Announcing the ITFA conference speakers in Budapest

The ITFA Board is excited to welcome you at the ITFA Conference in Budapest. With just three weeks to go till the conference, we are pleased to announce that Chris Hall – ITFA Board Member, will be moderating the panel session titled: ” Local Problems – ITFA Solutions’’.

During this panel a number of the ITFA Regional Chairs will highlight relevant initiatives covered by some of our Regional Committees under ITFA’s auspices to solve for local and regional issues, reflecting both the global nature of what ITFA does for the trade finance and forfaiting market and also the diversity of our organisation and industry.

This panel consists of Karl Page – Barclays, Semih Özcan – Denizbank AG and Semih Ozkan – Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

Chris Hall is Senior Underwriter for Liberty Specialty Markets, focusing on short-term trade credit insurance. Chris is based in London and joined Liberty in January 2018 to lead the Toredo initiative, an online platform for single situation non-payment insurance. His previous role was as Head of Trade Asset Management for Lloyds Bank’s Global Transaction Banking, responsible for the development of the secondary market trade finance offering, whilst before this, he spent 9 years at the Royal Bank of Scotland in a variety of roles across trade finance, international cash management and change management. Chris holds a LLB in Law from the University of Bristol and is a serving board member of the ITFA.

Karl Page is head of Trade Finance Syndications for Barclays, with global responsibility for all syndication and risk distribution activities for the Trade & Working Capital business. Karl joined Barclays in 2011; in addition to his syndication responsibilities, he is a key member of the Structuring & Execution team for the Trade business. Karl has gained extensive experience in the loan and trade finance markets. Prior to joining Barclays he worked with Royal Bank of Scotland as Head of Corporate Risk Distribution, and previously he spent many years with ABN AMRO Bank, in a variety of roles across trade finance, loan syndications and loan agency. Karl chairs the ITFA North European regional committee.

Semih Özcan is Head of Financial Institutions and Trade Finance for DenizBank AG in Vienna. Before joining Deniz Bank AG in 2014, Semih was heading the Secondary Loan Trading & Distribution Department for Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) Group. He joined RZB in 2002, where he headed the Turkish Desk as Senior Manager Financial Institutions and Sovereigns. He was later  handed the responsibility of Deputy Head of Syndication Department. Semih Özcan started his career as export manager in a trading company before he moved on to Bank Girozentrale’s Commodity Trade Finance department.  In 2000 Mr. Özcan moved to Denizbank AG, Vienna as Group Head of Credit / Trade Finance and Forfaiting.  He is a post-graduate from the Webster University Vienna, Economics and International Finance. Semih Özcan is the Chairman of the ITFA regional Committee for CEE-CIS and Turkey.

Semih Ozkan is the regional product leader for structured trade finance at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. In his role, he is responsible for marketing structured export finance and structured commodity finance solutions to public and private sector clients in the Middle East region. Ozkan has more than 15 years of experience in trade and supply chain finance and cash management sales for financial institutions and corporates in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. Most recently Ozkan was corporate trade finance sales director at Deutsche Bank in the Middle East. At the same time, Ozkan also worked as a short-term consultant at the IFC Mongolia Mission. Prior to that, Ozkan was at Standard Chartered Bank for FI trade finance and cash management sales. Ozkan published a number of trade and supply chain finance and cash management related articles at the Treasurer Magazine. Ozkan is also the chairperson of the Middle East regional committee for ITFA. Additionally, he is Treasurer and Board Member of Dubai Offshore Sailing Club in the UAE.

We look forward to welcoming Chris Hall, Karl Page, Semih Özcan and Semih Ozkan in Budapest.