Speakers of the SCHUMANN Conference 2022

Sophie Albert, MBA, has been Head of Surety Business for Key Accounts in Germany & Austria at Allianz Trade since November 2020. She focuses on customer needs along with solution orientation and is responsible for portfolio and risk management as well as customer service and sales support in the surety business.

Previously, she was responsible for sales cooperation with cooperation partners such as Allianz agencies, brokers and banks. Furthermore, she gained international and cross-functional experience within the Allianz Trade Group while working in Internal Audit. Thus, she combines extensive expertise in the surety business with a broad experience in the international environment.

Simon Barker joined the London insurance market in 1989 a broker with C.T. Bowring (Marsh).

He set up and developed an independent Lloyd’s Broker called EBA Insurance Services which expanded into the MGA arena in the mid-2000s with particular focus on European construction and surety business. EBA joined the Nexus group in 2015 and has become a key component of the group’s European strategy.

Simon’s role cuts across a wide range of insurance products and roles including product design, capacity sourcing and binding authority design. He is a fluent French and Italian speaker and was the architect of Nexus’ post Brexit structur.

Jens Becker has been Chief Information Officer & Chief Digital Officer of Zurich Group Germany since January 2021 and in this role is driving the "Accelerated Evolution" of Zurich IT. This transformation is guided by 8 strategic priorities: Among others, the introduction of an agile collaboration model between business and IT, expansion of technical DevOps and cloud capabilities, a new sourcing strategy and a strengthening of data utilization and automation.

Previously, Jens worked in IT consulting at KPMG and over 12 years in various IT leadership roles at AXA. There he was responsible for several digitalization projects, introduced DevOps as divisional head of IT operations and initiated AXA's cloud migration. Most recently, he served as divisional head of software development with BizDevSecOps maturity and as a driver of agile transformation at Cologne Insurance.

Jens Becker holds a Master in Finance from Goethe University Frankfurt and a Diploma in Business Informatics from the University of Cologne.

George has over 28 years’ experience as a credit and political risk insurance broker, having joined BPL Global in 1994. Starting in the London office, he moved to Paris in 2000 and was appointed Director in 2006, before becoming a member of the group board in 2010.

George is a leading figure in the development of financial institutions’ use of the CPRI market, having placed one of BPL Global’s earliest policies for a bank client in 1996. He is also a member of the International Energy Credit Association, which promotes the understanding of credit and risk management in relation to energy commerce, as well as the International Trade and Forfaiting Association. He is a regular speaker on the conference circuit.

Marian has over 15 years’ experience in credit and political risk underwriting and holds a master’s degree in Economics.

She started her career at the Dutch Ministry of Finance, in the department working with the Export Credit Agency. Furthermore, she has held various roles in the London market, including in the political risk team at Axis, as a lead credit risk underwriter at Equinox, and as a credit risk underwriter in the Special Products team at Atradius.

Since January of this year, Marian works as Business Expert for Schumann and she leads Schumann’s newly established London office.

Phil has over 30 years’ experience in Credit, Surety & Political Risk, with unrivalled knowledge and experience of the business and broking the largest mono- and multi-line cedants in this field.

He began his career at UK reinsurer Mercantile & General and was a founding member of the credit, bond and political risk team in 1988. His previous roles include establishing Ace Guaranty Re’s European operation in London, and a two-year spell at Atradius, as a founding member of its Special Products team. He joined Benfield in 2006 – later acquired by Aon – as global leader of the trade credit and financial risk team and will join TigerRisk in June 2022 to head up the new London-based Financial Risks reinsurance broking team and bring his technical and commercial leadership to the company’s expanding client base.

After completing a master’s degree in economics, Stefan Brachetti started to work for Deloitte. Since 2000 Stefan Brachetti is working for the Rhenus Group in different business units and different functions. 2014 he became Head of Creditmanagement and since 2016 he is also Head of SAP Concepts & Projects.

After studying computer science and mathematics, Bernd Bütow initially worked in the IHK organisation, where he was involved in a large number of corporate data and knowledge management projects. After moving to Verband der Vereine Creditreform e.V. in 2002, he was significantly involved in the complete realignment of the company's IT.

Since 2009, Bernd Bütow has served as Managing Director in the role of COO and, since the beginning of 2022, as CEO. He is concerned with the digitalisation of B2B processes and business models of Creditreform clients. At Creditreform, he also holds the position of Chairman of the Board of Creditreform AG. As a board member of the BVCM, he is responsible for data and IT and actively supports the digitalisation of credit management there.

