Team Lead Trade Finance

Entity:

Finance

Job Family Group:

Finance Group

Job Description:

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Trade Finance professional to lead our London and Chicago-based Trade Finance team within Global Structured Trade Finance (STF). The team supports business growth by providing trade finance solutions that facilitate liquidity management, credit risk mitigation, and financing activities across the global trading business.

As Team Lead, you will be responsible for overseeing trade finance operations, developing team capability, strengthening relationships with internal stakeholders and banking partners, and driving continuous improvement across processes and systems. You will play a key role in ensuring the effective use of trade finance instruments while maintaining strong governance and control standards.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, develop, and manage a global Trade Finance team, ensuring effective delivery of day-to-day activities and technical excellence.
• Oversee the issuance and management of trade finance instruments, including Letters of Credit, Standby Letters of Credit, Guarantees, and Bonds.
• Partner closely with Treasury, Credit, Legal, Compliance, Accounting Policy, and Commercial teams to deliver effective financing and risk mitigation solutions.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with banking partners and external financial institutions.
• Ensure robust controls, governance, and operational processes are in place to support global trade finance activities.
• Provide leadership and technical guidance on complex trade finance structures and collateral arrangements.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives, including process simplification, automation, and technology adoption.
• Support knowledge sharing, capability development, and collaboration across global and regional teams.

What We're Looking For

• Significant experience in Trade Finance within a banking, commodities trading, energy, or multinational corporate environment.
• Strong technical expertise in Letters of Credit, Standby Letters of Credit, Guarantees, Documentary Credits, and related trade finance products.
• Proven experience leading and developing teams in a complex, global environment.
• Strong understanding of credit risk mitigation, collateral management, and trade finance operations.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence and collaborate across multiple functions.
• Demonstrated track record of driving process improvement and operational excellence.
• Advanced analytical skills and strong proficiency in Excel and digital tools.

Preferred Experience

• Experience working within commodity trading, energy trading, or structured trade finance environments.
• Knowledge of banking facilities, liquidity management, and trade finance risk distribution structures.
• Experience working with shared service or offshore support teams.

Why join us?

At bp, we support our people to grow in a diverse and exciting environment. We believe that our team is strengthened by diversity.

There are many aspects of our employees’ lives that are meaningful, so we offer benefits to enable your work to fit with your life. These benefits can include flexible working options, a generous paid parental leave policy, excellent retirement benefits, among others!

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

Travel Requirement

Negligible travel should be expected with this role

Relocation Assistance:

This role is not eligible for relocation

Remote Type:

This position is a hybrid of office/remote working

Skills:

Analytical Thinking, Business Acumen, Collaboration, Commodity Risk Management, Creativity and Innovation, Curiosity, Data visualization and interpretation, Decision Making, Exposure Management, Internal control and compliance, Market Knowledge, Market Risk Management, Operational Risk, Portfolio analytics, Problem Solving, Resilience, Sentiment and Trends, Thought Leadership, Trade discipline and compliance, Trade execution and management, Trading and shipping data knowledge, Trading Fundamentals, Trading knowledge, Trading risk controls

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Legal Disclaimer:

We are an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of protected characteristics like race, religion, color, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, veteran status or disability status. Individuals with an accessibility need may request an adjustment/accommodation related to bp’s recruiting process (e.g., accessing the job application, completing required assessments, participating in telephone screenings or interviews, etc.). If you would like to request an adjustment/accommodation related to the recruitment process, please contact us.

If you are selected for a position and depending upon your role, your employment may be contingent upon adherence to local policy. This may include pre-placement drug screening, medical review of physical fitness for the role, and background checks.