Events

Michael Evan Avidon is a partner in Moses & Singer LLP, a NYC law firm, where he Co-Chairs its Banking & Finance Practice Group. He is widely recognized for his knowledge of letters of credit (LCs), lending, and secured transactions. Mike’s practice emphasizes: secured and unsecured lending; trade finance; supply chain finance; discounting; LC reimbursement agreements; participation agreements; receivables purchase and payables agreements; electronic contracting; outsourcing and white label agreements; and LC disputes and litigation. His work involves standby, direct pay, and commercial LCs, and demand guarantees. His clients include money center banks and other financial institutions.

John Baranello is the North American Head of Trade Finance Product Management at Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets whose responsibilities include the design, creation and implementation of local and global Supply Chain & traditional Trade Finance products, associated training and marketing, and related technical and regulatory compliance. He is the Chair of BAFT’s Supply Chain Finance Committee and former Chair of the New York/Metropolitan Division of the BAFT Documentary Letter of Credit Committee. He has been involved in the review and advisory stages of the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP), the International Standard Banking Practices (ISBP 745), International Standby Practices (ISP98), & the Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees (URDG 758) – being the first to commercialize these rules in the United States. Recognized by the FBI for his work in Trade Finance, Mr. Baranello has assumed numerous trade advocacy roles most recently with the Global Supply Chain Finance Forum.

Mr. Stephen Cheung is the Executive Vice President of LAEDC and the President of World Trade Center Los Angeles (WTCLA). He leads investment attraction to the LA County region on behalf of both LAEDC and WTCLA, and facilitates successful location of new businesses, projects, and deals from both international and U.S. investors into the region. He also supports international trade and international connections for organizations based in LA County. Prior to his current role, Mr. Cheung was the Secretary General of International Trade and Foreign Affairs for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, and was responsible for managing policies and programs related to the Port of Los Angeles, Los Angeles World Airports, International Affairs and Global Trade. Concurrently, Mr. Cheung was the Director of International Trade for the Port of Los Angeles – the busiest container port in North America, and was responsible for developing programs to increase trade through the Port of Los Angeles, and facilitate goods movement through the Southern California region.

Mr. Gilbert Cordier is we.trade Product Manager at Societe Generale and responsible for the growth of the we.trade proposition with Societe Generale’s French clients. He has spent the last 2 years engaging directly with clients to understand their needs, with the insights from this being used to inform how the we.trade platform has developed. Mr. Cordier has a strong entrepreneurial mindset, running his own consultancy for 3 years in Brazil and Switzerland, specialising in energy commodities, with customers that included Statkraft, Europe's largest generator of renewable energy. Previously, he held roles in energy commodities for corporates such as Engie and CA CIB.

Stacey Facter has been Senior Vice President for Trade Products at BAFT for the last six years. Ms. Facter is responsible for managing all the Association’s activities related to trade products and serves as the primary subject matter expert for trade issues, overseeing and managing BAFT’s trade councils, committees and working groups and helps members develop guidance tools for the trade industry. Ms. Facter serves as a public spokesperson for the organization to stakeholders, regulators and policy makers on industry matters affecting the international trade finance community and is BAFT’s primary technical resource for trade related education and training.Ms. Facter has more than twenty-five years of experience in international banking, including over twenty years with JP Morgan Chase Bank, covering emerging markets, international trade finance, cash and risk management, and securities collateral management.

Mr. Leonard Frady is a Sanctions Compliance Officer with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in their Sanctions Compliance & Evaluation Division. Previously, Mr. Frady worked as a Senior Bank Examiner and Bank Examiner with the New York State Department of Financial Services, New York State Banking Department, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Also, he has worked as a Senior Enforcement Case Specialist with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) on BSA/AML matters, and as a Securities Compliance Examiner with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. In addition, he worked in the BSA/AML/Sanctions Compliance Department of Eagle Bank located in the Washington, DC metro area.

Mr. Alexander Goulandris started his career as a maritime lawyer with Holman Fenwick & Willan in London, Athens and Hong Kong. He then joined Freehill, Hogan & Mahar in New York, where his clients included many leading ship operators. In 2005, he co-founded essDOCS with the aim of eliminating the significant inefficiencies resulting from the use of paper documentation in shipping and trade. Today, Mr. Goulandris serves as essDOCS Co-CEO & CRO, where he is responsible for the Company’s strategic direction while overseeing all revenue-generating aspects of the business.