Sven Coels has more than 13 years of experience in credit insurance. As Senior Credit Underwriter his responsibilities included the extensive credit rating analysis of companies in Germany and abroad.

In recent years Sven was responsible for the credit rating and credit management of national and international key accounts with Atradius Kreditversicherung. This work included optimizing credit management, conducting credit audits, and managing portfolios. He also played a sales support role in the acquisition and implementation of new customers.

Thanks to his analytical skills and international experience Sven is excellently equipped to be able to support km credit consulting gmbh customers with issues relating to credit management.

Sean Edwards is Head of Legal at SMBC Bank International plc, part of the Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group. He is a Special Adviser to the Trade Finance Department of the Bank and in the Trade Innovation Unit. Also Sean is Chairman of the International Trade & Forfaiting Association (ITFA). He helped draft the Uniform Rules for Forfaiting (URF) and the Standard Definitions for Techniques of Supply Chain Finance published by ITFA, ICC, FCI, BAFT and the EBA.

He is a former member of the Executive Committee of the ICC Banking Commission and the ICC Working Group on Digitalisation in Trade Finance. Sean is a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Trade Finance Expert Group. He is a non-executive director of KomGo S.A. Sean has written for all the major trade finance magazines and is on the editorial board of Global Trade Review (GTR). He has presented at many conferences.

Kyle qualified with a 1st class honours in Mathematics, before going on to achieve a Distinction in his Masters of Financial Services Management.

He is now a Recoveries Manager for one of the global leaders in trade credit solutions, Atradius. Kyle has worked within the Special Products team at Atradius for just over 5 years, which focusses on single situation cover. Policies are usually non-cancellable; this requires a strong partnership between Insurer and Insured in order to implement a strong recoveries strategy.

He has experienced claims involving Public and Private Obligors in multiple jurisdictions including North America, South America, Asia, UK, Europe, Africa and Oceania.

Within the Nexus Group Samuel is responsible for the Trade Credit Insurance operation in German, Austria and Switzerland.

He has several years of experience as Credit Analyst and Credit Risk Underwriter, focussing on larger and more complex risks globally. Additionally, Samuel has been working as a Commercial Underwriter and Key Account Manager, focussing largely on international Top Up programmes and ‘Non-Can’ solutions for larger ‘Mittelstand’ clients.

Since early 2020 Samuel is heading up the German operation of Nexus Trade Credit.

The graduated chemist is a project manager at SCHUMANN with a special interest in data driven projects and data analysis.

Dr. Carsten Gast began his career around 20 years ago at DaimlerChrysler and since then has held various management and executive positions in the areas of corporate development, controlling and finance at leading global automotive suppliers. In 2018, he was appointed to the Executive Board of Knauf Interfer SE, where he is responsible for finance and serves on various advisory boards.

During her training as an IT specialist for application development in the Credit & Surety division, she learns how to develop software according to customer requirements.

With a doctorate in business informatics, he managed the development of business areas as well as marketing and sales for the business unit Industry & Trade.

Since January 2023, Dr. Stefan Gröger has been responsible for the sales management of the business units Industry & Trade, Financial Services and Credit & Surety in his role as Commercial Director and member of the Executive Board at SCHUMANN.

Dr. Werner Grünewald is an experienced managing director (CFO) with a wide range of business literacy. He has many years of management responsibility in a medium-sized family owned company.

Knowledgeable in the implementation of market and financial topics, such as M&A transactions, strategic controlling, risk management and compliance as well as in the sustainable development of transformation and change processes, strategy development and compensation systems.

Experienced, result-oriented, entrepreneurial and international manager with strategic competence, paired with pragmatic implementation know-how.Total turnover/ profit responsibility: EUR 10 bn or EUR 140 m EBT. Beginning April 2020 working as an independent consultant.

During her 3-year dual study program in the field of business administration and industry, Lisa Goettfert was already able to gain insights into the various corporate divisions of TRUMPF. This was followed in 2018 by her immediate start at TRUMPF Financial Services GmbH as a sales assistant.

In 2021, after completing her part-time master's degree with a focus on finance, she found a new challenge as a project coordinator in the sales department of TRUMPF Bank and has since been responsible for the markets in Germany, Belgium and Denmark.

During his training as an IT specialist for application development in the Credit and Surety division, Jan Heinrich learns how to develop software according to customer requirements and maintain it.

Stefan Herschel studied Public Service Administration and Quantitative Economics and started his career in the banking industry at the former Dresdner Bank and WestLB in Germany in credit risk.

