The trainer is a highly experienced banker who worked for HSBC (and the legacy bank, Midland Bank before that) for 40 years from 1977 until 2017.
The trainer has been passionate about international trade banking and financing, ensuring good outcomes for both the bank and its customers. He has experience in many industry sectors, international businesses, debt syndication, acquisition finance, and credit risk and debt recovery management. His principal specialism is trade and commodities financing. During his career, he was selected for a number of key roles involving complex problem identification, analysis and resolution, leading to reductions in risk and loss and improved processes and compliance.
During his first 16 years with the bank, the trainer undertook junior, then subsequently management roles in business, commercial and corporate banking. Then, in 1993, he became a divisional credit manager, working in that role until 1995. He assisted in the structuring of new business proposals and had credit approval responsibility for business lending in Kent and Sussex. He then spent five years as a senior business banking manager (Windsor and Slough) where he led a team of 16 managers and support staff and was responsible for relationship management for the UK subsidiaries of overseas corporations. He moved into trade finance in 2000, in London, as a senior relationship manager, working with a team of specialist trade services managers and support staff. His team’s portfolio comprised around 80 different relationships.
In 2002 he was promoted to the role of senior corporate banking manager, a position he held until 2010. The role included responsibility for around 20 large relationships, where the turnover of the clients was up to £6 billion. The portfolio was predominantly trade intensive (import/export and commodities), with the business having overseas parent companies or overseas operations. In this role, the trainer had to liaise closely with specialist departments and was also involved in marketing the bank’s business products. He was also responsible for credit risk management aspects and it was, during this time, that the trainer began running training courses, initially on the subject of credit. The trainer spent his final seven years at HSBC (2010-17) as a senior portfolio risk manager at the Trade UK department in London. His roles there included:
- overseeing the UK commercial segment’s trade portfolio, monitoring general performance and quality assurance;
- providing expert advice to sales managers, credit officers and other stakeholders on debt structuring and the use of appropriate products;
- developing analytical and monitoring models to support increased facilities or to identify adverse trends;
- assisting corporate recovery managers in minimizing potential losses due to debt exposure or from an operational perspective; and
- delivering trade finance training courses to stakeholders (in debt structuring and products).
In 2014 The trainer was awarded a Certificate in Trade Based Financial Crime Compliance, further to completing a course and passing an exam run by Manchester University Business School.