Managing Director, Commodities & Portfolio Operations

Managing Director, Commodities & Portfolio Operations

Company: Ark Capital

Role: Managing Director, Commodities & Portfolio Operations

Location: Nigeria (Abuja Preferred)

Seniority: Executive

Role Overview

Ark Capital is looking for an experienced commodities executive to build and lead a commodities and portfolio operations business focused on protecting investor capital after investments and financing transactions have been completed.

The executive will establish the organisation, operating infrastructure, relationships, controls, and field capabilities required to closely monitor portfolio companies, commodity transactions, inventory, supply chains, production activities, and financed assets.

The objective is simple: once capital has been deployed, investors should have significantly greater visibility and operational control over what happens to that capital.

Key Responsibilities

1. Build the Business

• Establish and lead the portfolio monitoring and commodities operations company from inception.
• Develop its commercial model, team structure, operating procedures, technology requirements, partnerships, and revenue model.
• Build the organisation into an independent and scalable business serving financial institutions, investors, lenders, and commodity companies.

2. Portfolio Monitoring

• Develop systems for monitoring businesses after loan disbursement or investment.
• Track utilisation of funds, production activity, inventory, procurement, sales, receivables, cash conversion, and other operational indicators.
• Identify operational problems before they become repayment or investment losses.
• Provide investors and lenders with reliable intelligence on portfolio company performance.

3. Commodity Operations

• Oversee transactions involving agricultural commodities, minerals and energy products.
• Understand commodity sourcing, storage, transportation, processing, inspection, quality assurance, warehousing, export, and sale.
• Establish mechanisms for physical verification and control of financed commodities.
• Develop relationships with producers, aggregators, processors, warehouses, logistics companies, inspection firms, exporters, traders, exchanges, and major commodity buyers.

4. Risk Management

• Identify operational, market, counterparty, logistics, fraud, inventory, production, and execution risks within financed transactions.
• Design controls to mitigate those risks.
• Establish escalation procedures for transactions showing early warning indicators.
• Work closely with investment, credit, legal, risk, collections, and transaction monitoring teams.

5. Network & Market Development

• Build and maintain senior relationships across Nigeria and relevant international commodity markets.
• Develop relationships with major buyers, sellers, commodity exchanges, exporters, government agencies, inspection companies, logistics providers, miners, farmers, processors, and energy companies.
• Use these relationships to independently verify transactions, resolve problems, and create new commercial opportunities.

Ideal Candidate

The ideal candidate should:

• Have substantial experience in commodity trading, commodity operations, supply chain management, structured trade finance, or commodity investment.
• Have meaningful exposure across agriculture, minerals and energy commodities.
• Possess an extensive network of credible industry relationships.
• Have previously been a founder, CEO, Managing Director, business unit head, trading executive, or senior operator with significant commercial responsibility.
• Understand commodity transaction structures from sourcing through final sale.
• Be commercially aggressive while maintaining strong risk discipline.
• Be comfortable visiting farms, mines, warehouses, factories, ports, and operational sites rather than operating exclusively from an office.
• Understand financial statements, working capital, inventory finance, trade finance, and credit risk.
• Have experience negotiating large commercial transactions.
• Be entrepreneurial enough to build an organisation from the ground up.

Primary Objective

Build a portfolio operations platform that gives investors continuous visibility into financed businesses and transactions, allowing operational risks to be detected and actively managed before they result in capital losses.