In 2006, he joined Zurich Insurance Group. Based at the Group's headquarters in Switzerland, he first worked there as senior credit risk manager and credit and market risk modelling expert.

Later, he led a number of larger projects, including IT projects, for Zurich’s Group Risk Management department.

From 2012, he accompanied various leadership roles in the Group Risk Management department at the Zurich Group. Since July 2020, Stefan Herschel has been responsible for the credit & surety business of Zurich Germany as Head of Credit Lines Germany.

In the course of his many years of work, Stefan Herschel has been heavily involved in the credit and surety business, in credit risk modelling and credit portfolio management, as well as in the implementation and application of technology and digitalisation in credit risk management.

Mike is an innovative, entrepreneurial Chartered Director with a strong track record of creating and growing businesses across Europe, USA and emerging markets.

Mike has 39 years’ experience in trade credit and political risk insurance, as well as in trade finance. He has been at the forefront of innovation in the industry and has been active in the Dutch and German markets as well as the UK and the US. He was a founder and CEO of trade credit insurer Equinox Global Limited.

Mike’s recent activities include being a director at Nexus Trade Credit, a consultant at Charles Taylor Adjusting, a director of a motor insurance MGA; providing advice to the Irish Government on credit insurance, and acting as Deputy Chair of the London Handel Festival (of classical music).

Mike recently became a Chartered Director after studying with the Irish Institute of Directors.

Since joining SCHUMANN, Christian Keufner has worked on SCHUMANN's solutions for balance sheet analysis and was responsible for their sales and marketing. He now works as a Business Development Manager in Financial Services in the area of leasing.

In addition to his work at SCHUMANN, he also studied the Master of Science "Taxation". As part of his Master of Science "Sustainable Management & Economics", he intensively works on the topics of sustainability and ESG.

Ansgar Kugelstadt is Managing Director of Coface Finanz GmbH and Head of Business Development of the Coface NER Region.

He is responsible for the strategic development of Coface's factoring business and structures complex, local and international factoring transactions together with his team.

Before joining Coface, Ansgar Kugelstadt held various management positions at Heller Bank, GE Capital, Targo Commercial Finance and CommerzFactoring, most recently as Director Risk of Targo Commercial Finance and Managing Director of CommerzFactoring.

In 2001, Ansgar Kugelstadt completed his dual studies at the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences and the Open University London to obtain a diploma in business administration (BA), specializing in banking.

Since 2010 Mathias Kratz is an employee of DZB Bank GmbH in Mainhausen. For the last 12 years, he first worked as an Account Manager and started to switch his attention to the projects being run in the institute in 2016. Since 2017 he mainly manages projects with a technological and processual focus.

In 2018 SCHUMANN became a key business partner when it comes to designing new- or redesigning running processes in DZB Bank. Mathias holds the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in Banking & Finance and a Master of Science in Digital Business Administration & Innovation. Since 2020 he holds the position of Coordinator Business Development as a staff position for the management board.

As a Member of the Executive Board Evgeny is responsible for marketing and sales. He is also responsible for the business unit Credit & Surety.

Florian Lückmann graduated with a bachelor's degree in International Management in 2010 and then supported UPS as an Account Executive. Afterwards, he spent two years supporting AS24 Tankservice GmbH as a regional sales manager in sales and business development.

With his transfer to the Hoyer group in 2014, he remained loyal to the industry for the sale of fuel cards and road toll solutions. His further path led him to UTA, where he successfully implemented strategic restructuring in the DACH region and also Scandinavia, first as Deputy Head and then as Area Manager Procurement Fuels. He continued to build on his strengths in strategic management at DKV Mobility. Florian Lückmann currently works for the Hoyer Group in the business unit management of Hoyer Card.

Thomas Maletz has been responsible for Regulatory Compliance at BFS finance GmbH, a Bertelsmann Group company, since 2012.

He has many years of experience in risk management, especially in the interaction between credit insurance and factoring.

He is also the BFS finance Group's Money Laundering Officer (Factoring/Payment Services) as well as Compliance Officer and thus the contact person for banking supervision and auditors.

Thomas Maletz supports the growing importance of sustainability goals in the financial sector as head of the Sustainability Working Group at the German Factoring Association.

Robert Meters is Director of Global Business at SCHUMANN. He studied Business Administration and International Management at the University for Economics and Management in Düsseldorf and Essen. He has been in the credit risk management industry since 1993 and has worked for leading information service providers as well as in the telecommunications industry. He advises and takes care of customers in the automation of credit risk management for the financial services sector with excellent references in leasing, factoring, banking and trade credit insurance.