Normand Girard is Director, Global Trade Operations for BMO Financial Group. He is responsible for the Bank’s processing of all trade finance products in North America as well as process oversight in Europe and Asia. Mr. Girard has over 30 years of experience in Global Trade Operations at BMO Financial Group. During his career with the Bank, he has covered every role in Import, Export, Standby Letters of Credit and Collections as well as integral operations leadership roles throughout the evolution of BMO’s trade finance business. He has been Chair of the BAFT Southeast Committee from 2011 to 2017. He is a Certified Documentary Credit Specialist and currently Chair of the BAFT National Commercial Letter of Credit Committee since 2017.

Jeremiah Glock comes to us with over 50 years of experience in Global Trade Operations, with 25 years at Citi in various positions. For the last 14 years he has been one of Citi’s Global Trade Advisors, assisting with providing guidance in all functions of Letters of Credit (Advising Commercial / Standby L/C’s and Examination of Documents), Import and Export Collections, Reimbursements and Compliance and Potential Risk items. Mr. Glock is CDCS (Certified Documentary Credit Specialist) certified and also represents Citi as the Vice Chair on the Southeast Letter of Credit Committee which includes the Collection Committee.

Ms. Yasmin Kermalli is Assistant Vice President and Service Center Coordinator in Global Trade Operations, Commercial Letters of Credit at Bank of America in Los Angeles. She joined Bank of America 32 years ago, and has been in Trade Finance for over 27 years covering Export and Import letters of credit. Prior to joining Bank of America, Ms. Kermalli was with The HSBC Group as an Office Manager in their Merchant Banking arm in Dubai, UAE. Ms. Kermalli is a Certified Documentary Credit Specialist and Co-Chair of the BAFT West Coast Letter of Credit Committee.

Ms. Mary Ann McCarty is with PNC Bank and has over 38 years of experience with trade products. She currently manages the Standby Operations for PNC which includes management of all aspects of syndications. Mary Ann’s expertise is with Standby Letters of Credit and is very involved with risk management issues. She is currently an active member of the BAFT National Standby Letter of Credit Committee.

Mr. Byron McKinney is the product manager for trade finance and compliance solutions at IHS Markit. His focus at IHS Markit is on the automation and simplification of the compliance and workflow process within trade finance. He has over 15 years of experience in trade finance and commodity trading most recently from Accuity, where he led the business team in designing and delivering dual-use goods identification and vessel monitoring for the banking and cargo markets. Previously, he worked at Thomson Reuters in the energy and shipping business with time spent on developing cargo tracking models and price forecasting applications for gas and power.

Mr. David McLoughlin is Head of Commercialisation at we.trade, the blockchain-based trade finance platform that makes it easier and more reliable for buyers and sellers to trade globally. He is passionate about the benefits that new and emerging technologies bring to businesses and has spear-headed the successful development, launch and on-going marketing of innovative solutions for many organisations – from start-ups to large corporates. Mr. McLoughlin is a business mentor with Enterprise Ireland, the Irish government agency focused on helping Irish businesses deliver new export sales, and in the past has held various roles in organisations that include Vodafone, Fujitsu and Marubeni.

Mr. Walter J. Mix III is a Managing Director and heads the Financial Services practice at Berkeley Research Group. He is a former commissioner of the California Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) and also previously served as a banking executive at Union Bank of California. He advises domestic and international bank clients on corporate governance, risk management, strategic planning, and financial advisory assignments. He has significant experience in strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, enterprise risk management, regulatory compliance, and capital planning. He joined BRG from LECG, LLC and before that The Secura Group; serving as managing director in both firms. He serves as chairman of the International Bankers Association of California.

Fiore (Frank) Petrassi began his career with Harris Bank and Bank of Montreal (US) and is now Vice President, Global Product Manager for Standby Letters of Credit and Letters of Guarantee with JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. He is a long standing member of the BAFT National Standby Letter of Credit and Trade Finance Committees and was BAFT North Central Standby Letter of Credit Committee Chair from 2006-2009 and member of the BAFT Automatic Extension Sub-Committee. He was the Co-chair of the IIBLP Government Mandated Letters of Credit Committee and member of the IIBLP Council on International Standby Practice (CISP).

Ms. Ana Isabel Ramirez is responsible for managing and supporting the Trade products/services, and Supply Chain Finance Receivables Discounting, and Payables Financing needs of City National Bank’s clients and prospects. Prior to joining City National Bank in November 2018, Ana worked for 20+ years as Trade Services Relationship Manager for Wells Fargo Bank, US Bank, Union Bank of California, and Bank of America where she managed Financial Institutions, Corporate, and Commercial banking clients/prospects in the U.S.A., Canada, and Caribbean. She was responsible for ensuring all client international trade and supply chain finance product needs were successfully delivered.

