Events

Baldev is the Managing Director of the Firm. He is dual qualified in Singapore and England with more than 18 years of international experience across the world’s leading global law firms. Baldev is a leading expert in O&G and Commodities and advises on all aspects of the supply chain from trading and trade finance arrangements to international recoveries and arbitration. He is a leading name in trade fraud cases and his views have been featured in the Singapore Business Times, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNA and the Financial Times. He is also ranked for his work in international arbitration and trade by the legal directories of Legal 500, Benchmark Litigation and Who’s Who Legal. In 2023, Baldev was ranked by Asian Legal Business as one of the top 50 litigators in Asia.

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.

Amarjit is the Chief Corporate Officer of Malaysian Resources Corporation Bhd (MRCB), a leading Property and Infrastructure Developer in Malaysia, where amongst his other responsibilities, he is championing MRCB’s efforts in Sustainability. Prior to joining MRCB, he was Executive Director of YTL E-Solutions Bhd, while it was listed on Bursa Malaysia, and Chairman & CEO of its London listed subsidiary, Infoscreen Networks PLC. He also has 12 years of investment management and equity capital markets experience, having held positions with leading international investment banks in London, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore. Amarjit is an Independent Director of ABRDN Islamic Investments Sdn Bhd, a Member of the Board of Trustees of Yayasan MRCB and a member of the National Advisory Panel of the United Nations Global Compact Network Malaysia & Brunei.

Angelia specializes in trade and supply chain finance across traditional trade products and products that support open account transactions. She supports clients from the origination to the distribution of risks in such trade and supply chain finance products. Additionally, she advises clients in disputes pertaining to such trade and supply chain finance products. With over 25 years of experience, Angelia has a wealth of experience in different jurisdictions and how jurisdictional aspects impact industry rules (e.g., UCP600, URR725, URDG758 and ISP98), laws on assignment of financial assets, laws pertaining to negotiable instruments and enforcement over security. She has also been involved and resolved disputes by deploying practical strategies in day-to-day issues faced by financial institutions.

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.

Lauren D’Arcy is the Head of the Financial Institutions team for APAC and Middle East, based in Singapore. The teams’ focus is to support the banking requirements of large financial institutions through the provision of cash, trade and FX, as well as localized support. In addition, Lauren is the Global Head of Partnership Bank Relationships. In this role Lauren is primarily responsible for overseeing the growth and co-ordination of a segment of Financial Institution clients that we engage with across Corporate and Investment Banking. Lauren joined Barclays in 2011. Before joining Barclays, Lauren held various roles in the Cash Management team at Deutsche Bank in both Dublin and London

Sunil Mascarenhas works at Asian Development Bank as a Relationship Manager of Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program since 2019. Sunil manages ADB's Supply Chain Finance Program (SCFP). His main responsibility is to manage relationships with global banks to maximize transaction volumes, provide excellent client service, and ensure constant vigilance in assessing and monitoring risk. Aside from that, Sunil is responsible in driving initiatives to deploy Supply Chain Finance to newer developing markets and helping local banks in those developing markets to launch supply chain finance businesses with a view to making finance available to SMEs. Sunil has been working in the banking sector since 1998. Before joining ADB, Sunil worked at the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) across multiple countries and has worked in various roles in Trade and Supply Chain Finance, Commercial Banking and Risk Management.

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.

Kaushik Mukherjee is Senior Vice President and Head of Global Receivable & Trade for Asia Pacific, at Wells Fargo, based in Singapore. Kaushik joined Wells Fargo, Hong Kong in 2011, from Axis Bank, where he spent 14 years working in various leadership roles in Trade Operations, International Banking, Corporate Trade & Cash Management, Credit and Treasury functions as well as Trade Asset Distribution, both at Head Office in Mumbai and its Hong Kong branch. He moved to Singapore in 2014 with Wells Fargo, to manage the trade business for Asia South region involving India sub-continent, South-East Asia and Australia, both for the Corporate and FI clients. He took over the role of heading the GRT business for the entire APAC region in Oct 2020, with team members based in Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Japan, covering the Corporate and FI clients in the region.

