This week’s overview of transfers, appointments and promotions includes updates from Scope, Advanzia Bank and Alp Financial.
Nishant Fafalia
Nishant Fafalia (photo) this week saw his appointment as permanent CEO of Advanzia Bank approved by Luxembourg’s financial sector supervisor CSSF. He has served as interim chief executive officer since the start of 2023. Advanzia is 60% owned by Oslo-based Kistefos AS, a venture capital firm controlled by Norwegian entrepreneur Christen Sveaas.
Fafalia has served as Investment Director at Advanzia's majority shareholder Kistefos AS since 2010, and as a member of the Board of Directors of Advanzia Bank since 2016. He holds a Master of Science degree from Lund Institute of Technology and a Master of Science degree from Lund University School of Economics & Management.
Fafalia will continue to execute the bank's strategic roadmap. This includes enhancing Advanzia's service offerings, such as its tailored Cards-as-a-Service (CaaS) range, said the bank. He will also focus on nurturing Advanzia's growth by improving operational excellence, with a particular focus on AI-driven digital transformation and enhanced customer centricity, the bank said.
Guillaume Gentina
Guillaume Gentina has been appointed as head of European sales at Paris-based La Française Real Estate Managers (REM), a real estate asset management firm with assets under management of more than 32 billion euro. Gentina will act as a hub, the firm said, overseeing relations between the Paris-based home office and satellite offices in Frankfurt and London. He will report to Loïc Jardin, director of asset management.
With three dedicated divisions, Office, Retail and European, respectively supervised by Laurent Adrien, Eric Derenne and Gentina, the asset management department of La Française REM is fully operational, Jardin said in a statement.
Gentina has twenty years of experience in finance and real estate. Prior to joining La Française REM, Guillaume was associate director of DTZ Investors France, where he managed a commercial real estate portfolio with four billion euro in assets.
Chris de Sibert
Chris de Sibert has been appointed as global head of sales and marketing at Alp Financial Ltd, also known as AlpFin. The firm is the global trading technology service provider for institutional clients.
With a career spanning 30 years in foreign exchange sales at Tier 1 banks and FinTech companies, Chris brings a wealth of expertise that will play a pivotal role in driving AlpFin's institutional strategy forward.
Stefan Ingves
Stefan Ingves, former governor of the Swedish central bank, has joined the Honorary Board of the Scope Foundation. The Scope Foundation was set up to protect the European identity and independence of ratings agency Scope Group.
The board is dedicated to represent and foster the concept of the European rating agency. Other prominent European personalities on Scope Foundation’s Honorary Board such as former German President Horst Köhler, former European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet, UniCredit Chairman Pier Carlo Padoan, former ECB Board Member José Manuel González-Páramo and former Polish Finance Minister and Central Bank Governor Leszek Balcerowicz.
Ingves was the governor of Sveriges Riksbank from 2006 to 2022 and chairman of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision from 2011 to 2019. He is well known in the European banking community because of his role in creating several packages of disputed bank capital requirements that are known as Basel III and Basel IV.
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