GBRW's management team has a wide range of skills developed in leading international commercial and development finance institutions.
We have true global experience, having completed consulting projects, training courses and expert witness assignments in over 60 countries. Our expertise covers a wide range of financial services fields including commercial and investment banking, capital and financial markets, pensions and insurance, development finance and enterprise development.
As well as our dedication to banking and finance expertise, our approach emphasises fellowship, and values honesty and humility. Good interpersonal skills and the pleasure we take in mutual problem-solving comes through in our work, demonstrated by the long-term relationships we have with many of our clients. Do feel free to connect with us as we welcome genuine introductions.
The GBRW Management Team
Paul Rex
Chairman
Paul Rex is an experienced banker with unusually wide exposure to both developed and emerging markets, having spent 18 years in management positions with two major banks (Chemical Bank, now JP Morgan Chase, and Crédit Agricole) followed by 25 years consulting on banking and financial sector assignments in the UK and overseas.
Paul’s areas of specialisation include banking strategy; development banks; enterprise risk management (including capital adequacy); credit and specialised lending across a wide range of sectors; investment; and Non-Performing Loans and enterprise restructuring across a number of industries. Paul has an MA from The Queen’s College Oxford, is a Fellow of the Academy of Experts and an accredited Mediator. He is internationally recognised as an expert witness in high value banking litigation.
In his work as a consultant and an expert witness in more than 70 financial sector disputes, Paul has worked in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia and Europe. He has reviewed credit policies and procedures for more than 60 banks and has drafted these documents for a number of GBRW’s clients.
Philippe Belot
Joint Managing Director
Philippe Belot has more than 30 years of banking experience, financing the corporate sector. In his last position in 2014-2017, he put in place and led as Managing Director the corporate lending activity of B&C PLC, a newly created merchant bank supervised by the Bank of England and focused on privately-owned SMEs.
Prior to B&C, Philippe was for 18 years Portfolio Manager and Senior Banker at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). There, he carried out complex financing transactions and designed programmes destined to foster the development of SMEs and the private sector in Eastern Europe.
Philippe started his career in the corporate sector, with the finance departments of industrial groups, forming the groundwork of his subsequent banking roles. Philippe graduated in finance from HEC Paris, the leading European business school. His international profile has led him to operate in challenging environments in emerging markets and to manage culturally diverse teams. He speaks English, French and German, as well as Russian and Polish.
Mike Coates
Joint Managing Director
Mike is the Managing Director of GBRW Learning, and the Deputy Managing Director of GBRW Consulting. Following over 14 years' experience as a professional banker and financial services consultant, he joined the GBRW group of companies in 2011.
During his 10 years with Lloyds Banking Group in London, Mike worked in retail and corporate banking, finance, and risk management. Mike also spent five years with the International Advisory Services department, a specialist unit within the Financial Institutions Group focused on delivering Lloyds Bank branded consulting and training for banks in emerging markets. On leaving Lloyds Bank, he then spent three years as head of financial sector consulting at a leading economic development consulting firm.
Mike has specialist expertise in strategic and financial planning for financial institutions, credit risk management for SME and corporate borrowers, and business analysis and Management Information Systems. Mike has worked on business development and consulting projects in over 25 countries throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. He is also an experienced training instructor, leading courses focused on strategic marketing and Customer Relationship Management for bankers addressing the SME, commercial, and corporate markets.
Mike holds a BSc in Financial Services from the University of Manchester, as well as the esteemed Associateship of the Chartered Institute of Bankers (ACIB). He has also been the lead researcher and co-author of several well-regarded studies and publications.
Tony Deary
Director, Asia
Tony is a financial services policy and regulatory advisor based in Singapore with broad experience in banking regulation and financial systems development. Formerly he had a career with the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States in the area of banking and financial services supervision and regulation.
Since 2012 he has worked on financial sector development initiatives globally. He has led numerous banking sector projects particularly in the SE Asia region addressing topics in financial inclusion, payment systems development, financial reporting and sustainable finance.
Tony has served several advisory roles to jurisdictions implementing Basel 3 reforms and IFRS 9 adoption. He has also worked on licensing and supervision frameworks for financial services in the United States and emerging markets.
His work as a consultant with GBRW since 2020 includes supporting financial regulators and financial institutions in formulating and implementing sustainability initiatives such as policy development, environmental and social risk management frameworks, and disclosure requirements.
He is a certified trainer from the London Institute of Banking and Finance, and holds a Masters degree in Economics and Finance from Brandeis University.
Nate Dickerson
Director
Joining in 2012, Nate Dickerson is the Director of Credit Risk Management at GBRW. Nate’s banking career started with Chase Manhattan, where he enjoyed a 13-year career. Responsibilities included domestic and international debt restructuring, credit administration, and relationship management. While at Chase, Nate also developed and delivered credit risk management training for Chase’s Credit Training Program.
Nate has been engaged as a consultant for over twenty-five years providing consulting and training in more than 20 countries in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Advisory services have focused on problem loan management, enterprise restructuring, corporate governance, credit risk management, loan assessment, institutional and industry assessments, organizational design, and human resource management.
During this time, Nate has also designed and delivered training programs for lending professionals serving the small and medium enterprise (SME) and microentrepreneur markets. Training programs have addressed Problem Loan Management; Out-of-Court Workouts; SME Credit Analysis; Commercial Credit Assessment; Understanding and Appraising a Business Plan, and Credit and Non-credit Risk Management (from the Branch Prospective). His training design and instructional skills have been honed on scores of training workshops conducted for such organizations as RMA, American Institute of Banking, National Bankers Association, Banking Skills Training and Consultancy (Vietnam), Omega Performance, and Egyptian Banking Institute.
