GTR Changemakers

Economic warfare

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 06:28:01 -0300

In the latest episode of GTR Changemakers, we speak with economist Dr Rebecca Harding about the rising threat of economic warfare and the implications for trade and trade finance. She details key findings from her new book, ‘The World at Economic War: How to Rebuild Security in a Weaponised Global Economy’, including the growing use of alternative cross-border payments systems by Brics nations and weaknesses in US and European supply chains. Harding is CEO of research organisation the Centre for Economic Security and an independent trade economist, author and public speaker.

Building a defence-focused MBD

Tue, 17 Jun 2025 10:38:53 -0300

In the latest episode of GTR Changemakers, we speak with Rob Murray, chief executive of the DSRB Development Group, which is seeking to establish a defence-focused multilateral development bank.

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and amid pressure from US President Donald Trump, European governments are scrambling to boost their defence manufacturing capabilities.

The Defence, Security and Resilience Bank aims to tackle a potential hurdle to these plans, namely a lack of financing for buyers and suppliers.

Alisa DiCaprio: Boosting Financial Inclusion

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 07:29:14 -0300

In the latest episode of GTR Changemakers, we speak with Alisa DiCaprio, chief economist at distributed ledger technology company R3, about the growing trade finance gap and the potential for digital solutions – such as central bank digital currencies and cryptocurrency – to boost financial inclusion for SMEs.

GTR Changemakers is a new podcast series from Global Trade Review’s editorial team, featuring in-depth interviews with the personalities behind some of the major shifts shaping the trade and trade finance industry.

Removing legislative barriers to digital trade

Tue, 23 Apr 2024 10:37:21 -0300

In the latest episode of GTR Changemakers, we speak with Jon Boran, director for trade innovation & solution development at Lloyds Bank, about efforts to remove legislative barriers to trade digitalisation and the potential impact of the UK’s landmark Electronic Trade Documents Act.

The UK's future border model

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 16:39:52 -0300

In the latest episode of GTR Changemakers, we speak with Alex Szymborski, CEO of Contained Technologies, one of the companies involved in the UK government’s Ecosystem of Trust project.

He outlines how the firm joined the initiative, which through various pilots, made supply chain data directly accessible to government agencies. The idea was to trial a future, digitally driven border model for the UK.

The benefits of connecting trusted upstream supply chain data to government bodies could be huge, potentially slashing delays by 80% and adding as much as £25bn to UK GDP, according to estimates.

However, data duplication is a key problem area for global trade, particularly SMEs.

Tackling the trade finance talent gap and ESG-linked SCF pricing

Mon, 26 Feb 2024 11:52:42 -0400

Introducing GTR Changemakers, the latest podcast from Global Trade Review’s editorial team, in which host Felix Thompson speaks in-depth with the personalities behind some of the major shifts in the industry.

The series will feature a diverse range of interviewees from across the trade finance sector and will cover a variety of topics, not least digitalisation, the growth of ESG-focused products, as well as efforts to make trade finance an attractive sector to young professionals at the start of their careers.

In this episode, GTR speaks with two of the finalists from ITFA’s emerging trade financier competition, Charlotte Russo and Ruby Zhou, about their award-winning projects and what motivated them to investigate their topics of choice.

Charlotte Russo delved into the long-standing issue of the trade finance talent gap and Ruby Zhou examined how greater uniformity and standards could be introduced into ESG-linked supply chain finance pricing.