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, Singapore, Brazil, Belgium, Finland and beyond. 

Job Description

This is an exciting opportunity for a candidate eager to lead the group responsible for economic analysis of global timberland markets including North American timber forecasts, global woodchip markets, and forest carbon. The Dir/VP, Timber develops and authors the regular timber forecasts that inform executives with invaluable data and insights and underpin the wood fiber cost inputs to many of our grade-specific forecasts. The Dir/VP Fiber takes direct responsibility for the overall house view, through their management of the team, overseeing data collection and analysis, developing and producing medium and long term forecasts, and coordinating with our short-term prices and predictions to provide a coherent picture of supply, demand, capacity, costs and key trends and drivers. 

The ideal candidate will thrive in a fast-paced and innovative environment, have a can-do attitude, advice and can juggle a wide variety of tasks and projects.

Principal accountabilities

• Deliver recurring reports and data on North American and global timber markets
• Ensure timely and accurate delivery of all Fastmarkets RISI Timber area forecast products
• Provide thought leadership for continued development of the timber practice area and forecasting models and methodologies, including emerging areas such as forest carbon sequestration
• Maintain marketplace contacts to stay abreast of industry developments and market fundamentals 
• Speak and/or represent Fastmarkets RISI as a leading global practitioner at conferences and outside events as requested or identified as value-adding opportunities
• Communicate with customers regularly to support the sales team, deepen relationships and assist with business development
• Scope, lead and/or deliver single and multi-client studies in timber area
• Manage the global timber team including supervision, engagement, and employee development
• Assist in planning and delivering group and company-wide initiatives
• Mentor other members of the broader economic analysis team.

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.

• In-depth, senior level knowledge of timberland and forest product commodities
• Experience in analysis and characterization of North American wood fiber markets
• Excellent writing and verbal skills
• Confident with presenting at industry events, etc.
• Capacity to speak on the record to the media about market developments
• Able to foster and develop relationships in the relevant industry
• Comfortable with coaching of junior colleagues
• Collaborative team player
• Leadership qualities, especially in forming a view
• Comprehensive understanding of statistical foundations, particularly with regards to time series data and forecasting.
• Strong analytical/mathematical/econometric modelling
•  Desire to apply economics analysis to a complex commodity market
• Appreciation of advanced statistical modelling and forecasting, some exposure to machine learning a plus. Able to critically assess statistical analyses and forecast models and suggest improvements.

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.

This opportunity is available to applicants based in the following states:
• Florida
• Georgia
• Illinois
• Massachusetts*
• North Carolina
• New Hampshire*
• New Jersey*
• New York*
• Oregon*
• Pennsylvania
• Tennessee*
• Texas
• California
• Colorado
* Denotes states with office locations to support hybrid working

You can see that on a map here: US Hiring States

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.