Events

Rico Brandenburg is a Partner in Oliver Wyman’s Risk & Public Policy and Digital practices in New York. He has more than 10 years of experience in consulting to leading global organizations in the US, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East across range of topics around cyber and operational resilience as well as broader non-financial risk management. In his recent work, Mr. Brandenberg focuses on designing risk frameworks, operating models, data and infrastructure capabilities to improve overall management of these risk types. Mr. Brandenberg also led the developed of SWIFT’s Counterparty Cyber Risk Management Framework in 2017/18.

Tod Burwell is the President and Chief Executive Officer of BAFT. Prior to being promoted to CEO, he served as the Senior Vice President of Trade Products with oversight of all trade-related initiatives including the Global Trade Industry Council, Trade Committees, and other strategic initiatives of the organization. Mr. Burwell has over 25 years of trade, supply chain and cash management experience as a banking practitioner, as well as serving as a consultant to global corporations and suppliers of strategically integrated trade solutions. Prior to joining BAFT, Mr. Burwell was a Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase and held senior global management roles responsible for trade operations, launching the logistics business and managing global product sales for trade finance and logistics management.

Alisa DiCaprio is the Chief Economist at blockchain technology firm, r3, based in New York City. In this role she oversees r3’s research and market intelligence functions. This includes providing economic analysis on developments in blockchain, digital assets, Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), trade and payments as well as contributing to r3 interactions with the public sector. She has experience in both public and private sectors on trade, export promotion, labor issues, and designing and implementing development projects. She has worked in Cambodia, Chile, Finland, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and the US. Her work on global digital economy issues include chairing committees at the World Trade Board, ICC, BAFT, the US Department of Commerce Trade Finance Advisory Council, and the American Chamber of Commerce of Japan.

Mark Garfield’s current role is Head of Global Financial Institutions at Zions Bancorporation responsible for foreign bank relationship development. He joined Zions Bancorporation in 2005. He has over 30 years of banking experience with 25 years in international banking management covering trade finance, trade services, foreign exchange, correspondent banking and product development. Throughout his career he has worked closely with corporate and commercial entities in the Midwest and Western U.S. providing banking support for cross-border trade. Mr. Garfield currently serves as a Director of BAFT and Chair of the Utah District Export Council. He served on the DEC National Advisory Board and Board of the World Trade Center, Utah.

Dr. Rebecca Harding is an independent economist specialising in trade and trade finance and CEO of Coriolis Technologies, providing data as a service to the trade and trade finance space. She is the co-author of the acclaimed “The Weaponization of Trade: the Great Unbalancing of Policy and Economics" and “Gaming Trade: Win-Win Strategies for the Digital Era.” She frequently appears on Ian King Live, Sky News, BBC World and BBC Radio 5 live, Newsnight and Radio 4 and is cited in the Broadsheet press, including recent articles in the Financial Times, Telegraph and CityAM, and citations in the Telegraph, the Times and the New Scotsman. She is a regular guest anchor on CNBC’s Squawk Box. She has written 11 books and over 200 academic articles and public policy reports. Rebecca is a member of the World Trade Board and is well-known in the trade and trade finance sector for her work on global trade. She is a strategic adviser to the Council of the Society of Professional Economists and until February 2017 was the Chief Economist of the British Bankers’ Association. Her senior roles in business and academic institutions include Founder and CEO of Delta Economics, CEO of Equant Analytics, Senior Fellow at London Business School, Global CEO of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, Head of Corporate Research at Deloitte, Chief Economist at the Work Foundation, Senior Lecturer at the Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, and Reader in Economics at the University of Brighton. She is currently a Fellow at Offenburg Institute for Trade and Innovation. She was a Specialist Advisor to the Treasury Select Committee and Chief Economic Advisor to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Entrepreneurship.

Shannon Manders is the Editorial Director of GTR, the world's leading international trade finance publication. She is also a freelance financial journalist, editor and editorial consultant with 12 years of experience reporting on and producing print and online publications for the global trade and trade finance sector. Shannon has extensive experience in moderating discussions, both at GTR’s own conferences and at a range of other top industry events hosted by the likes of the ICC Banking Commission, the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, SWIFT (Sibos) and the Commonwealth Business Forum. She regularly covers stories from international locations, and has hosted numerous roundtable discussions and webinars.

Mr. Jason Maude is a coder, coach, and public speaker. He has over a decade of experience working in the financial sector, primarily in creating and delivering software. He is passionate about explaining complex technical concepts to those who are convinced that they won’t be able to understand them. He currently works at Starling bank as their Chief Technology Advocate and host of the Starling podcast.

Mr. Mark McNulty is the Global Clearing and FI Payments Head, taking on this role in November 2014. In this role, Mr. McNulty is responsible for the continued growth, development and transformation of the FP Payments product set, developing strategies and execution plans to deliver on the potential of this business while continually enhancing the client experience of the Financial Institution segment. Mr. McNulty also leads the gpi iniative for Citi. Previous to this, Mr. McNulty was the EMEA Clearing and FI Payments Head based in Dublin. This role entails managing High Value Clearing across EMEA for Corporate, Public Sector and FI clients with specific focus on our European Clearing offering to Bank and FI Clients.

Mr. Julio Lopez Moreno is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) of CIB and Client Solutions areas at BBVA. He has been working at BBVA for the last 19 years, holding several managing IT positions in the Corporate and Investment area. Before this long period, he was working as Investment Banking IT manager at Deutsche Bank. BSc in Physics, he has a degree in Treasury and a Master in Private Security and is member of ISACA, holding the CRISC certificate.

Suresh Ramamurthi is Chairman of CBW Bank and serves as its CTO as well. He leads CBW Bank’s initiatives to support and foster innovation including working with financial services start-ups. A veteran technology entrepreneur, Suresh has founded and exited two start-ups, and has previously worked at Google Inc. Suresh has a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering, a Master’s degree in Computer Science and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago.

Mr. Parm Sangha is responsible for IB Europe’s Global Business Services (GBS) Blockchain practice strategy and Go-To-Market initiatives. Having joined IBM at the end of Q3 2016, Mr. Sangha helped defined the global GBS blockchain strategy and establish the European practice. Since then, Mr. Sangha was also instrumental in IMB’s successful partnership with We.Trade, a 9 bank consortia’s launch of a production grade deployment of blockchain enabled Trade Finance network platform. As a proven growth driver, Mr. Sangha has operated at Board level and Senior Management Client facing roles, to advise and execute business and techonology strategies. Spanning the Fortune 500, Mr. Sangha has applied new technologies to unlock new business models leveraging technologies like predictive analytics, AI, IoT and blockchain.

Michael Vrontamitis is the Lead Industry Principal for Finastra’s Lending Business Unit, which covers Cash Management, Trade and Working Capital Management, Retail and Corporate Lending. He also advises several start-ups, including Kountable Inc, and is a member of the World Trade Board. A renowned industry thought leader, he is particularly passionate about the intersection between sustainability, technology and finance and the impact digitalization can have in narrowing the trade finance gap and enabling sustainable supply chains. Prior to Finastra, Michael spent 25 years with Standard Chartered, spanning both wholesale and retail clients, as well as investor relations, working in Hong Kong, London and Singapore. He was the Global Head of Trade Finance Product, and most recently responsible for the bank’s trade finance business with European and American headquartered companies. He also looked after sales, product, distribution, service and implementation in Europe and the Americas.