George Wilson

Head Institutional Trade Finance at Investec

Speaker

George Wilson qualified and practiced as a Common Law and Commercial Barrister in London for 4 years before moving in 2000 to in-house Legal and Compliance in CSFB and BarCap Investment Banking and Global Markets, London. In 2005, George began his career in emerging markets banking through the regulatory management of the acquisition of Absa Bank Limited by Barclays in South Africa before moving to Hong Kong and transferring to the Asian Credit Trading, Structuring and Special Situations businesses in UBS, Lehmans and Nomura, where he co-managed the largest ever, Asian Collateralized Loan Obligation. Moving back to South Africa 5 years later, George transitioned into Absa Capital FX Sales, then Transactional Banking Product and Trade Finance Sales to eventually become Head of Barclays Africa (then Absa) Institutional Trade. George recently transferred with his team to Investec South Africa to head up Institutional Trade Finance and initiate Trade Finance for the bank. George specialises in innovative, short-term Trade financing solutions for Emerging Markets Financial Institutions and their clients through collateral, DFI and Credit risk mitigation techniques to resolve the African SME Trade funding gap, hard currency liquidity and trade regulatory capital returns challenges.