Authors Page - Trade Finance Global

Richard is the Director and Head of Business Development, Marketing and Communications at UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK’s export credit agency. Richard joined UKEF after gaining 20 years’ experience in leading specialist teams in project and structured finance, including five years at ‘Global Top 5’ project and export finance institutions. He has a particular specialism in the renewable energy sector, having acted as financing lead or adviser to low carbon projects since the mid-1990s. Other previous positions include Head of Energy & Utilities project finance at Lloyds TSB and Senior Director of the Renewable Energy division at Lloyds Banking Group. In this role, Richard was responsible for building a renewable energy portfolio/market leading franchise in excess of £1 billion, earning him the number one ranking as Lead Arranger of renewable energy projects in the UK between 2010 and 2012. Richard has a BSC (Hons) in Financial Services (First Class) from UMIST and is ACIB and SFA (CF30) qualified.

Geoffrey Wynne is head of the Trade & Export Finance Group at Sullivan’s London office. He has extensive experience in banking and finance, specifically corporate and international finance, bank mergers, acquisitions, conversions and restructurings, trade and structured trade and commodity finance, structured finance, asset and project finance, syndicated lending, equipment leasing, workouts and financing restructuring, leveraged and management buy-outs and general commercial matters. Geoff is one of the leading trade finance lawyers and has advised extensively many of the major trade finance banks around the world on trade and commodity transactions in virtually every emerging market including CIS, Far East, India, Africa and Latin America. He has worked on many structured trade transactions covering such diverse commodities as oil, nickel, steel, tobacco, cocoa and coffee.

Richard Bishop is Director of Financial & Political Risk at Parker Norfolk. Specialist and an experienced insurance professional with 35 years experience in helping clients to achieve the best protection for the risks they face. Acknowledged expert in the field of Islamic insurance and reinsurance (Takaful/reTakaful)

Export Champion at Department for International Trade (DIT) and CEO at Coltraco Ultrasonics

Persiana is Marketing Executive at Trade Finance Global. Persiana did a joint degree in Economics and Finance at Queen Mary University London and Bocconi University of Milan. Her interests include macroeconomic policy, sustainable development and green finance, central banking, treasury and payment systems.

Trevor is a Chief Technical Strategist at Corpay and an FX Consultant with over 20 years of trading and sales experience. He is also a specialist in commercial FX trading and sales with deep overall knowledge of financial markets servicing clients across the spectrum with a focus on; SME Enterprise Corporates and Wealth Managers/Boutique Investment Providers.

Todd Davison graduated from the University of Leeds with a degree in Accounting and Finance in 2011. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants England and Wales (“ICAEW”) in 2013. His training contract was with Deloitte LLP. Todd spent six years at Deloitte LLP under his training contract. Within this time he worked in Financial Services Audit (statutory audit, internal audit) working with SME owners/Directors and providing value-add services for SMEs, corporates and pension schemes. He then moved into Corporate Finance Advisory (M&A), advising SME owners/Director, Corporates, Private Equity Houses on corporate acquisitions, disposals and strategic consulting. Todd co-founded Purbeck Insurance in May 2016 to provide an insurance solution for Director guarantors, giving them the confidence to access business finance and pursue their growth objectives. The business obtained FCA regulatory approval in February 2017 for Insurance Mediation and in June 2017, obtained Binding Authority approval to provide Personal Guarantee Insurance to SME Director guarantors. Since launch in June 2017, Purbeck Insurance has supported SME Directors on over £40,000,000 of Personal Guarantees. Insurance cover is arranged directly and through a network of over 200 intermediary partners.

Anabel González was Senior Director of the World Bank Group’s Trade & Competitiveness Global Practice from July 2014-December 2017. In this capacity, she led a team of 500 people to design and implement the World Bank Group’s global and country agenda in the areas of trade, investment climate, competitiveness, innovation and entrepreneurship. Previously, she served as Costa Rica’s Minister of Foreign Trade (2010-14) During her tenure, Anabel led Costa Rica’s efforts to join the OECD, negotiated, approved, and implemented six major free trade agreements, and implemented investment climate enhancement policies that contributed to attracting over 140 new investment projects. She also had a lead role in Costa Rica’s Competitiveness and Innovation Council. During her more than 15 years of service with the Ministry of Foreign Trade, she held various positions including Director General for International Trade Negotiations (1990-97), Vice-Minister of Foreign Trade (1998-2001) and Ambassador-Chief Negotiator (2003-04). She also served as Director of Costa Rica’s Investment Promotion Agency (2001-02), Director to the Agriculture and Commodities Division of the World Trade Organization (2006-09), and Senior International Consultant on Trade and Investment at the Inter-American Development Bank (2009-10). Anabel is a member of the World Economic Forum Future Council on Trade and Investment (2016-18), after serving as chair of the Global Agenda Council on Competitiveness (2014-16) and Chair of the Council on Trade and Foreign Direct Investment (2012-14). She is currently a member of the World Trade Symposium’s World Trade Board. Anabel has lectured in over 50 countries and written on many trade and competitiveness issues.

Mr. Matthias Verbeke is a RegTech leader and CEO of Complidata, an emerging regtech start-up which focuses on A.I.-driven Process Automation Solutions for Compliance. Its key solutions include: Trade Finance Risk Monitoring, AML Optimisation and Corporate KYC Automation. Known for its fully configurable, regulatory compliant and explainable A.I.-driven solutions, Complidata was recently awarded with “Best A.I. Start-up of the Year” at Disummit, Belgium.

Valeria joined DRUM in 2014 and is responsible for managing daily reporting on a wide range of international projects and supporting due diligence investigations. Prior to joining DRUM London Valeria worked for DRUM Moscow, where her main responsibilities included analytics and preparation of due diligence reports. Valeria holds an MSc degree in Economics from University College London and a BA in International Economics from the Russian State University for the Humanities. She is also pursuing a part-time degree in Applied Mathematics.

Emmanuel Petter is a Philosophy, Politics and Economics student at the University of Warwick. He is part of the TFG Student Writer Programme.

Junaid Malik is studied in the Cass Business School of the City University of London. He is part of the TFG Student Writer Programme.

Theodor Iordache was an Economics student at the University of Toronto. His primary interests are trade policy, income inequality, and behavioural economics. He is part of the TFG Student Writer Programme.

Matthew was a student at the University of Toronto – University of Trinity College. He was a writer contributor at Trade Finance Global

Graham is a highly experienced commercial finance professional (over 25 years in the industry).  He has niche experience in trade finance, factoring, invoice discounting, shipping and supply chain management. He is equally comfortable with UK domestic or international situations.  

Claudia is a student at the University of Toronto. She is part of TFG’s Student Writer programme.

Helia is a management consulting analyst who has experience in Agile methodologies and SoS practices. She works with a tier 1 UK bank, driving the E2E delivery of business requirements.

David Morrish is the Relationship Director at The London Institute of Banking & Finance