Editorial and Pricing Director, Agriculture (Hybrid)

Company Description

Fastmarkets is an industry-leading price-reporting agency (PRA) and information provider for global commodities, providing price data, news, analytics and events for the agriculture, forest products, metals and mining and new-generation energy markets.

Fastmarkets' data is critical for customers seeking to understand and predict dynamic, sometimes opaque markets, enabling trading and risk management. Fastmarkets is a global business with a history dating back to 1865 and is built on trust and deep market knowledge. It has more than 600 employees spread across global locations in the UK, US, China, India, Singapore, Brazil, Belgium, Finland and beyond. 

Job Description

The Role

Lead and develop a global team of around 35 regional managing editors and reporters in six countries to produce, develop and promote trusted prices and insightful content in the agriculture and biofuels markets in line with our company strategy and the needs of the sectors we cover.

The role is responsible for shaping and executing the editorial strategy for the agriculture and biofuels markets, including growing our existing footprint in feedstocks and bulk ags and expanding into new markets when necessary. The role also contributes to the overall editorial strategy, working in close collaboration with the other editorial directors and head of editorial operations to set the priorities and roadmaps each year, report on performance and allow Fastmarkets to deliver on its overall strategy.

The role is key to steer the agriculture and biofuels team in developing prices and engaging with the industry to build the close market ties, reputation and credibility that underpin our success as a PRA. The role also works internally, across the Fastmarkets matrix, to ensure the development of the relevant commodity area prices into leading global benchmarks.

PRINCIPLE ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Develop and refine a clear editorial strategy aimed at driving industry awareness and adoption of our prices through both intelligence-driven content and market engagement.
• Report on performance and measure successes and areas of improvement in the team.
• Create and maintain a product roadmap and lead team to increase the usage of our prices and content.
• Optimize working practices to meet compliance and legal obligations related to pricing, reporting and governance.
• Ensure the team produces value-added content to support the quality of our prices and showcase the expertise of our pricing team.
• Build strong and effective relationships with key stakeholders throughout the organisation and collaborate effectively.
• Maintain internal awareness of price and engagement plans through clear and regular communication, and present to senior leadership and other functions when needed.
• Manage the budget and resource allocation for the relevant commodity area.
• Drive and embrace innovation, including the use of AI and automation tools, to drive efficiency and maximise impact.
• Act as an ambassador for Fastmarkets and be an expert in core markets under your management through targeted market engagement, public speaking and social media.
• Build a diverse team and develop and nurture a robust talent pipeline through effective and fair recruitment, retention and career progression.
• Act as a role model and champion for all Fastmarkets’ values.

Management and operations

• Lead and inspire an editorial team of price reporters and regional managing editors across our global operations and provide them with strategic direction and clarity of purpose to deliver business-critical content, market insight and trustworthy prices in line with our strategic goals.
• Manage budget and resource allocation for your commodity area, supporting margin optimisation and value creation plans and tracking performance against budget.
• Foster a culture of innovation, driving efficiency and maximising team productivity via the use of AI and automation.
• Build a diverse, high-performing and energized team through effective hiring, regular appraisals, coaching and mentoring, and succession planning. Identify and nurture any missing competencies required.
• Support the offering of a global training programme and encourage a culture of continuous learning and development.
• Support M&A plans in the relevant commodity area and integrate new business efficiently when needed, onboarding new teams and ensuring effective knowledge transfer.
• Guide team to produce IOSCO-compliant prices, ensuring administrative tasks are completed and our compliance standards are always adhered to.
• Ensure business continuity in our ability to publish prices and demonstrate expertise, including through a solid back-up system and embedded cross-training practice.

Editorial strategy

• Develop a metrics-driven editorial and pricing strategy for the relevant commodity area to best contribute to the wider business strategy and deliver it through clear priorities, objectives and KPIs.
• Empower the global reporting team to deliver best-in-class output in all aspects of reporting: pricing, market news and insights.
• Develop and nurture a pipeline of prices, and lead team to launch, promote and defend them to increase their usage within the industry and take market share from other PRAs when possible.
• Build and maintain the confidence and trust of key market stakeholders in our prices and content including price-makers and -takers, and the C-suite.
• Guide the team to produce, host and present at events, webinars and conferences, and organize engagement meetings to drive price adoption.
• Ensure that our benchmarks are resilient, adaptable, compliant, and aligned to customer requirements today and in the future as markets evolve.

Cross-team collaboration

• Work with the product team to deliver compelling content and engagement around new areas of pricing and consult on decisions relating to the positioning of that content to maximise reach and impact.
• Partner with the analytics and consultancy teams to align and dynamize our approach on content areas across news, prices and analysis. 
• Work with events producers to deliver first-class content, drive attendance at our events and generate fresh leads and business opportunities.
• Work with marketing to ensure that our prices and content are supported by targeted market communication and go-to-market plans.
• Support the commercial teams via showcasing our expertise to existing and potential customers.
• Develop fruitful relationships with data analysts to identify opportunities, create efficiencies and inform the overall editorial strategy based on smart metrics.

