Steven Beck

Steven is head of trade finance at Asian Development Bank (ADB). In the nine years Steven has been with ADB he managed exponential growth of ADB’s Trade Finance Program and implemented its first supply chain finance business.

Also at ADB, Steven initiated the International Chamber of Commerce’s Trade Finance Register, which compiles the only industry wide statistics on trade finance default and loss rates. These statistics underpinned changes to Basel III regulations, freeing billions of dollars to support trade in emerging markets.

In 2013, Steven led an ADB study that, first the first time, quantified trade finance market gaps and their impact on economic growth and jobs.

Steven started his career in international finance as a Special Assistant to the (former) Canadian Minister for International Trade, Michael Wilson, dealing with issues related to Canada’s export credit agency, Export Development Canada.

He subsequently spent over six years with Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) where he was Senior Manager, originating and structuring a wide variety of short and medium term international transactions largely focused on Latin America.

Steven left CIBC to help design and implement the start-up of a new multilateral development bank, Black Sea Trade & Development Bank (BSTDB), where he focused on Turkey, Russia and former Soviet Union countries. Following four years at BSTDB, he had various assignments as a senior consultant, including with USAID working in southern Africa and a start-up financial institution in Armenia.

Steven is on the Advisory Board of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Banking Commission. He is a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Working Group for Trade Finance.

Steven has an M.A. from The Fletcher School, Tufts University, MA, USA and a B.A from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.