Trade finance e-marketplace, TradeAssets has made several new hires to its leadership team in a bid to expand its reach across key markets.

TradeAssets is an auction platform for trade finance distribution, allowing seller banks to list trade assets (such as letters of credit, trade loans and guarantees) for sale, and buyer banks to place a bid and agree the price with the seller.

Anubha Varma joins the team this month as executive director for Australia and Oceania, based in Sydney. Prior to her new appointment, Varma held various roles at Deutsche Bank, most recently as head of the bank’s trade finance and lending division in Australia and New Zealand.

In January, Stephen Davies joined as an advisor to the board. Davies recently completed a 40-year career where he worked at various banks including HSBC and Standard Chartered. His most recent role was at Commercial Bank of Dubai, where he headed up its corporate business.

In the latter half of 2019, other senior appointments were also made: Gautam Sashittal joined the TradeAssets’ team in Dubai as a senior board member; Singapore-based Srinath Keshavan joined as executive director for South and Central Asia; and Somer Massey took up a position on the advisory board, based in Toronto.

Meanwhile, Eric Roest and Nigel Bruce joined the TradeAssets’ team in London. Roest has held senior sales roles at Lloyds Bank and takes up the position of business development director, and Bruce, who most recently was director of client management and sales at Deutsche will be TradeAssets’ executive director for Sub-Saharan Africa.

“I am excited about working alongside top industry professionals with such credentials” says Lakshman Sankaran, founder, chairman and CEO of TradeAssets. He adds that the new knowledge, financial expertise, and business acumen coming into the business will help it to build a “mission-driven organisation”.

“TradeAssets is already present in 17 countries through our representatives who are covering many more countries remotely,” Sumit K Roy, founder, president and CMO, tells GTR. “While we might make more hires in 2020 wherever relevant, our main objective is to continue to onboard clients by means of intensive sales efforts and coverage of target geographies.”