GE Capital International has expanded its senior leadership team through the appointment of Henry Allen as Commercial & Growth Leader of the firm’s international business, encompassing all markets outside the Americas. The appointment is part of the firm’s ongoing focus to grow its core commercial leasing & lending business in global markets.
Allen is an experienced leader who brings significant commercial finance expertise to the role, with over 25 years of financial services experience across leasing, lending and private equity, in both the consumer and commercial finance segments. He has a broad range of technical, transactional, management and process expertise – both strategic and operational. Allen will be based in London and report directly to President and Chief Executive Officer of GE Capital International, Richard Laxer.
Allen joins GE Capital from Aurora Consultants and prior to this he was CEO of The Receivables Exchange in New York. He spent nine years at Marsh Inc. in New York and London ending as President, Multinational Business, where he was responsible for designing and implementing an enterprise-wide client service strategy across 40+ countries and all product lines. Before joining Marsh, Allen served in various leadership and functional roles with GE Capital and 3i.
As part of his role, Allen will assume responsibility for the Marketing, Strategy, Commercial Excellence, Global Financial Solutions, Pan-European Equipment Finance and Fleet teams. On an international basis, GE Capital offers cross border financing to deliver global growth for customers – offering global relationship management with local experts and knowledge, as well as access to GEs industrial expertise, through its Access GE program.
In a separate release GE Capital has been named as 2014 best global factoring house by Global Trade Review, the international publication for the trade commodity and export finance industry.
The award was the result of a poll of the publication’s corporate subscribers in its annual “Leaders in Trade” awards. Around 3,000 subscribers – as well as other companies engaged in cross-border trade activities – were asked to vote on which financial institutions they deemed to be the best across a series of international categories.
Richard Laxer, President and Chief Executive, GE Capital International, said: “We are honoured to have received the Best Factoring House award. Factoring is an important business for GE Capital and we believe that our expertise and global capabilities position us strongly to deliver financing solutions that service our customers' needs. We value this award particularly as it was voted for by our peers, customers and other global trade partners.”
As one of the world’s largest factoring companies, GE Capital lends around $250 million daily to mid-market firms. This includes both recourse and non-recourse invoice discounting – with confidential facilities available.
GE Capital International is a leading, global provider of specialist finance to the mid-market, with headquarters in London and serving customers from 30 markets across EMEA and Asia Pacific.