Head of Sugar Market Intelligence

About the role

The commodities analysis community is a team with boots on the ground and head in the sky. We need to be pragmatic but aim for the impossible. In our right hand, we have data handling tools and capabilities to conduct analysis with precision and in our left hand we learn together while, of course, we party our successes and treat our failures. 

Our mission is to predict the future of raw material prices therefore doing the impossible is part of our daily job and we like it. Do we always get it right? Unfortunately not, but this does not stop us from this target. 

Agricultural commodities like sugar are live products with constraints of production and a shelf life to respect. This means that weather, farming structures, logistic, political decisions, biofuel, and many more elements are influencers we need to understand and factor in our decisions.

By Sugar, we usually mean raw cane N°11 and white cane sugar N°5 derivatives markets. Actually, we also aim to particularly understand and anticipate local market price moves, primarily the European sugar beet market but not only. We count on your experience to create and automate your database. This allows you to model and feed buyers with on time information and share your opinion. As you understand there will be a lot to be built this is why we would favor a senior profile.

Bear with us for the final, we like to think we run our show regularly with our team of buyers and traders present globally. Like stars do, it has to look easy but it is an intense exercise to explain, convince and at the same time make sure they bring to the intense discussion any new element you might have forgotten. We get our adrenaline from the usage they do of our information and the consensus we succeed to get. 

Key responsibilities include

• You are responsible for sugar market intelligence globally, that means you are pretty independent to operate for the best know how versus the time invested. We need you to build a clear view.
• With our  experienced sugar buyer team present globally and some core analysis done itoday, You are embarking on a journey where we expect you to choose and fuel the engine while highlighting the direction to go.
• You will inherit a network, but we expect you to bring your own and extend it along the supply chain from seed to plate. Traveling is a must.
• Challenging the buyer is a daily routine, exchanging with some of our selected clients is also particularly interesting by their exposure to consumers when we are closer to farmers. 
• negotiation is part of our DNA in sourcing, buying our data is constantly optimized. Who better than you know what is needed and its cost?

About you

• You bring 2 to 5 years of experience ideally in sugar or agricultural commodities analysis/sourcing/trading roles
• You are agronome/have an agricultural engineering/master background you get 100 points! just because it is not always easy to understand the life cycle of agricultural raw materials from seed to plate. 
• We also need a natural attraction for data, ideally statistics/actuarial background simply to keep our foot on the ground as much as possible (two points are always correlated!)
• you are hands on, the data handling is your responsibility and sometimes still manual.
• We need you to be curious, dig and challenge when the market is calm, rest and secure when the trend comes. Somehow counter time of the buyers and a proactive behavior.
• We don’t work isolated, team spirit is a must, especially as a support function. Nobody likes back trading.
• Among analysts we share infrastructure and know how. We also need to continuously learn new tools and approaches like python, machine learning or visualization tools.
• Innovate and bring new ideas. We work with students and start up.
• We need you to stay calm when it moves and act when it is calm, stress resilience is important.
• Like trees do, it takes time to have the right size, strength and crown, so we need you to be resilient and invest in that function thinking long term.