With over 17 years of experience in the banking industry, Aparna is a seasoned banker working with Trade and Supply Chain Finance team at ADB. She collaborates with multiple banks across various geographies, to advance the bank's vision to promote and grow supply chain finance. Aparna is currently spearheading the development of supply chain finance in the region. She has been featured as Women in Trade by Trade Finance Global (TFG) in 2023. Prior to ADB, she has extensive experience working with Standard Chartered Bank building relationships and growth towards the Bank's trade finance and corporate banking business, predominantly in the areas of credit, client coverage and trade finance. Her areas of expertise includes trade finance and transaction banking, credit due diligence and loan structuring.

Dan is an experienced figure in intelligence led cyber defense championing the protection of global brands from cyber threats for two decades. Serving as SVP of Cyber Crime Prevention at Bank of America in Singapore, he has held leadership roles at institutions like Dyson, Standard Chartered, and Barclays. His professional journey from a network engineer is further enriched by his collaborations with the UK Government and the National Crime Agency (NCA). In these capacities, he played an active role in harnessing cyber capabilities to counteract organized criminal groups, demonstrating his versatility and depth of expertise across industry sectors. With a deep grounding in intelligence and cybercrime, Dan is active in devising defense strategies, fostering international collaborations, and directing teams towards proactive cyber threat mitigation. His holistic approach to cybersecurity fusion seamlessly integrates business, fraud, and technology processes, emphasizing a steadfast dedication to both operational trust and cyber resilience in an increasingly digitalized world.

Shirish leads product management for Payments. In this role he consolidates all payments value propositions across commercial, corporate, currency clearing, Fintech segments for the enterprise. He is also responsible for the bank’s payment rails, digital currency products, commercial cards. Shirish has extensive experience in the last 13 years to deliver value added cash management and payment solutions across institutional, corporate, and individual clients. He has been with Standard Chartered for 18 years and has worked in emerging markets of India, Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Shirish has 22 years of experience as a multi-region, multi-product professional. Creating and nurturing new franchise opportunities through emergent technology and strategic alliances are areas of passion.

Chiun Chiek (CC) Wong is the Director of Bursa Intelligence, the function of the Malaysia Exchange that oversees the digital, data and connectivity solutions business for the Group, and also leads the commercial strategy to facilitate the transition to sustainability of the wider ecosystem including listed companies and their supply chain, regulators and financial institutions, via strategic cross-Exchange collaboration, corporate programmes, governmental engagements, sustainable finance initiatives and the FTSE4Good-Bursa Malaysia franchise. This endeavour aims to harness the convergence of data, digital and sustainability capabilities, to facilitate a cost-efficient transition journey for Corporates and SMEs in the economy, in a manner which maximizes tangible business value creation. As the Head of Bursa Intelligence, CC manages Information Services, Index & Sustainable Business, Enterprise Data Transformation covering data governance, acquisition and analytics, as well as the overall technological architecture and go-to-market of new digital ventures.

Tat Yeen Yap is Managing Director Asia Pacific at MonetaGo, a fintech known for its fraud risk mitigations solutions available to financial institutions globally on SWIFT API and other channels, and for the Singapore Trade Finance Registry. Prior to joining MonetaGo in 2020, he had a long career in banking, predominantly in the areas of credit, client coverage and transaction banking. He is a CDCS Advocate, a DOCDEX Expert and a Chartered Fintech Professional, and has actively contributed to digital trade as a drafter of ICC’s eRules and ITFA’s URTEPO, a co-author of ICC Academy’s Certificate in Digital Trade Strategy and Sherpa of the Digital Trade Finance Lab of the Asia Pacific Financial Forum.

Jing Zhang is Executive Director at Trade & Working Capital of JPMorgan, supporting Financial Institution clients across Asia Pacific. She joined JPMorgan in 2008 through JPMorgan New York MBA summer internship then Management Associate Program and completed rotations across relationship management, sales and product functions before locating to Singapore in 2011. Before her current role, Jing worked as Trade sales covering large MNCs and large corporate in Singapore and Southeast Asia. Prior to joining J.P. Morgan, Jing was a Program Associate at the Points of Light Foundation in Washington, D.C.