Supply chain procurement business OCI has appointed trade finance veteran Geoff Parry as commercial director, as the company seeks to target firms affected by the ongoing disruption to global trade flows. 

Parry has spent more than 30 years in banking, and 20 years in trade and supply chain finance roles across Europe and Asia. He joins from MUFG, where he spent more than five years as head of trade finance, a London-based role. 

Parry previously spent three years at Barclays as head of global corporate trade finance, and more than three years as National Australia Bank’s head of trade finance for Southeast Asia and India. He has also spent several years at Standard Chartered, Nedbank and National Westminster Bank. 

OCI chief executive Oliver Chapman says Parry’s appointment will support efforts to help clients improve their understanding of supply chains and avoid a repeat of the disruption to trade that has characterised the last two years.  

“The world has woken up to the importance of the detail in the supply chain,” he says.  

“Failure to understand the supply chain and build insufficient resilience into it is one of the underlying reasons for current global economic challenges. The creation of a more robust supply chain could have helped mitigate some of the economic issues caused by supply instability.” 

Parry adds that global supply chains are facing new challenges, requiring a grasp of local and regional nuances across different markets. 

“We have all seen and felt the impact of disruption in one way or another,” he says. “Helping to make supply chains move more effectively, certainly feels like the right thing to be doing right now.”  

Parry’s hire follows OCI’s appointment of Juliano Mattar as head of emerging markets business development in July last year, and Gary Griffiths as chief commercial officer in March 2021 – a permanent role after nearly a year working on a consultancy basis. 

OCI continues to record strong growth, increasing its revenue 100-fold in the last five years and being named the fastest-growing company in the UK by the Financial Times and Statista. 

The company partners with entities across the manufacturing, consumables, healthcare, agricultural and industrial sectors by linking into their supply chains and providing procurement, logistics and financing expertise.