Camille

Business Manager, London

What’s your role at Engelhart?

My role is to be a link between the various trading desks and Engelhart’s senior management.

I also help facilitate how the business strategy of every trading desk feeds into Engelhart’s overall strategy and vice versa.

There are two parts to my role. The strategic part looks at the relationship between our trading desks and the whole business strategy, and then the tactical part of the job includes all the operational aspects like the set up of new products or accessing new markets.

What’s been your career journey to this point?

I started in banking when I graduated; both my bachelor and master’s degrees were in corporate finance and financial engineering.

I moved from France to London to work at BNP Paribas as a FIG analyst, but I soon realised I was actually more interested in the complexities and the challenges raised by trading commodities. 

So, from BNP Paribas, I joined Koch Industries and subsequently RWE as a Senior Energy analyst, where part of my role was to understand the complexity of the markets, assess the various risks and the financial viability of our counterparties.

I found this really engaging, and when I joined Engelhart in 2018, that was a big part of my role when we had more of a physical trading business.

I realised I was actually more interested in the complexities and the challenges raised by trading commodities.

What attracted you to working in commodities?

I have always thought that commodities bring you closer to the real world. I grew up on a farm in the South of France which made me always feel very passionate and close to this industry, and coupled with my educational background (finance) it became a rather easy choice to pursue a career in the commodities industry. The cherry on the cake is the fast-paced environment, the challenge and the intellectual stimulation that comes with the role.

Commodities, and finance more widely, are still male-dominated. How do we get more women to follow in your footsteps?

It’s the elephant in the room, and many commodities and finance businesses are trying to create more gender balance, but it takes time.

There needs to be transparency around the numbers because companies will say they’re balanced, but it might be 50% at junior levels and less than 10% at senior levels.

The change will only happen once women and younger girls see female leaders in commodities in the boardroom and leading businesses.

It needs to start much younger, at school age. We need to be in schools marketing our industry to young girls.

The typical story is that guys do finance, and girls do marketing or PR. They want to work for Louis Vuitton or Chanel, but that story shows how well those businesses market to young women.

The younger generation is already telling us they need purpose in their career and don’t want to just work for money. We can use that in the commodities industry because we’re involved in so many markets that are vital to how the world works, from energy to climate change to food.

We need to show girls and young women that they can grow and develop a career in commodities trading, and it’s not like The Wolf of Wall Street!