Strategic Industry Expert

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 700 employees spread across global locations in the UK, US, China, India, Singapore, Brazil, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland and beyond. 

Job Description

The Strategic Industry Expert (SIE) is a senior role for a recognised market expert who works with Fastmarkets’ largest forest products customers. The SIE will have an overall responsibility to driving a market informed growth strategy and elevating our positioning with some of our largest customers. The role also links them with our commercial, editorial and analytics teams.

This role is part of Fastmarkets’ Strategic Industry Expertise (SIE) team, a central team that works across our whole customer base. SIEs work with the most senior stakeholders/C-suite at our largest customers as market experts and thought partners, and help those customers get more out of Fastmarkets in the decisions that matter most to their business.

The Americas role covers pulp, paper, packaging, tissue, recovered paper and wood products across North and Latin America. The focus is the Americas, but you will also support global customers, working with SIE and commercial colleagues in EMEA and APAC. The role needs someone with deep knowledge of these markets, a strong network in the region, and the credibility to hold a market conversation with a CEO or other senior stakeholders in customer organisations.

The Americas are central to global forest products. North America is the largest containerboard and softwood lumber market in the world, while Brazil and Chile have the world’s lowest-cost hardwood pulp capacity, which sets the pace for global market pulp supply. Fastmarkets prices are the benchmarks behind billions of dollars of pulp, paper, packaging and wood products contracts in the region. These markets are changing quickly. The SIE needs to understand these changes in detail, because they shape what customers need from Fastmarkets.

You will work with customers across the value chain, including pulp, paper, packaging and wood producers; converters; packaging buyers at large consumer goods, food and retail companies; home improvement retailers and lumber dealers; traders; and banks and investors. You will build a clear picture of each customer group’s  strategic objectives and challenges and how the Fastmarkets’ offering portfolio can help address those objectives and challenges – these span across purchasing, sales, planning and risk decisions. You will engage with customers in many different ways, from C-suite meetings and strategy workshops to presentations, regional roadshows and speaking at industry conferences.

The ideal candidate will be a recognised market expert (from a PRA, or other well known market intelligence providers in forest products, or leading industry players in forest products), who also has a good understanding of Fastmarkets offerings and has a good network in the market.

This is a senior role and requires the candidate to drive our positioning in the external market. You will be joining a highly influential SIE team that sits at the heart of our growth strategy.

Key Responsibilities:

• Support the growth of Fastmarkets in key forest products customer segments (pulp, paper, packaging and wood products) across North and Latin America. These include, but are not limited to, forest producers, downstream customers for whom packaging or wood products are critical, traders, and banks and financial institutions. You will also support global customers with operations in the Americas and other regions.
• Own and present in-depth strategic insights to senior stakeholders and decision makers in customer organizations, positioned as authoritative Fastmarkets points of view (PoVs), and show how Fastmarkets’ solutions meet specific customer objectives. This includes C-suite meetings, presentations, roadshows and industry events.
• Drive significant revenue growth by identifying opportunities to expand our business through:
  • supporting successful commercial wins with key existing customers in the Americas, by adding value through targeted engagement and by embedding our products and services more deeply in their workflows
  • expanding our value proposition with customers to create new opportunities across our wider suite of analytical offerings in pulp, paper, packaging and wood products
• Collaborate with Account Managers and Commercial teams to drive revenue growth, act as value owner for high-value renewals, and help run the Forest pricing desk.
• Establish a strong network of senior stakeholders across our Americas customer base, networking actively across the industry to develop valuable connections.
• Develop and own a strategic view of the market conditions (headwinds and tailwinds) that affect our customer base and how we position ourselves to drive revenue growth, including competitive intelligence for Forest in the Americas.
• Work closely with cross-functional teams to refine strategies, improve product offerings and provide enhanced customer support in the region.
• Keep the Forest sales team up to date on market developments through a regular market meeting, and help onboard new colleagues.
• Conduct and document high-impact pre- and post-sales activities, ensuring comprehensive client engagement, and contribute to the internal quarterly and annual sales and financial planning cycles.
• Travel as required for client meetings, conferences and regional roadshows.

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.

• A wealth of experience in North American and/or Latin American forest products markets (pulp, paper, packaging, tissue, recovered paper or wood products), with a strong track record.
• That experience could come from a price reporting agency, as a market expert or price reporter, or from work as an economist or market analyst.
• Alternatively, you may have worked at a major forest products producer in a commercial, market analysis or strategy role, in packaging procurement at a large consumer goods, food or retail company, or in forest products equity research, banking or investing.
• A working understanding of how price data is used in this industry: index-linked contracts, cost models, budgeting and forecasting, risk management and valuation.
• Credibility with senior stakeholders and the confidence to present to small groups and large audiences alike.
• Sound commercial judgment. A sales background is not required, but you should be comfortable taking part in renewal and pricing conversations and working closely with account managers.
• Strong analytical skills, including the ability to build your own analysis and presentations and to use AI tools to work faster.
• A team player who works well across commercial, editorial, analytics and product teams.
• An established network of contacts in the Americas forest products industry is desirable.
• Fluency in English. Spanish or Portuguese is a plus.

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.

We are committed to ensuring all candidates feel welcomed and supported. Should your application advance and you require accommodations for the interview process, please inform us so we can make the necessary arrangements.

Reward and benefits at Fastmarkets

We believe in fair pay and benefits that support you both inside and outside of work. Through Fastmarkets Rewards, you'll have access to a range of core benefits and a flexible allowance, giving you the freedom to tailor your package to suit your lifestyle, wellbeing and financial priorities. We know that everyone's needs are different, so we've designed our benefits to support our diverse global team wherever they're based.

Specific benefits may vary by country and role.

If the position is listed as remote this opportunity is available to applicants based in the following states:

•    Illinois
•    Oregon
•    New York
•    Pennsylvania
•    Texas*

* Denotes states with office locations to support hybrid working.

Otherwise the position will be located as shown in the advert.

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.