When back in 2005 I was called into a meeting with my CEO at the
Portuguese Banif Bank I was very far from realising how close I was to making a
move from the capital markets into the exciting world of trade finance. Having
started my career as a hedge fund trader upon completing my masters degree in
international securities, investment and banking, I joined the Banif banking
group as they opened their first office in London. I spent my first year with
Banif trying to make the bank known to its counterparties in the City, as well
as building a client network among hedge funds and mutual funds for the bank's
Iberian and Latin American capital markets business. That meeting was to change
the course of events, as the aim was to decide whether the bank's London
representative office should be transformed into a full branch specialising in
trade finance and forfaiting.
A few months later, Banif had hired a team of experienced trade
financiers and I found myself in the trade finance operations team learning how
financing was done in the real world. I then moved to the origination team, seeing
myself in the vibrant pre-crisis market, actively originating and distributing
trade finance paper from Eastern Europe and Africa. With Banif still being a
rather small player in the market, the team decided to specialise in smaller
target markets where they could make a bigger impact, and I took on business
development in geographies such as Azerbaijan and Georgia, where I would later
develop a sizeable network of clients.
With the crisis looming and as 2008 and 2009 unfolded it became clear
that Banif London’s stay in the trade finance market would not be prolonged
much further and in 2010 I was invited to join the team that was setting up
Standard Bank in Angola. It was far too good a proposition to decline as I was
conscious that working and living, as boots on the ground, in an emerging
market could give me the edge I needed to really make an impact and develop a
real understanding of trade finance. I stayed in Angola for two years and
experienced what were the most hectic years of my life. There was a small group
of us leading the whole bank, and we worked an average of 14 to 16 hours a day.
I had to intervene in everything related to transactional banking, from building
strategic plans to managing sales, products and channels, and even drafting
letters of credit. Our efforts paid off though as we built a spectacular team
and gained market share incredibly quickly. It took us less than two years to
break even and we even got the first ever trade finance award ever given to an
Angolan bank. The success of the Angolan team prompted me to later integrate
the Standard Bank team at head office in Johannesburg leading trade finance
sales for the African footprint (ex-South Africa).
Due to a number of difficulties related with the family move to
Johannesburg, we decided to return to London and I got involved with Caspian
Sea Capital, a company that specialised in providing trade finance structuring advisory
services to corporates and banks located in places like Azerbaijan, Georgia and
Turkey, as well as some Sub-Saharan African countries like Angola, Mozambique,
Togo and Nigeria. Determined to get as much exposure to different trade finance
functions as possible, the next stop was the insurance market and I joined the
credit insurance team at AIG. That team was probably one of the best I have
worked with. AIG really empowers underwriters and that made me deepen my risk
awareness as suddenly I was mandated to sign off on significant exposures in a very
empowering way. This really shaped up the way I assessed counterparties and
transactions alike, placing even more emphasis in knowing my client in the
truest sense of the expression. It was also the time when we created the
insurance committee at ITFA, which was when I first took an active role in the
Association. The committee quickly gained a lot of relevance and exposure and
for me it was great to be part of that.
The move to Crown Agents Bank came unexpectedly - when Crown Agents
Bank first approached me my initial reaction was to resist the call to go back
to banking, as I wanted to settle in properly in the credit insurance world.
Notwithstanding, the calling from an Africa-driven greenfield trade finance
project was too strong. At Crown Agents Bank I recruited a team to drive trade
finance in Africa and other emerging markets where the bank historically had a
client base, such as the Caribbean, and focused the team in providing a rather
plain vanilla but at the same time solid product suite built around letters of
credit and bank risk.
Having joined the ITFA Board at the Edinburgh AGM I took on two main
projects – Young Professionals and Africa, both of which are very close to my
heart. Mentoring and coaching are things I love doing not only in the workplace
but also in a non-work-related context, particularly with students and young
people in general. I feel it is a way to give back the support I had to develop
myself as an individual and within that, as a professional. Having been part of
the team that set up the Martin Ashurst Trade Finance Mentorship Forum (Martin
Ashurst was my friend and mentor at Banif), it was a natural move for me to
manage the initiative, which will become an absolutely core part of the Young
Professionals initiative, together with lots of training and other dedicated
initiatives to boost young professionals’ participation in the industry. The
Africa committee is also a natural evolution within the ITFA offering and marks
the commitment that the Association has to the development of its presence in
the continent. With the conference taking place in Cape Town in 2018 it becomes
imperative that ITFA finally expands in a definitive and determined way its
membership base in Africa.
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