincent O'Brien
Director, ICC UAE

Vincent has been actively involved in trade finance for more than a quarter of a century and has delivered technical assistance for trade finance in more than 100 countries. Vincent’s primary activity is trade facilitation with major multilateral development banks and his recognised specialty is trade-related dispute resolution where he often acts as expert witness in trade disputes and legal cases. Vincent also holds the positions of the Associate Director of the Institute of International Banking Law and Practice (IIBLP).

Sinan Ozcan
Senior Executive Officer & Board Director, DP World Trade Finance

Sinan has 21 years of experience working in executive roles across various industries, focusing on several areas of banking, financial services and logistics, i.e. trade and structured finance solutions, supply chain finance, new ventures and business development. Sinan joined DP World in April 2021 and set up DP World Trade Finance where he continues to serve as Senior Executive Officer and Board Director, and globally leads DP World’s Trade Finance business, DP World’s global trade finance initiative.

In March 2017, he set up Maersk Trade Finance business in the UAE, obtained regulatory license, rapidly grew the business, and served as Senior Executive Officer, Board Director and Regional Trade Finance Head for the Indian sub-continent, Middle East and Africa region until 2021. Previously, Sinan was Regional Director of UK Export Finance (UKEF), a British government department and the official Export Credit Agency of the UK, for the European, MENA and Central Asian regions, established UKEF’s overseas presence and originated trade and project finance deals. Prior to UKEF, he headed the Trade Finance/Financial Services unit of CNH Industrial for Africa-Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. Before CNH, Sinan held the position as Auditor at VakifBank and covered many areas of banking and financial services.

Sinan holds an MBA degree from Philadelphia University and a Master’s degree in Banking and Entrepreneurship from the joint programme of Venice and Udine universities in Italy. Sinan speaks English, Italian, Turkish, French and German and has lived and worked in Turkey, USA, Italy, Singapore, Thailand and the UAE.

Sumit Roy
Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer, Fintech Innovations International

Sumit is Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Fintech Innovations International (FII), the company that has launched TradeAssets, the first e-marketplace of its kind for banks. He has 24 years of experience as a global financial institutions specialist with expertise in trade finance and international payments. He started his career with Price Waterhouse, working on software and management consultancy projects before moving to banking, where he worked for American Express Bank in India, USA and the UAE. After 15 years with Amex, Sumit moved to Deutsche Bank for another 9 years, and was Managing Director responsible for banks and other financial institutions in the Middle East and Africa region. Sumit has extensive experience in e-Products, primary and secondary trade finance, asset distribution, international payments and cash management. In over two decades in service, sales, product and relationship management in three continents, he has directly covered institutions and managed teams covering Asia, North America, Middle East and Africa. He has always executed growth strategies with consistent success, in difficult markets and under challenging circumstances. His venture into fintech stems from a strong desire to create solutions that impact not just one organisation or geography but the industry as a whole. Sumit holds an MBA in Finance and a Master’s degree in International Management from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Farrukh Siddiqui
Founding Partner, Emerging Capital Management Partners

Farrukh has over 30 years’ experience across the Middle East and emerging markets at senior executive level in corporate banking, treasury and global trade and export credit finance with leading organisations including JP Morgan, FAB and Mashreq Bank. Farrukh is extremely well-known across the entire region after building successful international franchises. He has been a regular speaker and contributor to many industry conferences spanning the globe with a keen focus on emerging markets and open access to capital markets.

Laurent Tabouelle
Managing Director, CODIX Group

Laurent is Managing Director of CODIX Group, an international commercial finance software provider, editor and integrator of the iMX solution. The technology supports all aspects of corporate/commercial finance, including PO finance, factoring, international/two-factors, reverse, classical, invoice discounting, asset-based lending, supply chain and inventory finance, leasing, as well as sophisticated debt collection capabilities. With a staff of 880+ business and technical experts located in 16 countries, CODIX delivers its iMX solution worldwide to clients of various sizes from SMEs to international groups, and always with a comprehensive suite of services, including system customisation, on-site training and assistance, as well as expert-level business recommendations and project management. Laurent’s entire career has been in IT for the financial/SCF industry, first in the business systems analysis space, then projects and products management, evolving into management roles. Laurent has been CODIX Group’s COO since 2010.

