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Profile

	Name: Swati Shukla
	Nationality: Indian
	Joined Cargill on 1st September 1995
	Currently Living in: India
	Languages spoken: Hindi and English
	Current Position: India Trading Manager/Business Lead for Sugar for the indian sub Continent , looking at the sugar import/export requirements of the Indian sub continent, identifying domestic trading opportunities if any also overseeing the forwarding offshoring business for the Container Business
	Education: Civil Engineering plus MBA specializing in International Business
	Career History: one year in BPCL an India public sector company. Overall 12 years with Cargill in India which started in trading molasses then TSF (Trade Structured Finance) after which my career moved to the Sugar Business Unit, including two years in Geneva in the Sugar headquarters. I have been in the Sugar Business Unit for ten and a half years.

Introduction of the speaker; position & function:

Discuss your background and how you got started with Cargill
I am the business manager for sugar for the Indian sub continent.
I am a civil engineer with an MBA and started my career with Cargill right after the MBA in September 1995 trading molasses

Life as a trader:

What was your biggest deal?
The biggest deal to date was getting 50% market share (1 million MT of sugar) of the first Indian raws import program in 2004-2005 with not a single default.
What brought you to become a trader? Did you consider alternatives? Any regrets?
I had done an MBA specializing in international business and having a career in trading is what I wanted. Being a trader has been a great experience the thrill of understanding the everchanging market, taking a business decision and successfully executing the deal spurs me on.
What do you like best about your job? Least?
Best: The excitement of trading a dynamic commodity like sugar which is highly volatile, managing the risk and successfully concluding the business is exciting and working in a company like Cargill which has risk management tools developed and perfected over 150 years gives an edge to a trader, also the environment and the space to execute provided by the company makes it great to come to work every day.
Least: sugar is a highly sensitive commodity globally and more so in the Indian sub continent, the constant government intervention sometimes taken in haste which goes against the benefit of the sugar industry and is politically driven can be frustrating to deal with.
Tell us about your career path?
I started with Cargill in Sept 1995 straight after an MBA as a molasses trader. After one and half years Cargill sold the business and I moved to sugar trading for India, after a year, Indian sugar trading became dormant ie no import no export and I moved to TSF ( Trade Structured Finance) for a few months after which I moved to trading sugar in Geneva for two years looking after the Far East’s sugar. In 2001 I moved back to India where things were staring to bubble again and was given two more countries Pakistan and Srilanka along with India and slowly the team and our experience in India grew. I am now heading a seven member team trading sugar for the Indian sub continent. As we grew we identified an opportunity to support the fast growing container business headquartered in Amsterdam which was struggling to keep pace with the heavy forwarding work and those activities were offshored it to India.
How does you team of traders function, what is the reporting structure?
There are three traders and they report to me , each trader has been given a separate country for which they are solely responsible , as opportunities in India are huge the customers are split between traders. The responsibilities of domestic trading on physical and on the local exchange are segregrated between the traders to ensure there is no overlap.
What does your typical day look like & what is the scope of trades do you do in one day?
A trader ‘s life has high work pressures and low pressures during the year. Like most commodities sugar is seasonal and there are months of heavy pressure and peak work loads where the day is spent on analyzing the market, customer contacts, deals done, execution, problem solving and other low pressure months where the focus is on supply and demand analysis and strengthening relationship with customers. The scope of trade is huge, I have done deals worth 25 myn USD in one day
What is the work life balance as a trader? In your opinion, what is the best background / skill sets one needs to be a trader?
To be a trader one needs common sense and a keen sensitivity to determine the slight changes in the business environment which could impact the business and above all the ability to remain calm even when the high volatility in the commodity market makes the profit and loss statemetn and positions swing dramatically/adversely.
To have a work life balance as a trader one needs to have the ability to switch off when not working as work is across time zones, if ability to switch off is not there then work life balance is affected significantly.
Some unique cultural aspect about your company?
A very unique aspect is that there are no global boundaries in a business unit in Cargill, when the work load in one geography is high the other geography pitches in so that work goes on smoothly and work load is more uniformly distributed