ITFA’S NORTHERN EUROPEAN REGIONAL COMMITTEE (NERC) GETS MEMBER RESHUFFLE, AIMS FOR GREATER GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY By Shannon Manders, ITFA Consultant – Jan 2020

ITFA’s Northern European Regional Committee (NERC) has welcomed three new members. Peter Sargent from DNB Bank, Olga Kompaniets from AIG and Ingrid Kreuk from ABN Amro have all joined the association’s largest regional committee.

Karl Page from Barclays, who remains the NERC chairman, comments on the committee’s aspirations for 2020: “The NERC membership has a varied mix of banks, insurers, brokers, investment funds, fintechs and specialist service providers. This ever-increasing diversity provides exciting opportunities for collaboration, learning and networking. Against this background, a key NERC priority for 2020 will be to continue to deliver events which our membership will find interesting and informative. In addition, we are keen to expand our involvement in supporting ITFA’s Emerging Leaders initiative.”

Page explains that the committee is also seeking to increase the geographic diversity of its membership. “There are a few countries in the region where we are under-represented, most notably the Nordic countries,” he says.

An overview of new NERC members

New member Peter Sargent is the Head of Transaction Banking, CEMEA at DNB Bank, a position he has held for the last two years, having previously worked as a consultant advising on matters including digitisation in trade, regulation and compliance and the paucity of funding in the UK SME market. In total, Sargent has spent over 30 years in transaction banking, including leading teams specialising in international trade, cash management and project management. His previous roles have included Head of Transaction Banking, Europe and Middle East for Australia and New Zealand Banking Corp and before that Head of Sales, Corporate Transaction Services for Lloyds Bank. He has also worked for Citigroup, ABN Amro and RBS.

Sargent comments on his decision to join NERC: “Having enjoyed a long career in the trade world I have felt for some time that I should make a greater contribution to its future and my aim in joining ITFA is to try to guide and mentor less experienced colleagues and use my experience to try to contribute to shaping the future of the market. I would also like to try to increase the presence of ITFA in the countries of the Nordic region where it is not yet well represented.”

Olga Kompaniets is a Senior Manager at AIG Trade Finance, responsible for underwriting, global origination and relationship management with brokers, lenders and partner organisations. She joined AIG in March 2019, bringing over eight years of experience in trade finance and short-term structured trade finance gained with banks including Lloyds, Barclays and Commerzbank, where she held roles across various client sectors, geographies and products, leading on client relationship management, deal origination, structuring and execution. Prior to joining AIG, Kompaniets served with the Berne Union, where her primary focus was on managing the ShortTerm Credit Insurance Committee and delivering industry events.

She says that as a passionate ITFA member, she looks forward to contributing her time, network, industry and event management expertise to making the future of NERC “brighter than it has ever been”.

Ingrid Kreuk is an Associate Director, Risk Distribution at ABN Amro. She joined the bank’s FI Trade Risk Distribution team in Amsterdam in 2010 and is responsible for buying and selling FI trade transactions on an unfunded and funded basis. Before ABN Amro, from 2004, she worked for Fortis Bank in Brussels, where she was also involved in forfaiting and FI syndications. Her previous employment includes working in the trade and commodity finance LC department and heading the financial institutions mid-office at MeesPierson in Rotterdam.

“With many years of experience in trade and working with banks, insurers and multilaterals, I hope to bring extra added value to the ITFA NERC team and see where we can further strengthen our position in the trade world,” she says.

NERC as it now stands includes the following members:

Karl Page, Barclays (Chair)

Bakhtiyor Naimov, Credit Europe

Martin Caslavka, Bank of China

Natasa Ruiter, ING

Olga Kompaniets, AIG

Peter Sargent, DNB Bank

Ingrid Kreuk, ABN Amro