BLACK SEA GRAIN & OIL TRADE – 2020

Sergey Feofilov – Director General, UkrAgroConsult,Ukraine.

Founder of UkrAgroConsult company – the first Ukrainian consulting agency specializing in agricultural sector of Ukraine and Black Sea region (since 1994).

Sergey Feofilov has more than 20 years of expertise in analysis of agricultural market of Ukraine and the Black Sea countries. He has broad national and international contacts in trading, banking and investment spheres, is a recognized speaker at the major international agri conferences. Sergey was trained under a number of national and international programs (1997 – UK, 2006 – USA).

Pedro is a Partner and Co-Founder of MD Commodities – a global macroeconomic and agricultural commodity consulting firm, with offices in Brazil and in the United States. Company provides private consulting to some of the largest producers, private corporations and public agencies in Brazil, covering nearly 10 million acres of production in that country alone. U.S., Asian and European clients also trust the expertise Pedro and his team bring to the table, all focusing on agricultural commodity and macroeconomic trend forecasting and analysis.

Pedro is well-known in the Brazilian and international media outlets when the subject is agricultural commodities/macroeconomy.

Erwin Sudharma, an Indonesian Food Technologist graduate has started his professional career in Bogasari, the largest Flour Milling complex, in single location.

After several years of running flour milling lines, and having gained the professionally required know how, he has then gained the Head Miller position and later the Operation management position.

In 2007 he had graduated as a Milling Technologist from the Swiss Milling School. Erwin then joined the newly formed Buhler Indonesia in 2012, role as Head of Technical Service, Customer Service and Key Account Manager, providing sales and/ or services for industries of grain handling, flour milling, feed milling, coffee, cacao & chocolate, colour sorting, grinding and dispersion, as well as die casting.

Since 2018 Erwin has joined back to PT Indofood Sukses Makmur Tbk, Bogasari division as a Deputy Director, Vice Division Head.

In July 2003 Gunhan started working for export department of Ulusoy Un Sanayi. In July 2004 he was appointed as a General manager and held the position till October 2010. He became the company’s CEO in 2010, the company went public in 2014.

In March 2015 Gunhan Ulusoy was appointed as a Chairman of the Board. He also holds position of a Board Chairman of Turkish Flour Industrialists’ Federation.

Gunhan Ulusoy graduated the Faculty of Business Administration from Bogazici University of Economics and Administrative Sciences, got a Master’s degree from Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Economics.

Deputy Minister for Development of Economy, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine

Gilles Mettetal  – Former Director, Agribusiness, EBRD.

Mr Mettetal was the Director of the Agribusiness and of the Property & Tourism Departments at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) until June 2017. He has 30 years of international experience in financing agriculture, agribusiness and real estate corporate sectors. He has led and managed with his teams more than 600 transactions with 7 billion euros of financing, and conducted key transactions with corporates, banks, investment funds, Governments and public institutions in more than 40 countries.

Today, In Ukraine, Mr Mettetal is member of the supervisory boards of  Nibulon and Astarta. He is also an independent member of the Investment Committee of Diligent Capital Partners, a Private Equity Fund. In other regions, he is also a senior agribusiness advisor for the African and the Asian Development Banks as well as for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

Gilles Mettetal holds a post graduate degree of L’Ecole Nationale Supérieure Agronomique de Montpellier. He also holds an MSc degree in Biology and Environment.

Jeffrey XU got his master degree on food biochemistry in 1988. In 1990, when China was a net soybean exporter, he started trading first in Nissho Iwai as buyer, then in Andre as seller, in China Force as trader. Since 2008, Mr. Xu spent 4 years in Chinatex Grains & Oils as chief economist, responsible for the soybean & canola purchase, as well as the ocean freight, and 2 years in Dongling Grain & Oil as deputy general manager. Since July’2014 Mr. XU started his new venture with Overseas China Investment Company and Shanghai Goodsoy Trading Limited, doing trading, consulting and broker business on oilseeds, grains and ocean freight. Mr. XU also participated as the organizer of the 3rd Team Crusher’s Forum and as a consultant of Xiamen ITG Group Corp. Ltd. Since 2000 Mr. XU has become a speaker in Canada, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia and Ukraine.

