London Trade Roundtable (LTR), an association for trade and trade finance professionals, has elected John MacNamara, former vice-chairman of trade finance commodities at Deutsche Bank, as its new chairman.

MacNamara replaces Steven Wicks, head of risk at global commodities group Concord Resources, who has led the association for the past three years and left because of work commitments. MacNamara was elected at LTR’s most recent annual meeting in December 2019, having been a member of the association for more than 30 years.

MacNamara retired from his position at Deutsche in September 2019 after five months in the role. Prior to this, he was global head of structured commodity trade finance (SCTF) at the bank since 1999 when he set up the SCTF desk – a position that was taken up by Sandra Primiero (née Hack) in April 2019. He had been with Deutsche Bank for 20 years.

“At the last annual meeting we were looking for people to come on to the executive committee,” Neil McGugan, secretary at LTR, tells GTR. “Our current chairman at that time, Steven Wicks who was at Concord Resources had already let us know that his workload was too much and that he wasn’t going to be able to continue as chairman. We were very fortunate; when Steven was stepping down Mac was ready to step in.”

MacNamara says it is an “honour” to take up the post. “By getting together in such a group as the LTR we have the capacity to understand much better, and focus on, many of the issues which are the most important to our businesses. Taking that forward we also have the task of informing and hopefully influencing regulators, government and fostering better international trade practices,” he adds.

LTR is also planning to widen its reach with a push to attract more trade, commodity and export finance players to its board.

McGugan adds: “The reason that we brought John in as chairman is because he is a fairly well-known figure in the trade and commodity space, and this goes hand in hand with the fact that we are, as an association, trying to broaden our appeal to act more as a focal point for trade finance and export finance in the context of the services provided by institutions in London.”