While the EU Brexit deal has now been ratified, one thing is becoming clearer: equivalence in doing business across the region, and for the provision of financial services to support this, is unlikely. Coupled with the desire to recover strongly from the pandemic, this will require a change in mindset for corporates who do business across the UK, EU and beyond.
Experts from NatWest and a multinational corporate discussed how you can prepare for the changes yet to come.
Speakers:
After training as a chartered accountant with Ernst & Young, David moved into corporate treasury where he now has over 20 years’ experience. He completed ACT qualifications whilst at Willis Towers Watson, and whist the company went through interesting times moving from a FTSE listed entity, though a private equity sponsored buy-out and subsequent successful IPO, to a US-listed company. He later joined Bupa as Deputy Treasurer, where he was responsible for debt issuance and credit management. David is currently the Group Treasurer at the family-owned brand management Pentland Group.
Andrew runs NatWest’s Corporate & Institutional business, which as well as having responsibility for the bank’s large corporate & institutional relationships, is also a centre of excellence for products including transaction services, rates and specialist financing including infrastructure, project finance, asset finance and leveraged finance. He has more than 15 years’ experience in the infrastructure and structured debt market, first as a lawyer and Allen and Overy and with NatWest since 2007.
During his time in finance, Andrew has been responsible for a number of market leading and innovative financings, including taking a number of UK infrastructure and utility businesses to new financing markets, leading continental Europe’s first structured infrastructure capital markets transaction as well as advising on a number of high profile new to market or acquisition financings. Andrew is currently a board member at our Nordic property leasing business.
Rowan is Head of Trade Origination & Advisory for NatWest, and has extensive cross-product and sectoral knowledge having worked for four banks across six continents. He commenced his banking career with Goldman Sachs, before joining Barclays and performing roles across Corporate, International and Investment Banking. Having developed a specialism in corporate and cross-border finance, Rowan then joined Europe Arab Bank where he built a commodity and trade finance function across Europe and the Middle East / North Africa region, as well as building an Islamic Finance capability.
Rowan joined NatWest in 2011 to develop a Debt Product Management function, with responsibility for lending products and portfolio performance across the Corporate bank. Having then supported the restructuring of the global business to focus on core UK and western European markets, he was subsequently appointed to lead the Trade & Working Capital Product function which focused on delivering product and service excellence to NatWest’s customers. Now leading the Trade Origination & Advisory team, Rowan is driving NatWest’s presence and capability in the Trade Finance market, with a key focus on innovation, digitisation and business development across all product areas.
Shalini Sharma is General Counsel, NatWest Markets N.V. and Managing Legal Counsel, NatWest Markets Plc. She is the legal lead for Natwest Market’s Brexit programme. With over 20 years’ experience in financial markets and the NatWest Group, her responsibilities include a broad range of legal, regulatory and strategic matters, including advising the bank’s boards and sitting on several risk and executive committees. She has a degree in Law & Politics and an LLM from the London School of Economics.
James joined the ACT Policy & Technical team in September 2019 with 30 years’ experience of international finance, most recently within Group Treasury of Royal Dutch Shell plc as Head of Regulatory Affairs, Head of Compliance and Controller of Group Pensions. James is a qualified accountant (ACMA/CGMA), with a degree in Law & Politics, who has worked in UK, Africa, South America & Middle East. He has been CFO/Finance Manager of various entities in the energy, commodities, technology and not for profit sectors. James enjoys engaging with stakeholders and has contributed to many working groups, including the FSB’s Market Participants Group on reforming interest rate benchmarks.
This webinar, in association with NatWest, took place on Wednesday 26 May, 13:00-13:45 BST.
