Cristina Roberts has been appointed head of energy of the commodity group of Fortis Bank, following the departure of Jan de Laat.

Roberts joined the predecessor of Fortis in 1993. During the last 13 years she has been active in Fortis’ commodity activities in New York, Johannesburg and London. Since 2000 Roberts has been managing director of commodities in New York.

Roberts will be succeeded in New York as head of commodities US by Leonard Russo.

Russo joined Fortis in 2001 as head of energy commodities in the US. He has been involved in the commodity business as treasurer of several companies and before joining Fortis. Before joining Fortis, he worked within the US energy trading team of Bank of America for 16 years.

Chad Clark has succeeded Russo as head of energy commodities in the US. Clark has been working with Fortis since 2001 in various energy finance-related functions in the Dallas office.

Pauline Daly has been appointed as director for the energy desk in London. Daly joined Fortis in May 2002, initially working with the energy team in Amsterdam and London. Before joining Fortis, she worked for six years for Trafigura as a risk manager in structured commodity finance for oil and metals.

Eppo Heemstra has been appointed as director, business development and support of commodities. Since 1991 he has been working for Fortis and its predecessors in various commercial positions in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Singapore and Hong Kong. He will be responsible for all operational activities within commodities. In the last four years, his main focus has been on IT developments within the commodities business.