Banco Santander has hired Silja Calac as head of private debt mobilisation for global transaction banking (GTB) in Continental Europe, a newly created role for the bank.

Calac moves to Santander from Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, where she had been a senior underwriter in the surety team since 2015. She was previously head of trade risk management at UniCredit for almost nine years, and before that worked in the forfaiting team at HVB Singapore for more than seven years.

At Santander, Calac reports to Luis Miguel Navalon Vaquero, head of private debt mobilisation (PDM) Europe, and remains based in Frankfurt.

Calac tells GTR that her new position will involve taking care of mitigating and distributing risks generated out of the bank’s GTB activity in Continental Europe. “My main role will be to promote, develop and enhance the mobilisation of GTB products within Continental Europe with a clear focus to improve asset rotation. I will be working side by side with the GTB product originators in Frankfurt, Milan and Paris to enhance the product offering to our CIB clients by developing different distribution avenues,” she says.

Calac adds that the position was created by the bank because it “recognises the importance of an efficient management of the trade portfolio and a close co-operation with bank and insurance partners, as well as alternative investors in this field”.

Commenting on her return to banking, Calac says that she values the insights about political risk insurance she gained from working within the insurance industry at Swiss Re. “But when Banco Santander asked me to join them, I could not resist. I knew from co-operation that the bank has a great set-up and philosophy on trade asset risk mitigation and distribution. I am looking very much forward to this new challenge and to applying my know-how to a more diversified range of products and solutions.”

Calac remains a board member of the International Trade and Forfaiting Association (ITFA), where she is the head of the insurance committee.