Careers and vacancies

Part of the ECOM Group, Mercanta is a coffee importers, we supply roasters around the world with the very best coffees. Founded in 1996 in a small office in Southwest London we now source a huge variety of outstanding coffees from 20 producing countries and sell into over 40 consuming ones from our offices in Berlin, Glasgow, London, Dubai, Seattle and Singapore.

We are looking for an enthusiastic and motivated individual to join our small business in Kingston upon Thames to provide Accounts support.

Role

This is a varied role to support the Company’s Finance team. This role will require understanding of accounts and accounting software working closely with and providing support to the Financial Controller.   

• Update and maintain financial data using SAP ByD.
• Manage On Line banking include foreign currency contracts, payments to suppliers both local and overseas, chasing overdue accounts
• Maintaining Company’s cash flow position up to date at all times.
• Applying for Import Loans with the Bank, cancelling Loans, and some oversight of cash management on a day to day basis
• Daily/weekly bank reconciliations including number of foreign currency accounts
• Assisting stock management and keep an accurate record of incoming shipments
• Interco reconciliation
• Reconciliations of banks, WH, etc…
• Developing and implementing new administrative systems to improve efficiency

Skills & Experience Required

• At least 12 months experience within a similar role
• Experience with an ERP accounting system – preferably SAP
• An understanding and ideally previous experience of foreign exchange & international currencies.
• Excellent MS skills with Excel
• Ability to work on own initiative and within teams as appropriate
• Strong attention to detail with the ability to work to tight deadlines
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills

The Role: 

The Financial Controller for our business based in Lagos and will oversee the financials of multiple legal entities owned by ECOM Nigeria. The role will manage robust accounting processes and controls that lead to the delivery of timely and accurate financial reports for all businesses in Nigeria. The role will include coaching and mentoring the Accounting team.

Key Responsibilities include :

• Supervise all accounting for Ecom Nigeria (all legal entities)

  • Supervise monthly cutoff/intercompany/valuation/close process

  • Adequacy of provisions and accruals

  • Produce management accounting analysis for all businesses

  • Oversee Cognos input for all Ecom Companies in Nigeria

• Financial Accounting 

  • Manage annual audit and all statutory reporting; manage ICS

  • Contracts and forward books

  • Preparation/review of all commodity forward books

  • Produce timely and accurate financial reports 

  • Analysis of reserves vs actual costs

• Run tax planning and compliance for Ecom Nigeria with the Tax team.

  • Corporation tax and any VAT/direct taxes applicable

• Manage govt compliance and work relating to Banking, Export grants and liaising with lawyers and legal issues.

• Treasury oversee payment/receipts process

  • Work with Treasury to manage Ecom Nigeria liquidity and develop local bank relationships

  • FX position management for Ecom Nigeria

  • Backup to product controllers for origin funding requests

• Credit control 

  • Oversee counterparty risk process, including weekly credit control process for all Companies

  • Manage supplier advances with commodity teams

• Overhead control and analysis for all Ecom Nigeria companies (PC and shared service)
• Coordinate and consolidation of all annual budgets and forecasts
• Maintain an efficient system of accounting records 
• Improve the Company’s set of controls and budgets designed to mitigate risk  
• Enhance the accuracy of the company's reported financial results
• Ensure that reported results comply with generally accepted accounting principles
• Lead, coach and mentor a team
• Manage activities associated with process improvements, timely reporting and the development of appropriate systems to ensure that financial transactions, policies and procedures are in line with the Company’s objectives

Qualifications/Requirements

• An advanced degree in accounting & costing, business or finance
• A Minimum of 7 years relevant professional experience, ideally in the Commodity, agricultural sector, trading or food & beverage industry
• A thorough understanding of business, financial and Accounting principles and practices
• Excellent mathematical and analytical skills with advanced knowledge of Excel & PowerPoint
• Knowledge of SAGE ERP will be an added advantage.
• Strong interpersonal skills, ability to build trust and relationships with employees and business managers
• Strong communication skills (written & oral)
• Ability to work in an entrepreneurial, multicultural, multidisciplinary team and deliver high-quality work within deadlines to meet objectives
• Prior experience in Nigeria or West Africa would be a major plus

The Role: 

The Knowledge Management Specialist will be responsible for developing a Knowledge Management strategy, track program performance, support program reporting to partners, evaluate impact and facilitate learning among different program teams using Collaborating, Learning and Adapting Framework.

Main duties and responsibilities:

The Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Manager (Meal) will be responsible for the design, coordination and implementation of the monitoring and evaluation, research, and learning framework of the Project. He/she will develop a systematic monitoring framework to improve the qualitative and quantitative evidence gathered for SMS Ghana.

