Steven Beck is the head of trade and supply chain finance at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), a program which supports over 10,000 transactions worth about US $7 billion annually.  In his fifteen years at the ADB, Steven has led the program to exponential growth, and has launched initiatives to make trade and supply chains green, resilient, transparent, and socially responsible.

Steven established the first and only authoritative source of default and loss data in trade financing at the peak of the 2008 Financial Crisis, reshaping the regulatory treatment of trade finance and freeing up billions in additional financing capacity as a result. He launched ADB’s groundbreaking analysis on global unmet demand for trade finance, highlighting the imperative to address this market failure to create transformative economic benefits, particularly across developing Asia, and in support of small businesses across the region. ADB’s Trade and Supply Chain Finance Program has been a champion of global trade digitalization and implemented projects that advance prosperity and inclusion through trade; these include initiatives to combat money laundering in trade, efforts to increase traceability of carbon emissions and sustainability in global supply chains as well as solutions targeting greater adoption of social and labour safety standards in international commerce.

He serves on industry bodies, including the Governing Board of the Digital Standards Initiative and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Working Group for Trade Finance. Steven is a member of Advisory Council of the International Financial Reporting Standards Foundation, providing strategic advice on international accounting and sustainability reporting standards.  

He holds an M.A. from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, USA and a B.A. from Queen’s University, Canada.