Robert van der Kooy works as a market analyst at Baywa/Cefetra and has over seven years of experience in analyzing supply and demand in agricultural markets. During his studies in Berlin and Rotterdam Robert developed a fascination for price movements in commodity markets which led him to being actively involved in commodity investments. At this time Robert already worked as Assistant Investment Manager for a major Dutch Private Bank. After finishing his studies International Business & Management and earning the BBA degree, Robert joined grain trading multinational company Nidera at which he started researching supply and demand in the agri markets thoroughly. Years later, while being an analyst for COFCO International, Robert started having the ambition to reach a wider range of traders with his analyses and he started speaking at grain conferences throughout Europe.

Since September 2018 Robert works for Baywa Agri Supply & Trade at which he advises Cefetra’s agri commodity traders. Cefetra is a Rotterdam based company and is part of the German BayWa Group. With more than 120 years of experience in agriculture and international trade, Cefetra supplies agricultural raw materials to the feed, food and fuel industries. With a 15% market share in feed ingredient sales to the EU compound feed industry Cefetra is one of the major agri commodity traders in Europe.

Thomas Deevy is a risk manager working for Cerealcom Dolj, one of Romania’s largest domestic agriculture producer/traders. Thomas works with both the Cerealcom team and their clients base to provide mutually beneficial margin management solutions and increasingly developing new sales. “In my view, the Black Sea continues to be one of the fastest growing agricultural markets in the world, Cerealcom has been at the forefront of Ag innovation in Romania and is therefore perfectly placed to supply quality commodities to both EU and MENA consumers.” Prior to relocating to Romania, Thomas was a commodity risk manager at INTL FCStone, working with a wide client base of Black Sea and European producers / consumers.

Taras Kachka is an expert in international law, a former member of the Ukrainian delegation in negotiations with the EU on the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU. Since September 2019 he has been holding the position of Deputy Minister of Economic Development, Trade and Agriculture of Ukraine, and he’s also a trade representative of Ukraine. In June 2020 he became Deputy Chairman of the International Grains Council (IGC).

Taras has experience in promoting a dialogue between business and government. He worked as a manager for regulatory policy in international corporations, as well as in the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine (as Deputy Director of the State Legislation Adaptation Department of the Ministry of Justice).

He was the Commissioner for Entrepreneurship at the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine (on a voluntary basis). He headed the Ukrainian Media Center for Reforms and was a member of the Tax Reform Task Force under the Ministry of Finance.

He was also a Vice President for Strategic Development (since January 2014) and Interim President (November 2014 – April 2015) of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine.

Ivan Kasynyuk is a partner at AVELLUM law firm and the Head of International Arbitration practice. Ivan advises clients in the area of international trade and represents their interests in international commercial arbitrations of GAFTA, FOSFA, and LMAA.

Ivan represents clients’ interests in the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the International Arbitration Court at the ICC, Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, and International Commercial Arbitration Court at the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICAC). Ivan is a member of the working group on grain market development of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine. He regularly works on the development of legislation and drafting laws in international arbitration, transfer pricing, VAT, and others.

General Director of The Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), Ph.D., Dmitry Rylko was born in 1957 in Bryansk. Graduated with distinction from the Economics Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University.

Since 1983 Dmitry worked at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO) in in a variety of positions.

From 1996 – Head of the Center for Agribusiness IMEMO.

Among the main tasks of the Centre is a study of problems and development trends of Russian and foreign agribusiness, the main directions of scientific and technical progress in agribusiness (biotechnology), land issues in various countries around the world, marketing and pricing issues in agribusiness in Russia; issues related to the functioning of the Russian food market.

Since October 2001, Dmitry Rylko is a CEO of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies (IKAR), an information-analytical agency, carrying out a wide range of applied and theoretical research in the field of global and domestic agro-food system. In the center of the Institute’s research is analysis of current condition and forecast of domestic ag food markets.

Richard Burrell is the Speciality Oils Leader, Europe at Corteva Argiscience. Richard is responsible for working with Manufacturing, Retail & Foodservice businesses to widen awareness and create demand for Healthy Oils.

Richard is working with growers, processors and consumers to bring these oils to the European market in a sustainable way and much of his time is spent understanding the demand and supply of the High Oleic Oils market.

Before joining Corteva Argiscience, Richard worked with Unilever Bakery Supplies Business for 23 years in various sales and marketing roles. 

He also was National Commercial Manager at Pura Foods and ADM in UK before spending 6 years as Sales Director UK at Alleggra Foods Ltd, a start-up business which brought a soya-based egg replacer to the food manufacturing sector of the market.