Steve Cowles

Steve’s initial training was as a Commercial Manager with a major multinational and he has spent over thirty years in industry primarily looking after international business in various parts of the world. This experience has been mainly in the capital equipment and food industry arenas. He also has worked for a bank in the area of trade finance concentrating on financing trade with the Middle East and North Africa markets.
In his current role of Export Finance Adviser for UK Export Finance the UK’s Export Credit Agency, he assists companies of all sizes in the financing of their exports and mitigating their payment risk. He is a local point of contact to introduce exporters or businesses with export potential to finance providers, credit insurers, insurance brokers, trade support bodies and sources of government support. His mission is to ensure no viable UK export fails for lack of finance or credit insurance and UKEF can assist Exporters by:
• Helping to win contracts by offering attractive finance terms to buyers of UK goods and services making the exporter’s offering more attractive (generally for larger orders)
• Helping to fulfil contracts by helping companies access the working capital they need to fulfil a contract, giving them the ability to take on more contracts and increase turnover
• Helping to get paid by offering insurance against the risk of not being paid, or of not being able to recover the costs of fulfilling an export contract