KEY INTERFACES

1. Editorial Directors
2. Senior Leadership Team (SLT)
3. Market development team, research, marketing, product & strategy, sales and events, Head of Methodology
4. Risk and Compliance

Qualifications

We recruit talented, dynamic people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, all united by a belief in our mission to provide the world’s leading and most trusted price reporting, events, and intelligence service for the markets we serve. We’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to creating a fully inclusive workplace, where everyone feels able to participate and contribute meaningfully.

If you are open-minded, curious, resilient, solutions-oriented and committed to promoting equality, then read on...

KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

We are looking for an individual who is highly motivated, driven, and have a passion to be part of a fast-paced, successful team. Being a strong team player is also important as well as someone who is happy to work flexibly.

• Good awareness of the whole Fastmarkets business, and ability to communicate this to team members.
• Successful track record in PRA pricing leadership
• Strong awareness of compliance regulations and processes and managing a price assessment team accordingly.
• Good knowledge of the agriculture and biofuels markets and ability to learn new markets quickly.
• Significant experience in leading and developing geographically dispersed editorial teams in a fast-paced PRA business.
• Demonstrable experience of having built, coached and developed high-performing content teams.
• Possess strong interpersonal skills and relationship management competencies, in addition to excellent influencing, negotiating and communication skills.
• Manages relationships well with a range of internal and external stakeholders.

Visionary Leadership: Demonstrable experience of setting a clear vision and long-term goals for teams. Inspiring and motivating managers to align with the overarching company vision.

Strategic Thinking: Developing strategies that align with organizational objectives. Identifying opportunities and risks in the market and adapting plans accordingly.

Effective Communication: Excellent communication skills to convey complex ideas clearly. Active listening to understand concerns and perspectives from different managerial levels. Confident presenter and public speaker

Talent Management and Development: Demonstrable experience of fostering a collaborative environment among the team. Proactively, seeking to mentor and coaching managers to enhance their leadership skills. Ensuring talent is developed and succession gaps are closed.

Decision-Making and Problem-Solving: Making informed decisions considering various inputs. Resolving conflicts and addressing complex issues among team and stakeholders.

Change Management: can lead through organizational changes and transitions. Adapting strategies and guiding team to navigate changes effectively. Responsive, particularly to change, adapting positively, and helping and inspiring others to adjust to developing business priorities.

Performance Management: Setting performance standards and metrics for managers. Providing feedback and support for professional growth.

Conflict Resolution: Mediating conflicts among managers and teams. Implementing strategies to mitigate conflicts proactively. Confidence to influence internally and externally and challenge at senior level. Leading by example with integrity and ethical behaviour. Upholds ethical standards and promoting a culture of fairness and respect.

Adaptability and Flexibility: A creative problem solver, who comes up with ideas, promotes debate and manages targeted change. Adapts to changing market conditions and industry trends. Flexibility in approaches to accommodate diverse managerial styles.

Resource Management: Efficiently allocating resources among different managerial teams. Optimizing budget, time, and talent for maximum productivity.

If you're excited about the role but your experience, skills or qualifications don't perfectly align, we encourage you to apply anyway.

Additional Information

Our Values

Fastmarkets people come from all different walks of life. It’s this mix of brilliant personalities, experiences and insights that gives us that warm, open, and friendly culture you can feel as soon as you meet us. But however wonderfully different we all are, there are six things we all have in common – and they form our Fastmarkets values.

Created by our own employees to reflect some of the personal traits that Fastmarkets people have, our values are key to what makes our culture unique. They reflect who each of us are and they're embedded in everything we do. Our values are:

• METRICS DRIVEN. We use insights to improve our customers’ experience and our business performance
   
• ACCOUNTABLE. We are accountable to ourselves and those we work with: we keep our promises and get things done
   
• GROWTH MINDSET. This value enables us to be nimble to the changing realities and operate with a sense of urgency
   
• INCLUSIVE. We are inclusive and respectful, celebrating each of us and giving everyone a deep sense of belonging with the desire to bring their best self to work every day.
   
• CUSTOMER CENTRIC. We are customer-centric in all that we do
   
• COLLABORATIVE. We are collaborative, able to work across teams and capitalise on the diversity of intellect, perspectives, and experiences.

You’ve read a little about us – now it’s over to you!

If you like what you’ve read so far and think you can see yourself as a Fastmarkets person, it’s time to fill in your application form. This form is an important part of the selection process: it’s used to determine whether or not you’ll be chosen to have an interview and acts as a basis for the questions we’ll ask you on the day.

It’s vital that you try to capture all the relevant information we have asked for on the form so we can get a good feel for who you are and why you’re great.