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Dr Izabela CzepirskaProduct Manager, KomgoDr Izabela Czepirska manages digital trade finance products at Komgo. She leads the product development in the areas of receivables discounting, documentary credit, secondary market and electronic documents. Izabela has 10 years of experience in financial services across traditional banking, fintech and academia. She worked at Citi for 7 years, holding positions in Transaction Banking, Cash Management, Credit Risk and Trade Finance (Risk Distribution and Supply Chain Finance). In 2019, Izabela was awarded a PhD cum laude in finance from the Warsaw School of Economics for her dissertation on microfinance around financial inclusion and use of technology. Given her experience in different parts of trade finance and strong academic background, Izabela joined ITFA Emerging Leaders Committee where she is the Deputy Chairperson and the ITFA Market Practice Committee (MPC) and supports standardisation across the industry. She has recently been leading the publication of the Trade Finance Taxonomy, a joint effort by ITFA MPC and the Komgo Secondary Market Workstream to put all trade finance products and related credit risk mitigation techniques on a single page. |
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Laurence AndersonExecutive Director, Head of Financial Institutions EMEA, Global Trade Finance, SMBC Bank InternationalLaurence is a multilingual senior financial services executive with an experienced and broad background in Trade Finance. He currently manages the Financial Institutions Primary Origination and Distribution desks at SMBC’s Global Trade HQ, based in London. With a career in international trade and financial services spanning over 20 years, he has formerly held roles in product management and sales at J.P. Morgan and Bank of America. He has a BA (Hons) degree in Modern Languages from University College London, and is a Certified International Trade Advisor, accredited by the Institute of Export. |
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Nils BehlingCo-Founder and COO, TradeteqNils 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. |
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Daniela BonzaniniHead of International, Banca IFIS SpA, Italy, Chair, FCIDaniela Bonzanini is the Chairman of FCI. She has had a long career in international trade and factoring with more than 30 years’ experience in international factoring. Her knowledge of the factoring industry has greatly contributed to the development and implementation of new projects mainly focused on innovative products and services. In 2002 she joined Banca IFIS, Italy to start the international activity. She is currently Head of International, responsible for the development of the business and international network. She is also a Member of the Board of the bank’s foreign subsidiaries in Poland and Romania. She was Director of India Factoring and Finance Solutions which was established in India in 2009. From 2006 till 2015 she was a member of the board of A.I.C.E., (Associazione Italiana Commercio Estero) in Milan. She is a speaker at international conferences as well as at FCI Seminars and a lecturer at various universities. After serving the FCI as Chair of the Education Committee, Member of the Executive Committee and Vice Chair, she was appointed Chair of FCI in June 2013 and is currently serving a second term in this role. |
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André CastermanManaging Director, Casterman Advisory, Chair of Fintech Committee, ITFA André Casterman is an independent consultant, advising financial institution and fintech clients on data management, trade finance, and capital markets innovations. André spent 20+ years at SWIFT, leading various innovations in the inter-bank payments, corporate treasury, and trade finance markets. During that time, he established an institutional partnership between SWIFT and the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and created the first digital trade settlement instrument. André chairs the Fintech Committee of the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA) with a focus on helping banks take advantage of fintech innovations to automate trade finance operations and establish the business as an investable asset class through use of data analytics and artificial intelligence.
