Francesca Nenci will take sole charge of UniCredit’s trade finance business amid a simplification of the Italian lender’s executive structure under new CEO Andrea Orcel.

Nenci, who has been with UniCredit since 2004, has been global co-head of trade since May 2020 alongside Raphael Barisaac.

She has now been appointed as sole global head of trade while Barisaac will focus on his role as global head of cash management, which he has held since October 2019 alongside the trade role.

Since taking the reins in April, Orcel has embarked on a reshuffle of the bank’s operations to reduce complexity and “provide a clean and clear management structure”, according to a July statement from the bank.

Nenci, based in Milan, joined the bank as a political analyst and has since held roles including head of political risk and country analysis and head of working capital products for Italy.

The bank says she has had an “instrumental” role in its project digitising paper-based trade documentation using optical character recognition.

She also represents UniCredit on the board of blockchain-based trade finance platform we.trade.