Specific Duties:

Setting up the system:

• Assist in the development and finalization
• Assist in the development and/or finalization of clients program Work Plans and keep it updated in accordance with implemented activities.
• Develop the overall framework, for project M&E, for example quarterly internal reviews, impact assessment, final evaluation, develop project Performance Monitoring Plan with relevant data collection systems.
• Review the quality of existing data in, the methods of collecting it, and the degree to which it will provide good baseline statistics for impact evaluation.
• Develop baseline data for each project component and for all project indicators.
• With collaborating project managers, regional managers etc, review their existing approaches and management information systems and agree on any required changes, support and resources.
• Develop a plan for project-related capacity-building on M&E and for any computer-based support that may be required.
• Organize and undertake training with collaborating partners on M&E as required.

Implementation of M&E and coordination:

• Collect data on a regular basis to measure achievement against the performance indicators.
• Check data quality.
• Maintain and administer M&E database for SMS Ghana; analyze and aggregate findings.
• Support project progress reporting, client quarterly and end of year reviews and final evaluation.
• Identify areas where technical support to Data Insight on M&E standard requirements.
• Identify lessons learned and develop case studies to capture qualitative outputs for all projects. Provide advice to PMs and RMs on improving project performance using M&E findings.
• Support the Client Engagement lead to design and lead the implementation of a Knowledge Management strategy for our cocoa sustainability related program activities working with Data Insights and key team leads.
• Promote a collaborative  knowledge sharing culture among program teams
• Support the establishment of mechanisms and execution of Knowledge Management strategies for  documenting best practices and lessons from program operations

Communication:

• Produce reports on M&E findings and prepare presentations based on M&E data as required.
• Work with the Client Manager to produce quarterly and annual reports.
• Provide Project Managers and RMs with management information she/he may require.
• Check that monitoring data are discussed in appropriate forum and in a timely fashion in terms of implications for future action. If necessary, create such discussions to fill any gap.
• Perform other duties as may be assigned by the SMS General Manager and the Business Head.

Qualifications requirements:

Education: First level university degree in statistics, demographics, Advanced certificate in M&E, statistics or economics preferred.

Experience:

• Minimum of Five (5) years of professional experience in an M&E position responsible for implementing M&E activities.
• Experience in designing, implementing, and operating project M&E systems from project initiation to closeout stages.
• Experience in designing and managing beneficiary monitoring and database systems.
• Experience in strategic planning and performance measurement, including indicator selection, target setting, reporting, database management, and developing M&E and performance monitoring plans.
• Knowledge of the major evaluation methodologies (e.g. qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method, and impact) and data collection and analysis methodologies.
• Experience in planning and managing surveys.
• Experience in developing and refining data collection tools.
• Experience with data quality assessments and oversight.
• Experience in managing and providing training to partners and target beneficiaries.

Qualities & Skills: 

• Good knowledge of programme implementation, monitoring and evaluation techniques and practices.
• Familiarity with impact assessment an advantage
• Familiarity with some of the substantive issues handled by the project such as labour inspection, labour law enforcement, social dialogue.
• Good knowledge and experience regarding gender mainstreaming.
• Good moderation, facilitation and training skills.
• Demonstrated ability to liaise and negotiate with government and social partners.
• Ability to perform a variety of conceptual analyses required for the formulation, administration and evaluation of projects.
• Excellent analytical skills.
• Ability to work in a team and good interpersonal skills.
• Good computer applications skills.
• Good organizational skills.
• Ability to deal with people with tact and diplomacy.
• Ability to work independently with a minimum of supervision.
• Ability to work under time pressure and meet deadlines.
• Ability to work in diversified environments.

The Role
The role is conversely responsible for the success of the organization's export demands by coordinating shipments, ensuring compliance with international trade regulations, and managing export supervisory, pre-shipment, and post-shipment team members to bring accuracy and potentiate shipment operations.
 

