JP Morgan Adds 100 Trade and Supply Chain Professionals

JP Morgan Treasury Services has strengthened the organisational structure of its global trade practice to better address the industry’s increasing demand for trade finance and supply chain management solutions. Under the leadership of global trade executive Daniel Cotti, JP Morgan is hiring several new senior managers and adding nearly 100 trade and supply chain professionals to the firm’s international team.

The new structure introduces ‘centres of excellence’ for all trade products in every region of the world; regional trade advisory teams; and solution delivery teams enabling trade sales specialists to devote more time to clients and internal sales partners.

“JP Morgan is positioning itself for unprecedented growth in its global trade business and is committed to being one of the world’s leading trade banks,” said Cotti. “By adding key personnel and redesigning our business to more quickly meet clients’ needs, we aim to increase our traditional trade market share and expand our supply chain management and structured trade finance businesses. This enhanced product strategy will leverage our US commercial bank franchise, participate in the firm’s global corporate bank expansion, and build stronger trade partnerships with financial institutions around the world.”

Among the new senior management positions reporting to Cotti are:

• Pravin Advani, managing director, global trade executive for Asia. Advani will lead the global trade team in Asia where most of JP Morgan’s clients remain active and growth opportunity exists. He has more than 20 years’ experience in the banking industry focusing on the pan-Asian, eastern Europe and Middle East markets. His impressive track record includes trade product management, sales, client and risk management positions at ABN Amro/The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Citigroup.
• Andrew Betts, managing director, global head of supply chain. In this new global trade position, Betts and his global team will deliver modular, integrated solutions to address clients’ financing and regulatory needs across the entire supply chain. His remit includes the leadership of JP Morgan’s new global supply chain organisation, which incorporates the existing logistics practice globally. Betts is at the forefront of the industry and has considerable experience in international trade, supply chain financing and logistics services in more than thirty countries. He previously has held senior management positions at Deutsche Post/DHL, ABN Amro and RBS.
• David Conroy, regional trade executive for North America and global trade sales head. Based in New York, Conroy has more than 20 years of transaction banking experience. He joins us from Deutsche Bank where he was Americas head of trade finance, and head of cash management for corporates, and led the franchise expansion. Prior to that, he was at Citibank in its transaction services group in various senior management roles across cash, trade and relationship management.
• Andrea Leonel, regional trade sales and advisory head, Latin America. Based in Sao Paulo, Leonel is responsible for trade sales and advisory for the Latin America markets. Previously at Deutsche Bank – Banco Alemao, she was head of trade finance and interim head of cash management corporates with particular exposure to Brazil and South America. Prior to that, she held trade finance roles at Citibank and Bank Boston. Leonel will report to Mike McKenzie, the regional treasury and securities services executive for Latin America.
• Kao Fang Ming, trade head for China. Ming assumes this newly created position with responsibility for partnering with the global corporate bank to lead global trade’s business and growth in this important market. Previously Ming was China head for global trade sales, trade, and supply chain at HSBC in China and worked at Standard Chartered Bank in transaction banking where she was based in Singapore, China, Hong Kong and London. She will report to Advani and Lisa Robins, the country TSS executive for China.
• Prashant Pillai, trade head for India and south Asia. As part of JP Morgan’s global corporate bank rollout and increased business focus on its franchise in India, Pillai will lead trade business in India. He previously worked for ICICI Bank and most recently for ABN Amro/RBS India where his responsibilities included the initiation and structuring of cross border and domestic trade deals involving trade finance and end-to-end credit structures. Pillai will report to Advani and locally to Rajiv Jain, treasury services head for India and south Asia.

JP Morgan’s new global trade management team also is comprised of Jeremy Shaw, regional executive for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA); Mike McKenzie, regional treasury and securities services executive for Latin America; and Michael Quinn, global head of traditional trade. Cort Jacobsen has joined as global product delivery head, and additional key hires have been made to strengthen the global trade teams in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Commenting on JP Morgan’s expansion, Aite Group senior analyst Nancy Atkinson said: “Nearly half of the top global trade banks have trade finance staff of 100 to 500 full-time equivalents [FTEs]. The addition of 100 FTEs is, therefore, significant. JP Morgan is a leading global trade bank that has been at the forefront of integrating trade finance and trade services with transactional services to support corporates’ financial supply chain. This latest announcement indicates that they continue to move forward on the strategy to integrate all relevant financial supply chain services, while supporting the various needs of disparate markets. For example, Asia-Pacific is one region where letters of credit are still demanded frequently. North America and western Europe are areas where banks need to evolve to support open-account transactions and alternative supply chain financing. No one competitor stands out as having ‘won’ the global financial supply chain market. The trade finance market is consolidating and JP Morgan will continue to be a big and important player. This announcement affirms that stance, and indicates how they are structuring for the future.”

She added: “JP Morgan acquired Vastera, a logistics company, and Xign, an electronic invoice presentment and payment vendor, and they re-aligned their internal organisation to position trade finance more closely with treasury services. Given the rapidity of technology evolution, I do not recommend that JP Morgan builds their new system in-house. They should use one or more vendors to assist them. Current IT staff is mostly used to maintain existing systems, so lacks state of the art technology knowledge. Besides, using new technology architecture techniques, systems can be configured to the specifications of each bank, allowing for competitive differences and differentiation on the same platform.”

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