Portfolio Manager

Role Overview

Commodities Portfolio Managers own the development and execution of trading strategies across a dedicated commodities book, with direct responsibility for P&L, portfolio construction, and risk. Successful PMs build a differentiated, dynamic vertical-focused portfolio grounded in fundamental supply/demand work and disciplined risk management, and scale it responsibly over time.

This is a seat for someone who can form independent views against consensus, size positions with conviction, and manage drawdowns without losing the thesis.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy and alpha generation

• Develop and execute trading strategies across a commodities portfolio, spanning outright directional, relative value, calendar and location spreads, and volatility expressions as appropriate to the mandate
• Identify short- and longer-term opportunities based on micro and macro fundamentals — supply/demand balances, inventory and storage economics, production costs and curve dynamics, freight and logistics, weather, geopolitics, and policy or regulatory shifts
• Build and maintain proprietary supply/demand models and balance sheets for covered commodities, and translate them into actionable, well-specified trade ideas with defined entry, exit, and invalidation criteria
• Use new and existing insights — including alternative and satellite data, shipping and flow data, and physical market intelligence — to support idea generation and commodity analysis
• Challenge consensus views, articulate clearly where and why the market is mispricing, and monitor volatility and positioning for signs the thesis is breaking or the risk/reward has shifted

Portfolio construction and risk

• Participate in portfolio construction and risk-taking decisions, sizing positions against conviction, liquidity, correlation to existing exposures, and the book's overall risk budget
• Improve and scale portfolio risk taking — grow gross and net exposure in a controlled way as the process demonstrates consistency, and expand into adjacent commodities or expressions where edge is demonstrable
• Manage exposure across the curve and across correlated products, with explicit attention to basis risk, roll and carry dynamics, margin and funding requirements, and delivery or expiry mechanics
• Monitor and manage VaR, stress scenarios, drawdown limits, and concentration against firm risk parameters, and operate within them without prompting
• Conduct post-trade attribution and regular post-mortems on both winning and losing positions, and feed the findings back into the process

Research and team leadership

• Assist the analysis team in developing and enhancing analytical processes, including model architecture, data pipelines, and backtesting frameworks
• Direct the research agenda for the vertical: set priorities, define hypotheses, review analyst output, and hold the work to a high standard
• Mentor and develop analysts and junior traders, and build the bench that lets the book scale
• Partner with quantitative research, technology, risk, and operations to build durable infrastructure rather than one-off analyses

Market engagement and communication

• Build and maintain relationships across the physical and financial market — producers, consumers, traders, brokers, and counterparties — to sharpen the information edge
• Communicate positioning, thesis, and risk clearly and proactively to senior management and the risk function, particularly during periods of stress
• Maintain awareness of exchange rules, position limits, and regulatory obligations across relevant jurisdictions

Skillset Requirements

• Prior commodities experience, with a demonstrable track record of risk-taking and P&L generation in the relevant complex (energy, metals, agriculture, power/gas, or related)
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, preferably in statistics, mathematics, computer science, finance, economics, or engineering
• High GPA (>3.8) / 1st Class Hons degree
• Strong understanding of financial modeling, specifically using Python and/or VBA, MATLAB, with the ability to work directly with large datasets and build tooling independently rather than relying entirely on others
• Excellent analytical and quantitative skills, with strong attention to detail and comfort reasoning under uncertainty and incomplete information
• Deep understanding of commodity market structure — futures, options, swaps, physical mechanics, and the interaction between paper and physical markets
• Strong risk discipline: sound judgment on sizing, a clear process for cutting losses, and the temperament to stay engaged through drawdowns
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to defend a view and revise it when the evidence changes
• Intellectual honesty, high personal integrity, and discretion with confidential and market-sensitive information