André holds a Master’s degree in Applied Economics from ICHEC Brussels Management School and two Master’s degrees in Computer Sciences and in Management from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). |
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Adam ClarkSenior Underwriter, Financial Risk Solutions, Liberty Specialty Markets Adam joined Liberty in 2018 from Nexus Underwriting where he was an underwriter for a number of years. He joined Liberty as an underwriter, focusing on the short-term trade finance product and has been heading up the product since 2021. He has been in the credit and political risks market for over 10 years having previously spent over 4 years at Nexus and a further 2 years at CV Starr. Adam has been ACII qualified since January 2016. |
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Bertrand de CommingesManaging Director, Global Head Trade Finance Investments, Santander Asset ManagementA renowned industry expert, Bertrand is currently the lead portfolio manager for the Global Trade Finance strategy at Santander Asset Management. Before joining Santander, Bertrand was at HSBC for 8 years and in his last role he was responsible for the European Business Development activities for Global Trade and Receivables Finance. In this role he was responsible for all global corporates, commodities, financial institutions and SMEs’ trade finance activities in the region. Previously, with teams located in five continents, he was HSBC’s Global Product Head of Structured Solutions and Global Head of Solutions Structuring for the organisation. Before HSBC, Bertrand worked at J.P. Morgan where he launched and led the EMEA Structured Trade Advisory business, and RBS/ABN Amro where in his last role he was Head of Trade for the EMEA region.Bertrand was a member of the ICC’s Banking Commission Steering Committee for transforming Trade Finance as an asset class. He is a member of ITFA´s working group on the same topic and a subject matter expert for the ICCs of 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 a single father of five young children. |
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Sean EdwardsManaging Director, Head of Legal – EMEA, Special Adviser – Global Trade Finance Department, SMBC Bank International, Chairman, ITFASean 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. |
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Richard Evans Managing Director, Global Head, Trade Asset Distribution, Citibank Richard is Global Head of Citi’s Trade Asset Distribution team which is responsible for the distribution and syndication of all trade assets at Citi. Prior to his current role, Richard was a transactor in Citi’s Export Credit Agency Finance team where he led a number of structured finance deals for multi-national companies. Before joining Citi in 2006, Richard was a banking lawyer with Linklaters in London and Moscow. |
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Greg FayvilevichSenior Director, Global Head of Fund and Asset Manager Group, Fitch RatingsGreg Fayvilevich is the Global Head of Fitch Ratings' Funds group, based in London. The Funds group is responsible for Fitch’s coverage of private equity fund finance and securitisations, as well as closed-end funds, ETFs, bond funds, and other funds. Greg’s team is responsible for assigning ratings, developing rating methodologies and models, and publishing research on analytical and regulatory developments affecting the sectors that the group covers. Previously, Greg was a member of the Financial Guarantors group at Fitch. Prior to joining Fitch, Greg worked for ACE Group / Chubb. Greg has a BSc. degree in Finance from Rutgers University. |
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Chris HallExecutive 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). |
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Suresh HegdeHead of Structured Private Debt, Goldman Sachs Asset ManagementSuresh is a Head of Structured Private Debt at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Prior to joining GSAM, he worked at NN Investment Partners where he founded both the Structured Private Debt and Insurance Solutions businesses. He previously held roles in structured finance origination and credit structuring at J.P. Morgan, Bear Stearns, and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, and as a credit analyst at Standard & Poor’s. Suresh started his career at Linklaters in London. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Political Science from the University of Bristol. |
