Norton Rose Fulbright has promoted trade and commodity finance specialist Laurie Hammond to director.

The promotion is one of 46 that the firm is making throughout the 2014 calendar year: Hammond stepped into her new role as director (South Africa’s equivalent of partner) on April 1. Hers is the only trade finance-related promotion for the firm in this first round of partner promotions since its merger in June last year.

Hammond is a banking and finance lawyer in the firm’s pan-African team based in Cape Town. Her focus is on cross-border trade and structured commodity finance, including bilateral and syndicated lending, participations, security structures and related regulatory matters.

She has experience in advising clients across the commodity value chain, including domestic and international banks and borrowers, producers, traders, processors and logistics companies in multiple jurisdictions across various sectors. She joined the practice in May 2011.