Taking a look at the Softs markets of recent months, moves have been quite sparse. Saying that, one interesting piece of news states that Michael Gelchie returns to Louis Dreyfus Company to head its coffee platform, replacing Markus Reis who has been appointed Global Head-Wheat. Michael also joins LDC’s executive committee. He was a senior portfolio manager with Louis Dreyfus Investment Group until 2010, leaving to join Sierentz North America and subsequently at Sucden Americas as Trading Director.
Atlanta-based Interra International has made George Hayes its Senior Manager-Sugar. Until recently, George was a regional manager of grains and oilseeds merchandising at Cargill, Ohio. He has also worked at ADM in a commercial manager capacity, leading the company’s strategy to grow in the Brazilian sugar and bioethanol sectors.
Toby Donovan is Group Sopex’s new Senior Derivatives Trader, trading soft commodities futures and options. Group Sopex has worldwide activities in the sourcing, transporting, storage and financing of sugar, coffee and cocoa. Toby previously held similar positions at Sucden Financial, ECTP and BGC Partners. Toby started his career at Armajaro Asset Management as Coffee Futures & Options Trader.
Next to Barry Callebaut Group in Singapore, who have hired Jose Vital Bonilla as Senior Buyer – Vegetable Oils & Fats (APAC). Jose joins from Mondelēz International, where he spent six and a half years, first as a Commodity Buyer with responsibility for the supply of vegetable oils in Europe, and later as Procurement Manager – Grains and Oils Europe. Jose has also held agricultural commodities trading positions at Nidera and Wilmar.
Tchibo in Hamburg, Germany has hired Reena Eddiks as its new Sustainability Manager. Reena previously held a similar position at Volcafe.
Hidde Eikelboom is recruited by Sucden Coffee to be Regional-Manager-Asia. He’s a former senior trader with Nedcoffee (now a Sucden subsidiary) in The Netherlands who moved on to LDC, at locations from Peru and Colombia to Geneva, before becoming its CEO/Head of Coffee Platform in Vietnam.
Apart from two years in the commodity trade finance department of Banque Cantonale de Geneve, Patricia Ulrich has worked for Cargill since 2003. That now changes because she’s accepted an approach by ECOM Agroindustrial to be its Global Head of Credit Risk for coffee, cocoa and cotton. Since 2014 at Cargill, Patricia has been managing a credit team of five analysts for the units in Geneva and Singapore covering freight and grains/oilseeds.
We hear Paramjeet Rana has swapped managing the global whites trading book at Bunge Sugar for a new Geneva role with Export Trading Group (ETG) --- as Senior Sugar Trader covering the Middle East and Indian Subcontinent. Among his previous trading jobs were at Cargill India and Wilmar Sugar in New Delhi.
And as a last highlight, the news that at Alvean in Geneva, Mikhail Soroko is the new Head of Raw Sugar Trading. Mikhail had the same job title with previous employer Olam. Go back to 1992 and he helped Cargill secure a presence in Russia’s sugar market before heading to Geneva with the company for another 12 years.
WE’RE RUNNING A SURVEY TO FIND POSSIBLE WAYS TO IMPROVE THE BASIS OF REMUNERATION FOR TRADING-TEAM ANALYSTS AND STRATEGISTS.