Lionel Taylor
Managing Director, Trade Advisory Network

Lionel Taylor is a trade, supply chain and invoice finance specialist with more than 30 years experience in senior leadership roles with major financial institutions including RBS, Rabobank, Citibank and Lloyds Banking Group and with non-bank independents.

Now Managing Director of Trade Advisory Network Limited, which specialises in the strategic development of global supply chains, trade and invoice finance with a client base of regional banks, independent finance providers, fintechs and technology providers, his key areas of expertise include new business strategy, turnaround, organisation design, new product design, product management, marketing, origination, credit, team building and training.

He has extensive experience of operating in Asia where he led the cooperation on trade and supply chain finance between RBS and Bank of China, established an independent finance company facilitating trade between Asian and Western SMEs and assisted in the development of the Chinese factoring industry. Today, he continues his close involvement in the region, working with government agencies, banks, independent funders, investors and others who are looking to promote and extend trade and supply chain finance in the region.

He currently is a Non-Executive Director of a growing UK-based fintech, sits as the independent credit committee member for another non-bank finance provider and is also co-author of the ICC Academy’s Advanced Supply Chain Finance online course, a core module of their CTCP programme.

He continues to be engaged in advising a number of financial institutions, fintechs and technology providers on the development of their trade and supply chain finance businesses and is frequently invited to comment and write for specialist international trade publications as well as chairing and speaking at international events.

Morgan Terigi
Co-Founder and CEO, Incomlend

Based in Dubai and Singapore, Morgan is a serial entrepreneur who has an extensive background in trade and manufacturing. Spotting a gap in the market, Morgan and co-founder Dmitri Kouchnirenko created and launched Incomlend in January 2016. The company provides an alternative trade finance platform delivering factoring and supply chain finance solutions to companies globally. It works as a marketplace, where businesses can optimise their working capital by tapping into a pool of private institutional investors. Throughout his business activities, Morgan has established various companies in Japan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Singapore. Morgan is both a mechanical engineer and HEC Paris graduate.

Hafidh Thani
Managing Partner, M&CO Legal

Hafidh is a partner and policy specialist regarding all fintech matters at M&CO Legal and is one of Dubai’s leading Emirati legal practitioners in jurisprudence and legislative drafting. He is an expert in media, technology and finance, and is highly regarded for his advisory services and development of cutting-edge infrastructure focused on corporate and commercial compliance and preservation, including the structures required for energy entities, services related to oil and gas and the technologies related to the energy sector.

He manages, advises and consults commercial corporate entities and private entities regarding the strategic implementation of their market connectivity and financial goals by developing comprehensive legal frameworks and establishing Intellectual Property (IP) rights. He provides guidance for all financial and technological aspects of media, corporate communications, digital platforms, telecommunication, event management, and regulatory issues.

With an extensive background in infrastructure and policy development ensuring legal compliance in tandem with innovative practices, Hafidh’s portfolio includes clients such as the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC), Jebel Ali (JAFZA), Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC), Dubai Silicon Oasis, Masdar City, KIZAD and other free zones in the UAE.

Hafidh also has extensive experience working with corporate governance issues, such as guiding organisations through challenges related to managing governance risk, offering regulatory and industry knowledge, and creating tailored strategies to manage the cycle of legal, reputational, and operational risk. Hafidh has developed solid connections over the years with a broad range of private clients including private and family offices in the UAE, where he provides advice on management, exercising the requisite legal and fiduciary obligations while adhering to the necessary legal protections.

He has played a key role in the development of legal frameworks and in the design of real estate regulatory transaction requirements as head of legal for Dubai Media Inc., and head of DIFC. Hafidh has held central roles regarding the development of preservation laws designed to safeguard and regulate UAE cultural and heritage sites and other IP and arts. He has also served as an esteemed advisor for the Dubai Culture Authority and other prominent bodies of the Dubai Government.

In relation to the ADGM, Hafidh was part of the incorporation and initiation process of the freezone in line with developing the rules and regulations to establish a structured framework for the ADGM. He was entrusted to assist with developing the policies to be adopted by the freezone to help prospective establishments and investors to set up their businesses hassle free, including the running of the freezone.

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.

Ravi Valecha
CEO, India Factoring and Finance Solutions

Ravi has had a 20+ year career as a factoring and supply chain finance professional, with HSBC and ICICI Bank and now he is leading India Factoring and Finance Solutions, a leader in export factoring in India.

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.

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