Mr. Henning Michaelsen, born 1971, has worked as an in-house lawyer since October 2004 and since 2009 also as Chief Compliance Officer at Aurubis AG.

After studying law in Germany and Belgium, completing his Master's degree in England and his legal traineeship in Hamburg, he worked for several years as a lawyer and insolvency administrator at a commercial law firm in Hamburg.

As Chief Compliance Officer, Mr. Michaelsen is responsible for the group-wide compliance management system and is the central contact for all related issues. Mr. Michaelsen's practice focuses on antitrust law, white-collar crime, labor law and supply chain compliance.

Michael Mohr has decades of experience in the banking, leasing and factoring business. Within the Werhahn Group in Neuss, Michael Mohr was responsible as Managing Director for the abcfinance group of companies with abcfinance GmbH and abcbank GmbH. During this time, abcfinance developed into one of the market-leading leasing and factoring providers in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. In addition, Michael Mohr has represented the leasing industry for many years as a board member of the Bundesverband Deutscher Leasingunternehmen e.V. (Federal Association of German Leasing Companies).

Michael Mohr has distinctive experience in the strategic development of financial services, complemented by extensive M&A activities and expansion into other European countries. All aspects of risk management and information technology have also always been focal points of his work. In particular, Michael Mohr has massively advanced the digital transformation, among other things by founding a corporate start-up.

Since mid-2021, Michael Mohr has retired from the active management of abcfinance and has since been advising companies in the financial services industry and SMEs on strategy and management issues.

Peter Mulroy is Secretary General of FCI, the world’s largest network of receivables finance and factoring companies, with its headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Prior to joining FCI, Peter was previously Senior Vice President, International Regional Manager and Managing Director with CIT’s Trade Finance unit in the US, a $40+ Billion financial services company and one of FCI’s original founding members. Peter also served on the management committee of CIT, supporting the global growth strategy of the company. Peter came to CIT through the acquisition of the factoring unit of SunTrust Bank, where he developed their international factoring business.

Peter is a past Chairman of FCI, and has served on the FCI Executive Committee for over a decade. Peter also served as Chairman of the Prudential Risk Committee of the EUF.

He has worked and lived previously in Europe and the Middle East. Peter received his Bachelor’s Degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey, studied at the Universität Konstanz in Germany, and his MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management in Arizona.

As Secretary General, Mr. Mulroy assists banks, regulators and governments from around the world in educating the role and introducing the concept of factoring, a facilitator of liquidity and mitigator of risk for SMEs and Corporates in both domestic and international trade. He addresses audiences from around the world on the subject of factoring and international trade and is generally regarded as an “ambassador for the receivables finance and factoring industry”.

Lander is a GRC (Governance, Risk and Compliance) professional with 20+ years of experience in Consulting and Industry in a variety of countries and industries. Since 2019 Lander is a Director within EY’s Business Consulting practice based in Munich, as a member of the Enterprise Risk Management team. His area of expertise is Third Party Risk Management (TPRM), supporting clients setting up TPRM programs as well as enabling the outsourcing of related activities in a Managed Services basis.

Lander has bachelor’s degrees in Law and in Economics, having studied in the Universidad de Deusto (Spain) and Stockholms Universitet (Sweden). Throughout his career Lander has worked in a variety of areas, as Compliance, Risk Management, Internal Audit and Forensics.

During his career, Lander has been involved in two US Department of Justice (DoJ) Monitorships (Siemens and Volkswagen Group), working for the Monitor (VW) and supporting the remediation efforts (Siemens) as an external consultant as well as part of the team.

More recently, Lander is helping companies in assessing, designing, and enhancing third party risk management programs focused on a variety of risk areas (e.g., ESG, Anti-bribery and anti-corruption, cybersecurity and data protection). In particular his focus has been in the design of programs focused in Responsible Sourcing, heavily based in OECD principles and guidances. That includes programs focused in addressing the due diligence requirements of the Swiss Responsible Business Initiative (focused on child labor and conflict minerals) and programs focused in the compliance with the German Supply Chain Act requirements, with a broader ESG focus.

Sustainability and ESG are topics close to Lander’s heart, allowing him to combine his extensive professional experience and expertise with his passion, supporting clients in their ESG journeys to build a better working world.

During his training as an IT specialist for application development in the Industry and Trade division, Elias Pasche learns how to develop software according to customer requirements and maintain it.

As a member of the executive board, the business information technology specialist is responsible for product- and business development for the business unit of Credit & Surety at SCHUMANN.