Glenn Ransier is the SVP Head of Documentary Trade and SBLCs with Wells Fargo Bank. He is currently a Technical Advisor assisting the production of official Banking Commission Opinions for the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris, France. He also has delegation experience at the ICC and at the International Organization for Standardization. Mr. Ransier has been an involved member of BAFT for decades and was most recently the Chair of the Oil and Commodity LC Working Group in 2015.

Mr. Francisco Rodriguez has over thirty-five years of experience working in Global Trade Operations of several major banks. His interaction with custom brokers, document preparation services, freight forwarders, among others has enabled him to help the banks customers in the import, export trading areas, as well as Standby L/C’s Mr. Rodriguez is a current certified documentary credit specialist sanctioned by BAFT. He received his Global Logistics Specialist’s certification from California State Universit –Long Beach. He is the current Chair of BAFT West Coast Regional L/C Committee.

Mr. Ruiz is a global strategy and business development executive with experience in the technology, financial services, and media/information industries. He is currently leading Strategy and Business Development at IBM for TradeLens, the industry platform for the digitization of global trade. Prior to IBM he played a number of strategic and operational roles at Thomson Reuters based in Europe, Asia, and the Americas including leading Strategic Alliances globally and developing growth strategies across business units. Mr. Ruiz started his professional career as a software engineer in Spain developing some of the early web-based b2b marketplaces.

Valeria has over 20 years of experience in Trade, based in New York and is currently the Global Trade Services Head for Citi. She is responsible for the product management of all trade services products around the globe for Corporate and Financial Institution’s Citi clients. She works with product managers in the regional teams in Asia, EMEA, NA and Latin America to ensure global consistency and quality delivery to the clients. As Global Trade Services Head she is focusing on key initiatives to drive efficiency into the business like the deployment of OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology. Valeria is now leading a project that will use Enhanced Analytics to detect red flags, compliance concerns and resolution of sanctions hits in the trade business.

Kristine Siebel is currently at Societe Generale in their Trade Finance Group, previously she had been a Senior Credit Officer for Royal Bank of Canada responsible for their Captive Reinsurance Business in New York. Prior to joining RBC, Ms. Siebel was Assistant Vice President and Standby Letter of Credit Risk Officer for JPMorgan Chase Bank in New York. Ms. Siebel has been in Trade Services for over 35 years beginning with JPMorgan Chase’s predecessor bank Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company. Ms. Siebel has extensive experience in both the issuance and the risk aspects of Standby Letters of Credit. She has been a member of the BAFT National Standby Letter of Credit Committee since its inception in 1994 and is currently the Chair.

Donald Smith has over 43 years of experience in letters of credit starting with the UCP 222. He is retired from Citibank New York and is currently President of Global Trade Advisory, a Charlotte NC based consulting firm focused on training in the traditional trade products, regulatory compliance and dispute resolution. He has been a member of the US delegation to the ICC Banking Commission since 1998, chaired the ICC’s Uniform Rules for Forfaiting drafting group, co-chaired the International Standard Banking Practices drafting group, was a member of the group which produced the International Standby Practices ISP98. He has been a member of BAFT and its predecessor organizations since 1982, a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee, and chaired the national Letter of Credit Committee and the Annual Conference several times.

Edward Stoltenberg is a Director for Treasury and Trade Solutions, Global AML Risk, serving as an AML resource to the Trade Business. In his current role, he is responsible for all AML aspects of the Trade AML program, working with stakeholders across the three lines of defense. Mr. Stoltenberg was selected to lead the embedding of machine learning into operations processes to detect Trade Based Money Laundering, and Sanctions red flags. Due to the successes of the before mentioned, Mr. Stoltenberg embarked on several exploratory projects to implement machine learning in areas such as vessel behavior and Military Dual Use goods. Mr. Stoltenberg joined Citi in 2014, leading Citi’s Horizontal AML Risk Assessments, conducting reviews in areas of higher AML risk, including Trade Finance. Prior to his work in financial services, Mr. Stoltenberg served as an Armor/Cavalry Officer in the United States Army.

Mr. David Watson is the Head of North America, responsible for SWIFTs strategic direction and growth in the region. Mr. Watson joined in 2019 and is charged with strengthening the cooperative’s key client relationships and delivering commercial performance across its portfolio of products and services; including SWIFT’s global payments innovation service and its suite of financial crime compliance solutions. Prior to SWIFT, Mr. Watson was the Global Head of Digital Cash Management for Deutsche Bank’s Global Transaction Banking business, responsible for overseeing and driving the strategy and planning for digital business models and client connectivity products for Cash.