Nate holds a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School, with a concentration in international finance and management information science, and a Bachelor of Arts from Colgate University, with a major in philosophy.
Karsten Stellner
Director, Financial Systems Development
Karsten Stellner is Director, Financial Systems Development at GBRW and has over two decades of experience in banking, financial services and information security.
As the Founder and Managing Partner of Pamira Consulting, Karsten has successfully managed multiple projects in banking and finance, with a focus on micro, small and medium-sized enterprise (MSME) finance, green economy finance, energy efficient and renewable energy finance, IT/management information systems, gender equality and women’s economic empowerment in private financial institutions. He also specialises in product development, especially for gender sensitive financing of MSMEs, freelancers and start-ups.
As Team Leader at MF Strategy, Karsten supported Banque Misr’s efforts to modernise its product offerings to the Egyptian MSME sector - a transformative project that focussed on implementation, capacity building and best practice methodologies in credit risk management. His role as a Senior Information Security Expert and Software Architect at Solveig International involved developing an online platform for implementing an information security management system (ISMS) in accordance with ISO 27001:2022.
At GBRW, Karsten has collaborated with the Tanzanian Agricultural Development Bank to improve access to agricultural financing in Tanzania by developing a digital interface and a web-based loan origination and reporting system. The aim of this project is to promote gender equality and social inclusion of vulnerable groups by enhancing formal finance access for women-owned MSMEs.
Karsten holds a Certificate in Industrial Management from KG Hamburger Baustoffgesellschaft mbH & Co., a Diploma in Economics and Social Sciences from the University of Lüneburg and a Master of Science in Business Administration from FernUniversität Hagen. He is based in Azerbaijan.
Fergus Clark
Director, Financial Markets
Fergus is a Director, Financial Markets with GBRW and has over 20 years of international banking and consulting experience. Fergus is a senior bank executive with proven expertise and a successful track record in Risk Management, Treasury and Programme Delivery.
He began his career with a number of high profile banks including HSBC Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Commonwealth Bank of Australia. His experience includes holding senior and advisory roles in Corporate and Structured Finance, Financial Markets, ESG, Policy and Risk Management disciplines.
Fergus joined GBRW in 2015 has more recently advised the CEO and board of a commercial bank on risk and capital issues. He also project managed NPL programs in 7 countries on behalf of the World Bank.
Fergus holds a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) and Bachelor of Business from the University of Technology Sydney. He is also a qualified solicitor, admitted in Ireland (EU), England & Wales and New South Wales (Australia). Fergus has practised law in Australia and England.
Fergus has worked across Australia, Azerbaijan, China, England, Hong Kong, Rwanda, Tajikistan and Vietnam.
Jeremy Denton-Clark
Director
Jeremy is a Director and Company Secretary of GBRW Consulting, GBRW Learning and GBRW Expert Witness. Jeremy joined the GBRW group of companies in 2000 after 32 years of experience as a professional commercial banker in the City of London, the last 8 years of which he was the Chief Executive Officer of a merchant bank.
Jeremy started his career in the foreign exchange department of Kleinwort Benson before moving on to the control of advances made by the French and Belgium branches of the National Westminster Bank. Moving back to London he joined for 13 years a bank owned by commercial banks in the United States, Scandinavia and Germany where he was appointed a Director and General Manager. Jeremy was then appointed the Chief Executive Officer of a merchant bank in London specialising in trade finance, private banking and lending to SMEs.
Jeremy has been a banking consultant for over 20 years and resident in Moscow, Bucharest and Zagreb on bank restructuring projects. He has delivered 52 consultancies in more than 20 countries. He is a specialist in corporate governance and organisation structure; development of a bank’s strategy and objectives; capital adequacy, funding and liquidity; risk management as well as lending to SMEs and mid-cap corporations including recovery of portfolios of NPLs and individual loans in default.
He has been a Non-Executive Director of a commercial bank in the Balkans for 4 years, an advisor to the CEO and Executive Board in a number of banks in developing markets and a trainer on technical banking topics in numerous countries.
Linn Kyaw Swar
Senior Consultant
Linn is a financial institutions risk and strategy specialist with experience advising banks, financial regulators, and development partners across Southeast Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. His work focuses on credit risk frameworks, ESG and climate risk integration, blended finance, financial product development, macroeconomic analysis, and financial sector diagnostics.
At GBRW, his work has included developing GBRW's proprietary credit risk methodologies, supporting the integration of ESG and climate considerations with financial institution clients, and contributing to the design of blended finance, risk-sharing instruments, and other innovative commercial financial products. He has also undertaken financial sector diagnostics, supported regulatory and institutional capacity building, and contributed to policy initiatives with central banks, multilateral development banks, and development partners across emerging markets.
Prior to GBRW, Linn led corporate strategy and research for a diversified group in Southeast Asia, directing growth and turnaround initiatives and applying macroeconomic analysis to portfolio and investment decisions. Earlier in his career, he contributed to financial sector development and SME finance initiatives in Myanmar, including regulatory analysis and sectoral research.
Linn holds an MSc in Finance and Investment and a BSc in Business Economics and Finance from the University of Nottingham. He is fluent in English and Myanmar.