Aart Bos – Director with Transaction Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers Accountants N.V., The Netherlands
Prior to his recently joining PwC Mr. Bos was Global Head Working Capital with Novartis Pharma in Switzerland. His background includes nineteen years of business and management expertise; including fifteen years in international credit, finance, receivables and working capital management. Mr. Bos has also worked for multi-nationals such as Akzo Nobel, Uniqema, CSC and International Flavors and Fragrances. He is an active supporter of FCIB; having served as Chairman of its Chemicals Industry Group and immediate past Chairman of the Pharmaceuticals Industry Group.

Bob Hayward – Director, Timepower Ltd., UK
Mr. Hayward has started five businesses from scratch, including OPC (UK) Ltd and Timepower Ltd and built four of them to a £1million annual turnover or more. He has a raft of practical knowledge and experience that make him a natural and informative speaker with an understanding of the needs of employees and problems facing both SME’s and large corporations such as BMW (UK) Ltd., Everest and Symantec.

Claire A. Jacobs, Legal Counsel, Omni Bridgeway Emerging Markers BV, The Netherlands
Claire Jacobs was born and raised in Bussum, the Netherlands. She studied corporate law and international commercial law at the University of Maastricht. After a traineeship at the law firm Nauta Dutilh, she graduated in 2003 on the topic corporate governance and the role of the supervisory board. After moving to Utrecht, Claire joined the law firm Wijn & Stael where she worked in the international restructuring and insolvency pratice (Ceteco NV, Latin America and Yukos, Russia). In 2007 Claire joined the Amsterdam office of the Omni Bridgeway Group where she works as a legal counsel and is involved in debt restructuring and recovery intelligence.

Lydia Marshall, European Credit Manager, Shared Services, ITT Corporation, UK
Mrs. Marshall has more than 20 years of credit management experience covering both European and worldwide markets in a variety of industries. She is a Fellow of the UK Institute of Credit Management and a member of the French ‘Association des Credit Managers et Conseils’ (AFDCC). Mrs. Marshall recently joined ITT’s newly formed European Shared Service Centre, where she is currently building up a Centre of Excellence, in order to ensure the successful roll-out of the credit management function of the many European business units. Immediately prior to joining ITT she worked with PricewaterhouseCoopers for seven years, as Principal Consultant, leading teams on site, on pan-European cash generation and process reengineering projects.

James Parsons, Portfolio Manager, BlueCrest Capital Management, UK
Mr. Parsons is a Portfolio Manager at BlueCrest Capital Management, a leading European hedge fund with approximately US$11bn under management. James manages the BlueCrest Mercantile Fund, a long/short market neutral trade finance fund that invests in trade finance, commodities finance and commercial finance risks. He was previously a Managing Director and co-founder of LTP Trade, a trade finance consultancy firm and technology provider. Prior to that James was a Managing Director at Deutsche Bank where he worked in New York, London and Hong Kong in the emerging markets division. James started his career in Morgan Grenfell in its derivatives business.

Dieter Suedhofen,Creditreform International e.V., Germany
Dr. Suedhofen graduated in computer science from the Technical University of Aachen and achieved his Ph.D in 1986. He then joined Philips Kommunikations Industrie AG and worked in Strategic Marketing for 3 years. In 1989 he joined Creditreform, a leading supplier of business credit information and debt collection services in Europe, where he has been responsible for international services since 1990. Creditreform has been a member of FCIB since 1996 and Dr. Suedhofen has regularly attended at least one European Conference a year, on several occasions giving presentations on credit related subjects in Central and Eastern Europe. It is his aspiration to assist FCIB in increasing its visibility and membership in this region.

Larry Taggart – President, FoxTag Enterprises LLC, USA
Mr. Taggart is president of FoxTag Enterprises, Llc. Specializing in cross cultural training primarily in the Defense and Aerospace industry. Larry holds degrees in Business and Personnel/Organization Psychology and an MGA from University College, (UMCP). Presently he teaches both FCIB/MSU courses in International credit and FX management. He is also corporate credit manager for Old Dominion Supply, an importer of steel located in the Washington D.C. market. Larry's past experience has included selling movies and music to South and Central America, hospital supplies to the Mid-East and furniture to Europe and Japan.

Heleen J. Rijkens-Unger, Business Development Manager, Omni Bridgeway Emerging Markets BV,
The Netherlands
Ms. Rijkens was born and raised in Rotterdam. After graduating in Law at the University of Leiden in 1993 she joined Loeff Claeys Verbeke in Rotterdam until 1996. She then moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she worked as a lawyer with the international practice of Price Waterhouse (now PriceWaterhouseCoopers). In 1998 she moved to Cape Town, South Africa, to join the private investment company Citadel as a relationship manager and investment advisor. After returning to Holland Ms. Rijkens joined the Omni Whittington Group BV in 2002. She is responsible for sales in Southern Europe and the UK and business development.

Alan J. Wallace, Joint Managing Director, International Risk Consultants (Europe) Ltd
Mr. Wallace was born in 1961 in Glasgow, UK, and entered asset based lending with Midland Bank in the late seventies. He progressed through to a senior business development role with information provider Dun and Bradstreet some ten years later. Mr. Wallace became a Director of Infocheck UK in the late eighties and worked with their trade credit insuring arm. In October 1993 he and two colleagues founded Indemnity and Risk, a specialist trade credit insurance broker which changed its name in 1997 to IRC Europe. IRC Europe are currently the leading independent specialist trade credit insurance broking firm in the UK with a staff group of 52 from four regional offices in the UK. IRC broker some of the world’s largest trade credit programs and are extremely experienced in this regard. IRC Europe works in conjunction with IRC North America. In November 2007 they were acquired by RK Harrison Holdings Ltd. Mr. Wallace remains as Joint Managing Director.

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