EIA Global has appointed John Lavelle as senior managing director for trade credit, structured trade and political risk insurance.

Based in New York, he joins from Willis Towers Watson, where he held the position of deputy managing director. He has over 30 years of experience in the trade credit, political risk and trade finance arenas as both an insurer and broker.

“John has a great wealth of knowledge on trade credit, political risk and trade finance issues. He is especially skilled and experienced in structured trade and project finance transactions. During his career, John has developed expertise working with both corporations and financial institutions,” says Al Giandomenico, president of EIA Global.

EIA Global is the US partner of specialist insurance broker BPL Global, which has made a number of new hires and grown by 10% in the past year.

The hires have ranged from senior appointments – including James Reynolds and Jonny Carruthers, who joined at the end of last year as assistant directors at the London branch – to trainee brokers and IT/business analysts in London, Singapore and Hong Kong.

James Esdaile, managing director of BPL Global, comments on the appointments: “Globally we are witnessing a jump in demand for credit and political risk insurance; indeed, last year we transacted approximately US$350mn of premium. In response, we are tooling up in London, Asia and the Middle East – while our partner does the same in the US. We are the largest single team in the market with significant capacity to adequately service the increased interest from multinational corporations, banks and financial institutions.”