Rabobank has welcomed several additions to its trade and commodity finance team in an effort to broaden the scope of existing activities, to organise itself along more global lines, and to adopt a customer/market focus rather than a product focus.

Jan de Laat, previously at ING, Glencore and Fortis, is joining as global head, energy. He will be responsible for the development of existing and future activities within Rabobank relating to financing of companies active in the international energy trade.

De Laat will be based in London. He will combine this position with the position of local head of STCF/RM activities for companies actively involved in energy trading. De Laat previously held the position of global head, energy, within Fortis Bank, where he was very successful in building up this business.

Joep Kockmann joins as global head, metals, in Utrecht. He will be responsible for the development of Rabobank’s activities concerning companies active in the international metals trade and mining. Kockmann has extensive industry experience and previously held the position of head of commodity and structured trade finance at UFJ Bank in London and was at WestLB before that.

Karel Valken joins as global head of agri commodities. He will be responsible for the agricommodities trading business, both customers and products, within the Rabobank offices worldwide. Valken previously held the position of finance director within Nidera Handlescompagnie in Rotterdam and will be based in Utrecht.

Fred van Hedel takes up the role of global head of risk management within trade and commodity finance. He will be responsible for setting up mid offices and guidelines in the various offices actively involved in transactional and secured lending to commodity trading companies. Credit policies, portfolio management, developing a rating model and other tools to adequately manage credit and operational risks related to the commodities sector will be part of his responsibilities.

Van Hedel currently holds the position of head of STCF in Utrecht.