National Bank of Canada’s global risk management team is expanding its North American energy derivatives division with the addition of three professionals from the energy risk management industry.

James Joyce and Tim Simard from RiskAdvisory, an energy risk management consulting firm, and Bruce Calvin, former President of the Alberta Watt Exchange, have joined the global risk management team as managing directors in the bank’s Calgary office. This brings the bank’s energy derivatives team to four professionals in Calgary and eight in Houston.

The three men were founding principals of RiskAdvisory, a Calgary-based energy risk management boutique that has provided consulting services to over 200 energy companies across North America since its inception in 1995.

Prior to the formation of RiskAdvisory, Joyce and Simard ran the Canadian energy derivatives practice for Bankers Trust at a time when Bankers Trust was the leading provider of energy derivatives to the Canadian energy industry.

Calvin’s experience with the Watt Exchange provides valuable insight on electricity market developments and an understanding of clients’ insistence on the importance of credit worthiness.

“The addition of these individuals immediately expands National Bank’s expertise in the energy derivatives market space, and highlights our aim to continue to build an energy team that is focused on client-driven solutions,” Vincent Butkiewicz, vp – financial markets at National Bank, said in a release.

“It points to the bank’s commitment to leverage our financial engineering capabilities and our strong balance sheet to work with clients to optimize their energy risk portfolios. We think that this will be the first group energy clients will turn to when seeking solutions to their energy risk management needs”, added Butkiewicz.