Events

Steven Beck is the head of trade and supply chain finance at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). He has managed exponential growth of the bank’s trade finance business and implemented its first supply- chain finance business. While at the ADB, Steven initiated a tool that maps the entire supply chain for COVID-related goods to address shortages. He initiated the Trade Finance Register of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which compiles the only industry-wide statistics on trade-finance default and loss rates. These statistics underpinned changes to the Basel III regulations, freeing billions of dollars to support trade in emerging markets. He created the ADB led study that, for the first time, quantified trade finance market gaps and their impact on economic growth and jobs. Under Steven’s leadership, a gender audit was conducted of ADB partner commercial banks to develop specific recommendations to attract, retain, and promote more women in banking. Steven undertook several initiatives to make global trade and supply chains more robust through digitization, including establishing the Digital Standards Initiative in partnership with the Government of Singapore and the ICC. He began his career with roles as a special assistant to the Canadian minister for international trade and as a senior manager at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). He left CIBC to help start up a new multilateral development bank, the Black Sea Trade & Development Bank (BSTDB), which focused on economic development in Turkey, Russia, and countries of the former Soviet Union. Following BSTDB, he took up roles as a senior consultant, including work with the United States Agency for International Development in southern Africa.

Rajiv previously worked as Director for South-East Asia for The Economist Group. His previous experience includes working for UBS as Executive Director for Asia-Pacific Country Risk and for the Royal Bank of Scotland as an international economist. He has also worked for an international organization, the Commonwealth Secretariat, as a senior economist in the International Capital Markets Department. Rajiv’s experience also includes working as a consultant for the United Nations and the Asian Development Bank.

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 nearly 30 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 J.P. Morgan 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.

Stephan Jansma joined Trafigura in August 2013 as Group Head of Structured and Trade Finance, before moving to Singapore as CFO Asia Pacific in August 2021. For over 20 years, Stephan has focused on commodity finance activities in wholesale banking. Previously Stephan held positions with Rabobank, initially as Head of Energy Asia before moving to London to lead the Trade & Commodity Finance activities while also assuming global responsibility for energy within the Trade & Commodity Finance division. During his time at Rabobank, Stephan had also been responsible for acquisition finance, private equity and client solutions.

Farid joined Maybank in 2009 to transform Maybank Global Markets franchise business and has since taken a few different roles before appointed as Managing Director of Global Markets & Transaction Banking in 2016. Farid has extensive experience in designing and driving an integrated and holistic working capital solution (Trade – Cash – FX) focusing on trade financing, payment, collection, investment advisory and hedging. Graduated with BSc in Actuarial Science from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and having completed his AMP at Harvard Business School, he has also held prestigious professional related to trade finance, credit, treasury and guarantee. Farid has spent more than 25 years in the banking sector since 1994.

Kenneth is the Assistant Chief Executive (Industry & Transformation) of Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) since 1 Jan 2021. Kenneth has built up a strong network of maritime Singapore industry players including the digitalisation and HR innovators of shipping companies and the start-ups community. He currently is overseeing Transformation Office, International Maritime Centre, Business Capability Development as well as Innovation, Technology, and Talent Development. Kenneth was seconded from Government Technology Agency (GovTech) in 2017 as Chief Technology Officer. In GovTech, he was the Cluster Director tasked with harnessing info-communications technology and related engineering for public sector transformation covering 10 public agencies’ CIO teams. Kenneth has over 25 years of technology-related experience, starting his career as a programmer in PSA, and becoming Vice President Technology Development, Trade & Logistics in CrimsonLogic and Senior Vice President in Energy Market Company before joining the public sector in 2011. His professional experience covers sectors in the Sea Port, Logistics IT and Energy industries.

Soon Chong started his current position as Group Head, Global Transaction Services in August 2021. Soon Chong is tasked with leading a team of dedicated transaction banking and securities services professionals across the region who are committed to serving the needs of clients. In his current capacity, Soon Chong is also responsible for driving the digital agenda for the Institutional Banking Group.

Alex Manson heads SC Ventures at Standard Chartered, a new business unit established in March 2018 to lead innovation and promote intrapreneurship across the Group, run a professional investment unit to invest in fintech companies, and promote the testing and implementation of new business models with new disruptive ventures wholly or partially owned by the Group. Alex was previously Global Head of Transaction Banking, between 2014 and 2018. In that role, he repositioned the business to a sustainable and growing franchise, drove innovation in the Bank’s core processes and its approach to clients, notably with the “Banking the ecosystem” approach. He joined Standard Chartered as Group Head, Wholesale Banking Geographies in 2012. Prior to that, Alex was at Deutsche Bank for 12 years, including as Global Head of Lending and Corporate Banking Coverage, before which he was at Credit Suisse for 8 years. His roles have spanned product and client coverage across fixed income origination & structuring and investment banking advisory & capital raising. He has worked in New York, London, Frankfurt, Zurich, Hong-Kong and Singapore. Alex holds an MBA from INSEAD and an engineering degree from the Polytechnicum of Zurich.

Samuel Mathew heads up the Flow and Financial Institution Trade Product Team for the Transaction Banking business at Standard Chartered. In this role, Samuel leads the team in establishing the Bank’s flow and financial institution trade vision and capabilities for its corporate and institutional clients, and is also the Chief Product Owner responsible for enhancing the Bank’s trade finance platforms with the latest open banking and micro-services based technologies. In addition, he is the Asia Council Co-Chair for The Bankers Association for Finance and Trade. Since joining the Bank in 2004, Samuel has taken on a number of leadership positions, including Regional Head of Sales – ASEAN for local corporates and commodity clients; Global Head of Trade Solutions Structuring; Regional Head of Product Management for SoutheastAsia; Global Head of Collections and Accounts Receivable product solutions; and Regional Product Manager in charge of receivables solutions. Samuel has over 25 years of Transaction Banking experience with leading banks such as Standard Chartered, Citibank N.A. and Deutsche Bank. A graduate of Bombay University, Mumbai with a First Class Honours in Engineering, he also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Nanyang Business School in Singapore.

Sriram joined DBS in 2018 as Managing Director, Global Transaction Services. His current remit as Group Head of Product Management covers cash management, liquidity, trade finance and supply chain finance solutions offered by the Bank. With more than 20 years of banking experience spanning across several key international financial hubs, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and India, Sriram spearheads DBS’ digital product initiatives across the region and is responsible for leading overall business performance, strategy and product innovation across the bank’s suite of transaction banking solutions. Prior to joining DBS, Sriram held several senior leadership roles in global banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered covering areas such as corporate banking, transaction banking and trade finance.

Sarita Singh is Stripe's Regional Head of Southeast Asia. She works with many of the region’s most forward-thinking startups and enterprises, to help them securely manage payments, streamline global expansion, and create new revenue streams. Prior to Stripe, Sarita served as Director of Facebook's Global Business Group for Southeast Asia and Emerging Markets, where she led the teams responsible for building communities across 12 key markets including Singapore, Pakistan, Vietnam, India and Indonesia. Sarita also spent several years at Google, Salesforce, Oracle and Hewlett Packard in various sales, marketing and operations roles. Sarita is a passionate advocate of emerging markets and helping to drive diversity in the technology industry and startup community with various board positions including Female Founders and Capability Group. Sarita holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from RMIT University and an MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.