Standard Chartered Taps Brazil CEO

Standard Chartered has named Airton Villafranca CEO and head of origination and client coverage for Brazil. “Brazil is an important market to Standard Chartered due to the scale of its domestic economy and its growing ties with our footprint countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East,” says David Stileman, Standard’s CEO for the Americas. The bank has a wholesale bank business in Brazil, boosted by the recent acquisition of certain assets and staff from Lehman. Since 2001, Villafranca has been with Santander Banespa in Brazil, most recently as international director, where he was responsible for trade, foreign exchange, structured trade, and correspondent banking. Before that, he was an MD at Chase Brazil, in charge of the financial institutions, sovereigns, and trade finance groups. Brazil is the focus of Standard Chartered’s LatAm push, which is aimed at intermediating flows between Latin America and other EM, especially Asia. It is applying for a banking license in Brazil and expects to get it in the next 6 months. Standard continues to hire in New York to bolster its LatAm sales and trading capabilities.