Announcing the ITFA Conference speakers in Cape Town

The ITFA Board is excited to welcome you at the ITFA Conference in Cape Town. With less than one month to go, all final preparations are falling into place. We are pleased to announce that Andrew van den Born – Willis Tower Watson, will be moderating the insurance panel session titled: ”Credit Insurance in Africa and beyond: A view from the private and public market. Is there renewed optimism and is this justified?” Session panelists include: Andres Ortiz, Mark Hing, John Lentaigne, Andreas Voss and William Limb. 

Prior to this panel session, Carol Searle will give a short presentation. Carol was a member of the ITFA committee responsible for drafting ITFA’s response to the Prudential Regulation Authority of the Bank of England’s (PRA) Consultation Paper on “Credit risk mitigation: Eligibility of guarantees as unfunded credit protection.”  This paper set out the PRA’s interpretation of certain of the provisions of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) in relation to guarantees – i.e. under which conditions a guarantee will lead to a reduction of risk weighted assets.  At this year’s conference, Carol will present ITFA’s response. She will explain the process, the issues and the thinking of ITFA members behind the response.

Carol joined Texel Finance Limited as General Counsel in June 2015. Before joining Texel she was a lawyer in private practice. She qualified as a South African attorney and initially specialised in shipping and trade work, starting in South Africa and then London. After qualifying as an English solicitor she joined a London firm specialising in shipping/trade/insurance firm in 1997.  She became a partner in the insurance group in 2007 having then specialised in Political Risk and Trade Credit Insurance and later headed up the PRI/TCI group. She handled claims from multiple jurisdictions under a variety of political risk and credit policies and regularly advised on coverage issues and policy wordings.

The panel discussion will then seek to answer the following questions: 

• Have recent regime changes and an increasing commodity price recovery ushered in a new era of FDI in-flows into the continent or could the West’s increasing protectionist agenda and a looming trade war with China undermine growth?
• Is the panel bullish about new lending opportunities in Africa or do issues such as debt sustainability mean that major challenges still persist? Do the panel feel that these risks are being adequately supported in the insurance market?

The panel will also discuss issues such as pricing, market capacity and what the insurance market can do to further support these opportunities.

Andrew van den Born is based in their London headquarters and is Managing Director of the Financial Solutions division at Willis Tower Watson.  Andrew has over 25 years market experience and specialises in the structuring and placement of complex Credit & Political Risk Insurance programmes for all types of projects and trade, working closely with lenders, exporters, traders, investors and private equity funds. Andrew’s remit is global, working closely with all the Financial Solutions specialist hubs spread across various geographies in order to access the entire Credit & Political Risk Insurance market and achieve the best client outcomes.

After reading law at London University, Andrew obtained a Masters Degree in International Trade Law from the London School of Economics. Andrew is a regular contributor to financial trade magazines and periodicals and has spoken at various international structured trade and commodity finance conferences.

Andres Ortiz is the Global Head of Trade Asset Mobilization (TAM), which is part of the Private Debt Mobilization (PDM) team. He joined Banco Santander in 2007 and spent several years in Strategy and Business Development roles in Global Corporate Banking, first in Mexico, then in NY and in Madrid. Since 2016 he has been responsible for the distribution and mobilization of Trade Assets, as well as for the Insurance Competence Center within PDM.  Previous to his experience in the bank, he was a consultant with McKinsey & Co. (in Mexico and Spain) focused mainly in transportation and telecoms; worked in Eutelsat Americas (a fixed satellite service company) in different financial and marketing responsibilities; and in Microsoft, with business and commercial responsibility for Latam.

Andres has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico, and a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Mark Hing – Trade Syndication and Risk Distribution, ABSA (Corporate Investment Banking) CIB. Mark has over 20 years of experience in Investment and Corporate Banking, half of which was spent in London, where he worked for several Tier 1 Banks, such as Merrill Lynch, ABN AMRO, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse to name a few.

He joined Absa Capital in South Africa in 2009, where he was involved in several Markets & Trade related projects. Mark then moved to the Trade and Working Capital division and helped establish several innovative Working Capital Solutions for their Corporate clients. He now looks after the Trade Syndication Business for CIB Africa, where they look to de-risk and offer bespoke Trade solutions for clients on the African Continent.

John Lentaigne was appointed Chief Underwriting Officer of ATI in late 2016. He has over 14 years of experience in the credit and political risk sphere, as well as prior entrepreneurial experience.

Prior to ATI Mr. Lentaigne was the Co-Head of Political & Credit Risks at Brit, one of the largest syndicates at Lloyds. John helped to establish Brit’s presence in this area and built out Brit’s team to rapidly become one of the most competitively positioned London market participants. Prior to that, John had established a strong underwriting reputation at both AXIS, Chubb and XL Catlin in both London and Bermuda. John also has a diverse range of entrepreneurial experience, for example having worked as a film producer, live events organiser and having established a record label.

John holds a Master of Modern History degree from Oxford University.

Andreas Voss joined Deutsche Bank in October 2015, from Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG) and brings more than fourteen years of experience in the financial sector. Prior to DEG, Andreas worked in the corporate and project finance industries with German commercial banks. Until the end of 2014, Andreas was based in Ghana as Regional Director of DEG’s office in Western Africa.

Deutsche Bank first established a presence in Nigeria in 1978. The representative office in Lagos supports and assists Deutsche Bank’s correspondent banking activities, which it offers to many Nigerian Financial Institutions. Deutsche Bank has also played key roles in various financial advisory and restructuring projects and in helping Nigerian counterparties raise finance.

William Limb joined Liberty Specialty Markets in 2013 and is an Underwriter in the Global Financial Risks team. Based in London, William has experience underwriting short, medium and long term non-payment risk for FI, Public Agency and Trader clients as well as political/investment risk for Corporates, Public Agencies, FI’s and Traders.

The dynamic and complex nature of African risk has resulted in William gaining significant experience underwriting risks emanating from the region. He has also spent time locally with underwriters in order to further understand the market and risk environment in more detail. William graduated with a BSc (First Class Hons) in Psychology from Cardiff University and is ACII qualified.

We look forward to welcoming Carol, Andrew, Andres, Mark, Andreas and William in Cape Town.