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Adam Birkett is Senior Vice President and Global Trading Lead for Ocean Transportation at Cargill, where he oversees global freight trading across physical and derivative markets. Having spent more than three decades in global freight and commodity markets, his experience spans trading, risk management, organisational leadership and talent development. Adam has been a member of Cargill's Trading Leadership Team since 2019 and brings a practical perspective on how technology, analytics and evolving market structures are reshaping modern trading organisations. He also has a strong interest in the psychology of trading, decision-making under uncertainty and the development of high-performing trading teams

Jaine Chisholm Caunt OBE was appointed Director General of Gafta in 2014. She is also the current Chair of the Federation of Commodity Associations. Jaine was the Chair of the International Agri-food Network (IAFN) which co-ordinates the work of the Private Sector Mechanism (PSM) at the UN Committee on World Food Security from 2015-2017. Jaine was Secretary General of the Tobacco Manufacturers Association from 2011 to 2014 and was previously the Director of Stakeholder Relations and Policy for Cogent, the skills body for the UK’s science-based and process manufacturing industries from 2006 to 2011.

Richard Grenfell-Hill is Chief Economist at Diageo, where he leads global economic modelling, forecasting, and scenario analysis to support strategic decision-making at board level and inform public-policy engagement across major markets. He has built Diageo’s in-house economics capability from the ground up, specialising in indirect taxation, excise policy, and the impact of macroeconomic and geopolitical shocks on consumer demand and pricing. Richard also serves as Vice Chair of the Economic Policy Committee at Business at OECD (BIAC), contributing to work on structural reform, macroeconomic trends, and the trade-offs between growth, stability, taxation, and environmental policy. He holds an MSc in Economics from Birkbeck, University of London, and has completed executive programmes at Harvard Kennedy School in comparative tax policy and leadership decision-making.

Sophie Kellermann is Head of Sustainable Metals at Glencore where she heads the marketing’s sustainability Team for the Zn, Cu, NickelFerroAlloys departments, covering these commodities + lead, silver, gold, tin, molybdenum, and recycling. At Glencore for over 16 years, Sophie oversees responsible sourcing, supplier/customer engagement on sustainability topics, recycled content and product carbon footprint calculation projects, Responsible Sourcing Audits at smelters/refiners, stakeholder engagement, industry associations, implementing regulatory requirements relating to sustainability/responsible sourcing into business processes. Before that was heading the ZnCu Department’s Marketings’ Legal/Contracts Team. Sophie has an LLM Law / UVA at the Universtiy of Amsterdam.

Duncan Hobbs brings 30 years of experience to his London-based role as director of market research for all non-ferrous metals and related materials, including copper, traded by Concord Resources Ltd. Previously he managed an international team of senior staff delivering non-ferrous metals and bulk commodities market research at Noble Group, based in Singapore. Underlying these positions with physical traders, Mr Hobbs’ previous experience includes commodities market research and business development roles in financial services with Macquarie Bank; mining and metal production with Nyrstar; engineering services with Hatch; and independent research with CRU, where he was a member of the steel team. He began his career in dry bulk shipping market research with Drewry in London.

Phil Casey is Director of Commodity Risk at Unilever, where he oversees enterprise-wide commodity exposure and hedging strategy. Previously, he served as Global Director of Commodity Risk at Anheuser-Busch InBev, managing a cross-commodity portfolio of approximately $15 billion annually and presenting directly to the Group CEO and CFO on key market risks. His earlier career includes building Neptune Energy’s oil, gas, and carbon hedging programmes from the ground up and trading OTC crude oil options and marketing African production at Tullow Oil. Phil has also published analysis on oil market dynamics, the Brent benchmark, and LNG.

Hans Balgobin is Head of Systematic Trading at Uniper, where he leads quantitative and algorithmic trading strategies across European gas, power, and carbon markets. He previously spent three years as a Systematic Trader at Millennium and built Shell’s proprietary systematic trading capability in European Gas, Power, and Carbon, developing a portfolio of statistical-arbitrage, rule-based, machine-learning, and “quantamental” strategies from research through to live execution. His earlier career includes quantitative research and trading roles at Winterflood Securities, KCG Holdings, and HSBC, where he applied machine learning, market-microstructure modelling, and big-data techniques to electronic trading and risk management. Hans holds an MEng in Electronic Engineering with Nanotechnology from UCL and has extensive experience in Python, Java, and in-house execution-algorithm development.

Rob McLeod is Head of Energy Price Risk Solutions at Hartree Partners, where he leads a global team delivering tailored hedging strategies and risk-management advisory services to producers, refiners, airlines, shippers, and industrial energy users. Over more than 16 years at Hartree, he has built up the firm’s European energy sales and refinery risk-management business , covering independent refiners and corporates across oil, refined products, natural gas, biofuels, emissions, and freight. Rob began his career in energy sales at UBS Investment Bank, helping to establish its OTC energy sales franchise for European corporate and institutional clients. He holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Bristol and is a regular speaker and market commentator on energy market dynamics, hedging strategy, and risk governance.

Valery Sikorskiy is a Trader at Greenwich Metals Inc., where he trades ferroalloys across the EMENA region, managing sales to steel producers and industrial buyers and generating P&L through market positioning, margin optimisation, and risk management. He previously served as Operations Manager at MKS PAMP, overseeing end-to-end physical trade flows, client exposure, and the development of a new operations and management platform, having progressed through metals operations roles covering logistics, pricing, hedging, and client portfolio management. Valery began his career in tax consulting at Grant Thornton Switzerland/Liechtenstein and holds a BSc in Business Management with a specialisation in International Commodity Trading from HEG–Genève, alongside officer training in the Swiss Armed Forces.