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Team
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Employment History
Director, Crediten (2011-present)
- Advising on credit operations to exploration and production Canadian oil player
- Interim management and advising an European energy major on credit operations in coal, oil, electricity and gas.
- In-house training to major European energy and commodities players
European credit risk manager, Centrica (2004-2011)
- Set up and led UK and European credit risk teams
- Counterparty analysis, documentation, guarantees, collateral management
- Reporting management across risk functions
European head of credit, Williams Energy Europe (2002)
- Set up, management and close down credit operations
- Electricity, gas and oil
Credit manager / analyst, Enron Europe
(1999-2001)- Managed credit risk for physical metals upon merger
- Credit portfolio of electricity and special projects
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Education & Qualifications
- MBA, Edinburgh University, Scotland, 1996
- Civil Engineer, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia, 1993
Diana Higgins
Diana Higgins, is a senior credit risk energy specialist with over 14 years' experience in commodity trading including oil, gas, electricity, metals and emissions. Diana has advised energy companies in transforming and developing the credit risk functions by identifying operational and conceptual improvement opportunities, revising credit policies, advising on best practice and training teams and acting as interim manager. As a credit practitioner Diana has managed distress events, set up, transformed and closed down credit risk departments in European energy firms. She is a co-author of the EFET Credit Training Manual and guest speak and panellist at Risk and Energy events. This includes Energy Risk, International Energy Credit Association (IECA), EMART, Marcus Evans, Incisive Training and IE Business School. Often quoted and profile featured in the Energy Risk magazine.
Sector expertise
Credit risk in energy trading
Diana has advised energy trading companies in diagnosis and recommendation of best credit risk practices. This experience spans:
- Supporting internal audit and risk teams in assessing processes, capabilities and skill sets;
- Producing pragmatic recommendations to effectively manage risk within the company’s appetite, time and budget constraints;
- Advising and coaching on credit related documentation and guarantees;and
- Supporting and progressing non-standard negotiations.
As a practitioner Diana has set up credit departments ready to commence trading, transformed collateral management functions, managed portfolios ranging from 10 to 3000 counterparties and has driven departments under credit distress.
Systems and data management
As a business representative, Diana has enabled timely implementations while fulfilling users requirements. This has involved revision of specifications, co-ordination of training and preparation of data working closely with the in-house and external teams.
Her experience includes:
- Business design of reports fulfilling end recipients reviewing time and content expectations;
- Databases as repositories of counterparty data;
- Ratings, guarantees and legal aspects;
- Implementing collateral management software reducing time and cash management risk.
Training
Diana runs in-house and public training courses to new analysts, managers transferred into credit risk, and other practitioners that directly or indirectly work with credit risk. Through the courses, attendants experience the decisions required to apply credit risk techniques through a combination of business cases, workshops and lectures. After the courses, attendants can recognize or apply key methodologies, estimate margin calls, prioritize credit risk management actions and benchmark own credit risk operations against effective practices.