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Philippe HenrySenior Advisor, Co-Chair, MLETR Group, Paris EUROPLACEPhilippe Henry is a senior corporate and investment banking professional with more than 35 years transactional experience and expertise in financing, risk management and structuring of debt and equity based solutions. Until recently he was the Head of Global Banking for Europe, Middle East and Africa at HSBC. He played an active role in building extending stakeholder relationships with senior clients, regulators and third parties. He is adept at thinking ahead and ready to embrace new, challenging, yet ultimately rewarding ways of driving business, including financial, non-financial risk and conduct, and encouraging the building of the healthiest human system in the banking industry. He was also a key business sponsor of HSBC's Digital Transformation effort. Convinced that fintech, technology, analytics, big data and AI have the potential to transform the financial services industry into a leaner and more customer focused sector, in July 2021 he launched Dewenson Partners, a management consulting and venture capital company, helping strategic investors, private equity, entrepreneurs, boards and executive committees to create value in financial services. Philippe is a Strategic Board Advisor to Kyriba, a leading global fintech company and a Senior Advisor to Paris EUROPLACE, the French financial centre association. He has a great deal of experience as a board member of several business units and legal entities within the HSBC Group. He is co-chair of the mission entrusted by the French government on the digitalisation of international trade financing activities. |
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Lord Chris Holmes of Richmond MBE Chris has been a member of the House of Lords since 2013. His particular areas of interest are around talent and technology, inclusion and innovation. He helped set up the All Party groups on fintech, AI, blockchain and digital finance. He also wrote a report in 2017, Distributed Ledger Technology for Public Good and updated it in 2018. Chris is a member of the special Bill committee for the Electronic Trade Documents Bill and is also a member of the influential Science and Technology Select Committee. Outside Parliament, Chris is deputy chair of Channel 4 and also works with a number of scale ups in the fintech arena. Chris was director of paralympic integration for London 2012, responsible for leading the team that planned and delivered the 2012 Paralympic Games and also integrating the Olympic and Paralympic planning into a single organising committee for the first time ever. |
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Thomas KriegerHead of Trade Risk Distribution, Corporate Clients Lending, CommerzbankThomas has been Head of Trade Risk Distribution within the Corporate Lending Department of Commerzbank since July 2019. He was Commerzbank's Managing Director in Financial Institutions for Latin America with responsibility for the relationship managers in Frankfurt as well as the four representative offices in Latin America from 2007 to 2019. His professional career started with Commerzbank's Barcelona branch in Spain in 1993 after successfully completing a 2-year professional training at Commerzbank in 1986. He later served for several years as the bank’s representative in Argentina with responsibility also for Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay as well as Head of Financial Institutions Italy in Commerzbank AG Milan. Thomas served a social assistance term in Turin and Naples for two years and then studied Economics at Johannes-Gutenberg-University in Mainz, Germany, graduating in 1993. |
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Oswald KuylerGlobal Head of Strategy, MonetaGoOswald Kuyler is the Global Head of Strategy for MonetaGo, the world's foremost fraud prevention technology provider to prevent domestic and cross-border duplicate financing. Oswald currently holds multiple advisory positions on the international stage. He is the Digital Standards Adviser to the International Chamber of Commerce in the United Kingdom. He also is an Adviser to the International Chamber of Commerce Digital Standards Initiative (DSI) Governance Board. Oswald has joined the MineHub Board of Advisors to help accelerate the transition from paper to digital, helping mining companies unlock their ESG potential. He is the Co-Chair of the OASIS Origin BX group, advancing open source product and trade data standards for facilitating digital tax and trade attestations. Oswald is the former Managing Director for the International Chamber of Commerce DSI. He defined strategy, focused on a partnership and convened the global community around digital standards. Before the ICC, he was the Global Head of Data Strategy of BHP, the world's largest diversified mining company. He has worked on multiple technology initiatives covering blockchain, electronic documentation in trade, data and analytics and automation. A technologist at heart focusing on accelerating the digitisation of trade, Oswald is driven by the opportunity for the financial services ecosystem to serve more customers as digitisation produces more efficiencies, products and risk mitigations. |
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Alexander MalaketPresident, OPUS Advisory ServicesAlexander R. Malaket, CITP, CTFP, GCB.D., is President of OPUS Advisory Services International Inc. in Toronto, Co-Founder of ESG Validation Ltd. in London and Founding Partner of Prism Global Partners LLP in London. Alexander advises top tier global clients on trade, trade financing and trade related international development, as well as ESG and sustainability with a focus on trade and global supply chains. Alexander is the author of Financing Trade and International Supply Chains, Taylors & Francis, UK 2014, and is a frequent speaker or task force contributor across industry, policy and advocacy ranging from various trade associations to B20/G20 activities, the Bloomberg New Economy Forum and others. He has been nominated, elected or invited to contribute to various boards and advisory bodies, and works with multiple startups. |
