Conference speakers

Sergey Feofilov

Director General, UkrAgroConsult, Ukraine

Sergey Feofilov – Director General of UkrAgroConsult, Ph.D. in Economics.

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).

Fabio Meneghin

Analyst and Partner at Agroconsult, Brazil

Fabio Meneghin, Analyst and Partner at Agroconsult, Brazil.

Fabio Meneghin is an agricultural engineer with a degree in agribusiness management. Since 2003 serves as an analyst at Agroconsult in grains and sugar/biofuels sector, preparing market analysis, anticipating the trends, and working as a consultant for many projects and evaluations. As a speaker has already made several cyclical and conceptual lectures about brazilian agribusiness around the world.

G. Chandrashekhar

Global Agribusiness Specialist, India

G Chandrashekhar holds several public positions including Economic Advisor at IMC Chamber of Commerce and Industry; Member, SEBI Commodity Derivatives Advisory Committee; Consultant, UN International Trade Centre, Geneva. He is also a Columnist for agribusiness and commodities at The Hindu Business Line.

Karen Braun

Global Agriculture Columnist, Thomson Reuters, USA

Karen Braun is the Global Agriculture Columnist for Thomson Reuters, where she focuses on topics that interest primarily the grain and oilseed markets.

Prior to joining the Reuters News organization, Karen was an agriculture analyst with Thomson Reuters’ research group Lanworth where she specialized in production forecasts for European and Black Sea crops. Karen has a lot of boots-on-the-ground experience and has led crop tours through Russia, Ukraine, France, Serbia, and the United States.

With both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Meteorology, Karen also focuses on weather and climate and their impacts on agricultural production around the globe.

Robert van der Kooy

Market Analyst, Cefetra Group, Netherlands

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.

Swithun Still

Grain market expert, Switzerland

Swithun Still was the Director of the Swiss based SOLARIS COMMODITIES SA, founded in December 2011. SOLARIS specialises in the trade of agricultural commodities from Russia and via its partners sources grains directly from farmers and local suppliers. Swithun has been involved in the grain trade for over 15 years, starting out in 1999 in London, before moving to Paris in 2001 and to Switzerland in 2003. A fluent Russian and French speaker, he also acts as an arbitrator and Appeal Board member at Gafta.

Ole Houe

CEO, IKON Commodities, Australia

Ole Houe has been involved in International Trading and Risk Management for more than 15 years in a number of different roles with experience in grain, sugar and steel.

Most recently he was Senior Manager with FCStone Australia Pty Ltd heading up their advanced risk management division in Australia. Prior to that Ole was employed by GrainCorp for 7 years in various trading roles.

Ole has been a member of the Grain Trade Australia commerce committee and is also a Grain Trade Australia arbitrator.

Ole has been a director on the board of Barley Australia and is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (MAICD).

Ole holds a BA in International Business from Southbank University in London, a Masters of Applied Finance from Kaplan and an MBA from the  Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) in Sydney.

Erik Norland

Executive Director and Senior Economist, CME Group, UK

Erik Norland is Executive Director and Senior Economist of CME Group. He is responsible for generating economic analysis on global financial markets by identifying emerging trends, evaluating economic factors and forecasting their impact on CME Group and the company’s business strategy, and upon those who trade in its various markets. He is also one of CME Group’s spokespeople on global economic, financial and geopolitical conditions.

James Foulsham

General manager, Trading and Marketing, AAAX, Australia

James Foulsham – general manager, Trading and Marketing, AAAX, Australia

Nikolay Gorbachev

UGA President, Ukraine

Nikolay Gorbachev, President of Ukrainian Grain Association

Nikolay Gorbachov has more than 20 years of experience in the Ukrainian agrarian market. He became the Head of the Ukrainian Grain Association (UGA) in February 2017. He is also the co-chairman of Grain and Oilseed Committee of the European Business Association (EVA).

Nikolay Gorbachov works in the association, and at the same time he holds the position of director at the trading company New World Grain Ukraine (Soufflet Group).

He graduated from the International University of Market Relations; International Management Institute (Master of Business Administration); National Academy of Public Administration under the President of Ukraine (Master of Public Administration in National Security).

He’s the recipient of awards from the Government.