Since 1991, Prof. Dr. Matthias Schumann has held a professorship in Business Administration and Information Systems (Chair of Application Systems and E-Business) at the University of Göttingen. He also heads the joint computing center of the Faculty of Economics and the Faculty of Social Sciences. He is a shareholder of Prof. Schumann GmbH.

Prof. Schumann's research interests include information systems at financial service providers and systems for credit management, as well as issues related to knowledge and education management. Prof. Schumann has a wide range of experience in consulting companies, extensive lecturing activities and more than 350 publications.

As a member of the Executive Board, the studied business data processing specialist is responsible for the internal operational at SCHUMANN. He is also responsible for the business units of Industry & Trade and Financial Services.

The studied business data processing specialist is responsible for the business unit Industry & Trade and the development of the software CAM Industry & Trade.

Kade has 17 years’ experience in underwriting specialty insurance lines. Most recently, Kade was SCOR’s global line head for political and non-payment risks. He founded this team in 2013 and was named head of the syndicate’s specialty division in 2014.

Kade was previously the head of the political and non-payment risks team at Aspen and started his career at Catlin. He holds an MA in International Relations and BSc in Business Administration.

Dr. Martina Städtler-Schumann has been the managing director of SCHUMANN since its foundation in 1997. After graduating with a degree in business administration, she earned her doctorate and worked in her parents' consulting and software company. She has now been managing SCHUMANN for 25 years. With her company, she supports national and international companies in the digitalization and automation of processes in credit and credit risk management. Her years of experience hold cross-industry expertise for the optimal processes, whether for insurance companies, financial service providers or industrial and retail companies.

Städtler-Schumann is married, lives with her husband in Göttingen and has two grown-up sons.

Ulrich Stülpnagel has an MBA with a focus on health management and can rely on his many years of experience in the health and social work environment (e.g., as a paramedic). His focus has been on the three pillar of sustainability ever since. He is of the firm conviction, that only the balanced consideration of E, S, and G can ensure a long-term economic success.

Since 2018, Mr. Stülpnagel has been a Senior Consultant at EB Consult GmbH - a 100% subsidiary of Evangelische Bank eG. In addition to management support and continuous development of the risk management and early warning system EB-CARE, he also provides funding advice and supports companies with a social economic background in the development and implementation of sustainability strategies.

Just in time for the financial crisis of 2008, Markus Willrett's career began at a large regional bank before his path led him via Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg to TRUMPF Financial Services GmbH last year. There, as project coordinator, he is responsible for risk management and the implementation of a worldwide receivables management system in the TRUMPF Group.

The 32-year-old banker has now been assisting medium-sized corporate customers with their daily challenges and financing activities for more than 10 years. This has enabled the father of two to steadily expand his expertise in sales, international project financing and strategic bank management.

Stefan Vogel successfully completed his degree in Economy Insurance in 1994 and started his career in sales at EUROFACTOR AG. In 2007, he moved to Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance Ltd. in the position of Sales Director Germany. At ABN AMRO Commercial Finance GmbH he deepened his knowledge as Senior Sales Manager. In 2011 he moved to HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt AG. There he held various responsibilities, most recently as Head of Product Proposition in Global Trade and Receivables Finance. 2022 Stefan Vogel took up his position as Managing Director with shared responsibility for the MidMarket (deas Credit, CFG, Schunck Credit) of CFG Finance, which is part of the Ecclesia Group.

Ecclesia Credit as an umbrella brand unites different credit brokers and consultants with a focus on liquidity, financing and credit management and protection.

After completing a master’s degree in economics, Richard Wulff started his career in 1989 as trade credit insurance underwriting manager and reinsurance director of NCM (a precursor of Atradius) in his native country, the Netherlands. He founded a reinsurance captive for the company in Ireland prior to moving on to Munich Re in Germany.

At Munich Re, he managed the non-European credit, surety and political risk reinsurance department until 2008. He then moved to India to become chief underwriting officer of HDFC-ERGO Insurance Company in India, a general lines insurance business.

Richard subsequently became group general manager, heading up the world-wide credit lines at QBE Insurance in Australia, before moving to Hong Kong in that role.

He returned to Holland in 2017 to found RW Consulting, a consultancy company for trade credit insurance, surety and political risk (re)insurance. In February 2021, Richard joined the International Credit Insurance and Surety Association (ICISA), an association with which Richard has been actively involved throughout his career in trade credit insurance, surety and political risk insurance, where he currently holds the title of executive director.