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Robert ParsonPartner, Squire Patton Boggs LLP Robert Parson leads the trade and commodity finance team at the London office of international law firm Squire Patton Boggs. He represents banks, non FI lenders and borrowers across the commodity, manufacturing and trading sectors on a broad range of trade receivables based finance, supply chain and inventory finance arrangements. Robert’s practice covers both UK and cross border financings and he has played a prominent role in the legal advances being made in the reform of English law on electronic trade documents including bills of lading, bills of exchange and promissory notes. He is the editor of the legal journal Finance and Credit Law. |
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Lenna RussChief Revenue Officer, TradeteqLenna is the Chief Revenue Officer at Tradeteq, a leading-edge fintech, powering trade finance asset securitisation and distribution globally. Lenna works closely with the largest banks and non-bank originators to access liquidity from the capital markets through the Tradeteq marketplace. Prior to joining Tradeteq, Lenna has over 15 years’ experience driving revenue growth and scale in enterprise software leadership roles, specialising in financial services. She holds a Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. |
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Abis SoetanDirector, Fitch RatingsAbis is a Director in Fitch Ratings’ Fund and Asset Manager Group. His responsibilities include assigning ratings to money market and bond funds, as well as publishing timely research on analytical and regulatory developments affecting the sector. Prior to Fitch, Abis worked in banking and corporate treasury, as well as asset management. Abis holds a BEng & Com from the University of Birmingham and is an alumnus of the Lagos Business School. He also has a Diploma in Treasury Management (AMCT) and Certificate in Financial Mathematics and Modelling (CertFMM). |
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NLN SwaroopGlobal Product Head, Sustainability, Innovation, FIs & Asset Distribution, Global Trade and Receivables Finance, HSBCMr Swaroop has over 16 years of rich experience across banking and insurance in varied roles ranging from risk underwriting, trade financing, business development, general management and coverage banking in India and the UK. He is an active industry voice at ICC, BAFT and ITFA in developing trade as an investible asset class by attracting greater institutional capital and embedding ESG in trade finance. Mr Swaroop is a chemical engineer by training and holds a Master’s degree in Management for FMS from Delhi University. He has keen interest in the area of sustainable development, has several papers to his credit and is a regular speaker at various industry forums on sustainability. |
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Anil WaliaEMEA Supply Chain Finance – Payables, Deutsche Bank Anil Walia heads Deutsche Bank’s SCF Payables in EMEA. After completing his Master’s degree in Plasma Physics a few decades ago, Anil took the not-so-obvious career decision in banking. The journey took him through India, the Middle East and finally to Germany. Along the way, he has headed sales for trade finance and gained experience at various stages in his career in the south-east Asian, eastern European and European markets. He picked up an MBA in financial management on the way. Anil is an SCF veteran, who got his wings in the fledgling days of SCF in 2000 at J.P. Morgan. He has been a key contributor to the growth of SCF, as technology and documentation evolved, accompanying the first transactions that took place in Europe. Anil was elected in 2015 to the Who’s Who in Treasury & Cash Management for Supply Chain Finance and in 2018 was one of the key contributors to Deutsche Bank’s Payables Finance, A Guide to Working Capital Optimisation (2nd Edition). |
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Geoffrey WynnePartner, Sullivan & WorcesterGeoffrey Wynne 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. He has recently been involved in a number of initiatives for trade finance in the digital world including digital payment obligations. Geoff 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. |
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Jiameng YuHead of Next Generation Platform, DemicaJiameng is Head of Next Generation Platform at Demica leading a team of intermediators between finance and technology. Prior to joining the Demica family, she accumulated extensive finance related experience in corporate treasury and professional services. Jiameng is chartered accountant, chartered tax advisor and chartered corporate treasurer. She is a keen motorcyclist and is a firm believer of “keeping your eyes on where you want to go, because you go where you look”. |
