Contour, the Singapore-based open trade finance blockchain network, has announced the appointment of Joshua Kroeker as its Chief Product Officer. Joshua joins Contour as an experienced industry leader and advocates for the use of blockchain to digitise trade finance, as evidenced by his most recent role at HSBC as their global lead for blockchain within their commercial bank.
At Contour, Kroeker will be using his experience to develop a market-leading trade finance product suite that Contour’s network of banks, corporates, and partners can use to digitise their global trade finance processes.
He has been at the forefront of trade digitisation for HSBC – one of the world’s largest trade finance banks – and brings 14 years of experience in this sector to Contour. Most recently, he led a global team tasked with understanding the potential application of blockchain technology for trade finance – an industry historically difficult to digitise. In collaboration with other banks throughout the world, Kroeker and his team also led efforts to develop this technology in Europe with We.Trade, as well as with eTradeConnect in Hong Kong.
Prior to his focus on blockchain technology, he led HSBC’s traditional trade digitisation efforts by developing digital channels and partnering with industry providers such as SWIFT, Bolero and essDOCS to reduce the over-reliance on paper in the industry. This experience has provided him with indispensable insights which will be an asset to Contour as it continues to pioneer the use of blockchain in trade finance, especially for traditional trade products such as Letters of Credit (LC).
Joshua Kroeker, Chief Product Officer at Contour, said: “Contour really ticks all the boxes for what will make a solution like this successful. Contour has the right backing by industry leaders who deeply understand the problem we are trying to solve, is customer-centric in its development and has a viable path to scaling into a global standard. Contour is also not an experimental platform, it is solving a real problem with its launch product, a digitised letter of credit tool. Hearing the positive feedback on Contour first-hand from banks, corporates and industry partners for the past two years makes me extremely proud to be joining this organisation and being entrusted to help deliver on its promise.”
Carl Wegner, CEO of Contour, said: “Our network continues to thrive. Following a successful number of partnerships as well as the completion of a transaction between Rio Tinto and Baosteel, we are continuing to see a growing demand for Contour’s network from the financial community. To have someone like Joshua join our team is a huge boon to our business – coming not only from a well-respected trade finance institution, but also with an extensive background in the sector. Throughout 2020, Contour will continue to grow – enhancing our offering and providing a more effective way of conducting LC issuance.”
