Introducing Jesse Weinberg who is the Head of the SME Customer Segment at First National Bank (FNB) of South Africa. He joined the bank in 2010 to launch PayPal as a business product offering to the South African market, and since then he has enjoyed various banking roles within FNB across both retail and business banking divisions. Jesse holds commerce degrees in business informatics and an MBA from IE University in Madrid. Jesse is passionate about entrepreneurship and technology, and the role that banks can play to help to develop SMEs in Africa, ultimately addressing both unemployment and inequality. 

Meet our nominee Simone Cooper who has obtained diverse exposure to banking, particularly business and commercial banking, having undertaken various roles within Standard Bank. Simone was a key member of the team involved in re-establishing Business Banking in South Africa. She has been involved in various initiatives promoting the development of SMEs, including several government initiatives and development finance projects.

Ernest Kwong joined Alliance Bank as Head of Remedial Management before moving on to several other roles in credit, recovery, and sales within the business banking segment. He has over 24 years of experience in the SME and Commercial segments at local and international financial institutions. Mr. Kwong was instrumental in revamping the Bank’s financial programs, leading a team to assess the viability and relevance of SME programs at every business life stage.

Jack de Mooij is an energetic, and empowering business leader with broad experience in (digital) SME banking, ‘going beyond banking’ and building platform ecosystems. After starting his career at ING, in 1995 Jack has fulfilled many roles in the field of SME Banking, both within the Netherlands and internationally. Since 2020, Jack is responsible for Rabobank’s SME proposition in the Netherlands, where he works with his teams on the optimization of Rabobank’s SME distribution strategy and the digital transformation of Rabobank’s SME proposition.

Meet Sofie Larsson who is proud to be working at Swedbank as a Nordic Head of Corporate Segment - SME and Midcorp. Sofie has worked with different kinds of corporate services. Doing business and meeting customer needs is a passion of hers as well as leading teams running business and teams changing business to better meet customer demands. According to her, the best is to face satisfied customers, growing market share, and competent employees.

Jaypee Soliman Is currently Vice president and the SME and Micropreneurs Segment Head of UnionBank Philippines. Has been involved in MSME related projects and activities since joining UnionBank in 2008 starting his career as a sales officer for Transaction Banking and later on moving to leadership roles. He currently leads the group that drives the bank’s various MSME related product and service innovations, technology and platform solutions, and advocacies. He also guides other banking units from the lenses of customer experience, market behavior, journey, and market relevance.

In the last episode of 2020 Series with global SME visionary bankers, Lukas Dzuroska talked to Rohit Garg, Executive Vice President and Head of NeoBiz, (Digital Business Banking) at Mashreq Bank. Rohit is the 7th nominee for the SME Banker of the Year Award and he shared his journey to SME Banking, his views, values and vision for the future. 

2020 has been a turbulent business environment all over the globe. As businesses have navigated this unprecedented year, they have been able to rely on their banks for crucial guidance. To understand how this has played out in practice, Efma’s SME banking expert Lukaz Dzuroska spoke with Rajeev Chalisgaonkar, the Global Head of Business Banking at Standard Chartered Bank. 

Lori Darlington believes that everything happens for a reason which may explain how and why she joined banking industry. Which trends should we keep an eye on? What challenges do SMEs have to face during these times?

In the fifth installement of SME Banker of the Year podcast series, Lukas and Lori talked about how RBC goes beyond traditional banking when it comes to supporting and helping SMEs. Among many great initiatives, you'll learn more on how their online hub helps business owners start or grow their business by providing partnerships, resources and special offers.

Listen to the 4th episode of SME Banker of the Year Series. This time Efma´s Lukas Dzuroska has interviewed our 4th nominee - Dayalan Govender from Nedbank. For Dayalan, SMEs do not simply bring economic benefits to their surrounding communities, but also an incredible amount of social value. Going forward, in a world in which Covid19 is present (or at least a recent memory), SMEs are going to play a critical role in the economy of tomorrow. “As we transition into a new normal, SMEs will represent the biggest catalyst for growth and employment,” said Mr. Govender. And banks are perfectly situated to assist them in their catalyzation of the future economy.