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Complidata Appoints Inaugural Advisory Board of Trade Finance and Financial Crime Leaders

Chaired by Ian Tandy MBE, former Co-Head of Global Trade Solutions, South and Southeast Asia at HSBC, the board brings decades of frontline trade finance, commodity finance and financial crime expertise to guide Complidata's AI platform, TradeSpeed.

BRUSSELS, BELGIUM — July 2026 — Complidata, the company behind the AI-powered trade finance operations platform TradeSpeed, today announced the formation of its inaugural Advisory Board. The board brings together senior leaders whose careers span global trade finance, commodities and structured finance, financial crime compliance, people and culture, and organisational leadership at institutions including Bloomberg, HSBC, NatWest and more.

The launch reflects a deliberate strategy. Complidata builds AI for one of the most judgement-intensive functions in banking, where examining documents under a letter of credit or identifying compliance risk in trade finance depends on decades of accumulated expertise. The Advisory Board exists to keep that expertise at the centre of how the technology is built.

"We have always said the same thing: AI solutions for the most complex challenges in trade finance have to be built on deep human expertise," said Ben Arber, CEO of Complidata. "This board is that principle made real. These are people I have known and worked alongside for much of my career, who have run businesses, sat across from regulators, and shaped the rules the industry runs on. Having them guide what we build is the strongest signal I can give about the kind of company we are."

"Trade finance is changing faster than it has in a generation, but the fundamentals have not. It still comes down to judgement, relationships, and getting the detail right," said Ian Tandy MBE, Chair of the Complidata Advisory Board. "What drew me to Complidata is that they understand this. The technology is there to help make experienced people faster and sharper, not to pretend the expertise can be replaced. I am proud to chair a board that will hold them to that."


The Complidata Advisory Board


  • Ian Tandy MBE — Chair. Former Regional Head of SSEA and Co-Head of Global Trade Solutions, APAC at HSBC, with more than 16 years at the bank and over 20 years in trade finance across the UK and Asia Pacific. Awarded an MBE in 2020 for services to the financial services sector during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Jean-Francois Lambert — Commodity and Structured Trade Finance. Founder of Lambert Commodities consultancy and former Global Head of Commodity and Structured Trade Finance at HSBC, with around 40 years in banking the real economy. A widely cited authority on commodity finance, trade and the regulatory landscape, and a course author at Sciences Po and the ICC Academy.

  • Caroline Edwards — Financial Crime Compliance. Former Chief Compliance Officer for HSBC UK, with deep governance and oversight experience, Caroline has spent over 11 years at HSBC in senior financial crime and regulatory compliance roles, including Global Head of Wholesale Financial Crime Compliance Advisory.

  • Josh Mandel — Financial Crime and Investigations. Former Head of Financial Crime Threat Intelligence at NatWest, with a career in financial crime, fraud and regulatory investigations and risk consulting spanning NatWest, KPMG and Control Risks, including extensive Middle East and North Africa experience.

  • Tracy Redfern — People and Culture. Founder of leadership and culture advisory Reflection to Action and former Global Head of Culture & People Operations at Bloomberg Media, with earlier senior people and commercial banking roles at HSBC.

  • Pieter Defoor — Commodities. Founder and CEO of agricultural commodities brokerage Commo18 and a former MENA trader at Viterra, with deep expertise in grain trade flows across the Middle East and Africa.

  • Alex Gray — Trade Finance. Director of Trade and Transaction Banking at The London Institute of Banking & Finance (LIBF) and a Senior Business Development Manager at Complidata, with senior trade finance and financial crime experience from earlier roles at HSBC and Santander.


About Complidata

Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Brussels, Complidata empowers financial institutions with GenAI-driven automation for trade finance and financial crime operations. Its core platform, TradeSpeed, is trusted by global and regional banks to transform their trade finance operations from manual document processing into intelligent, explainable decision-making, built on deep human-domain expertise. Complidata was recognised in the RegTech100 2025, and its founding and executive team bring decades of trade finance and financial crime experience.


Media contact:

Ezequiel Djeredjian

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