Key Responsibilities 

• Ensure proper adherence to destination documentation requirements as stipulated in the shipping instructions.
• Prepare an accurate report of all Nigeria-origin export shipments to the Business Head and the Trade team in Dubai.
• Responsible for scheduling inspections with regulatory agencies for statutory documents: NAQS (NON-GMO & PHYTOSANITARY CERTIFICATE), NDLEA & Customs
• Responsible for raising NXPs, stakeholders’ verification for inspection requests, NESS payments, and retrieval of CCI.
• Keep records of inflows to match funds with NXP value for proper reconciliation with the finance team and designated bank.
• Manage and leverage contacts within the port, shipping lines, customs, and inspection agents to mitigate delays in transit time from the warehouse to the port of destination.
• Negotiate and collate cost-effective freight rates from shipping lines as requested by the Business Head.
• Provide and coordinate the training of export team members on recent export operations process in Nigeria.
• Keep accurate reports of forwarding charges, terminal handling charges, export & fumigation levy, and quality inspection surveyor's payments for proper reconciliation.
• Organize meetings with all logistics team members to discuss issues that are pertinent to the operations.
• Send updates of all pending freight payments to the Dubai team to maximize the timeline in our documentation process.
• Assess and coordinate all operations of vessel planning with the cargo readiness team to avoid renomination charges and delays within the terminal.
• Manage all Export Expansion Grant (EEG) filing for proper documentation and upload on the EEG web portal before the deadline.
• Provide decisive ideas & suggestions to the ENS Business Head on new processes that can be utilized.

Qualifications/experience and skills 

• BSc. in Business Administration, Logistics and Supply Chain Management or any Maritime related field
• At least 7 years’ experience in logistics management preferably in an import and export operations
• High level of accuracy in checking and processing information.
• Concise verbal and written communication.
• Good and timely decision-making prowess.
• Accountability and strictly confidential
• Analytical skills – ability to develop reports for management decision using excel and ppt
• Ability to lead by example and take ownership.
• Excellent knowledge in raising NXPs, stakeholders’ verification for inspection requests, NESS payments, and retrieval of CCI
• High level of integrity 

Role:

The Business Intelligence Analyst will work with the Operations team across the different commodities and corporate functions with the goal of developing, supporting, and implementing business intelligence solutions using Power BI across its Commodity Trading and Risk Management system as well any other systems the company operates in.

This role will apply Microsoft Power BI across the enterprise to build new solutions for reporting and analytics, including model development, data visualizations, and governance. The position will also gather and analyze business requirements, plan, prepare, implement, and deliver solutions to production. The individual will collaborate with the Transformation team, Business Stakeholders and IT to validate the proposed architecture solution in order to enable the team to provision estimates, develop plans and prepare implementation approaches. 

The company’s new global CTRM (iRely) has Power BI embedded. The company is also investing in a Microsoft CRM globally. This role aims to maximize the power of that near real time reporting CTRM with its embedded Power BI, as well as accessing non CTRM data in addition, and supporting the new future CRM, for further management reports, dashboards, business decision support, operational reviews and internal due diligence projects. The role will act as an internal consulting service to businesses and senior management, on request, for special analytics related to bespoke requests and studies. The person is therefore responsible for both collecting and analyzing data to support near real time performance and risk monitoring and future business decisions. Duties include data modelling, designing data analysis methodologies and compiling reports primarily for senior management. Business acumen and analysis experience are the priority skillsets, combined with Power BI expert user knowledge, given the focus on providing valuable insight to our business.

Key responsibilities: 

• Liaise with internal stakeholders to identify areas of the business that could benefit from analysis, or improved more accurate analysis, including replacing existing solutions if appropriate.  This will later expand to external stakeholders, including future additional reporting  services to customers or feeds to customer portals
• Review and opine on data collection processes and validity of information stored.  This includes examining and eliminating processes and procedures that contribute to unreliable or faulty data being collected and consumed, and improvement or streamlining of processes that increase efficiency
• Understanding laws surrounding the collecting and processing of data and ensuring compliance in all reports and data usage (including GDPR)
• Working closely with IT to ensure data collection and storage systems are secure, robust, value for money and business friendly
• Use global data to gain and identify valuable insight into the way the business runs and patterns or anomalies
• Prepare for predictive analytics after the CTRM and new global data lake is implemented
• Developing PowerBI strategy for managing multiple PowerBI initiatives across the group company, including integration with embedded Power BI in iRely CTRM  
• Developing visual reports, dashboards and KPI scorecards using Power BI 
• Connecting to data sources, importing data and transforming data for Business Intelligence. 
• Keeping PowerBI efficient & lite which will allow quick & fast reporting / simulations etc  
• Excellent in analytical thinking for translating data into informative visuals and reports. 
• Act as Workspace Admin, create & grant access to a new workspace, assign user groups or individuals etc. 
• Serve as the conduit between the client business stakeholders and the IT team. 
• Conduct testing of solutions developed and assist in validating outputs, conduct troubleshooting, and support existing solutions.
• Work in complex environments while performing multiple activities on concurrent development projects and existing production processes.
• Set up and automate Power BI platform-related activities using scheduled refresh, subscriptions, and power automate.
• Work independently with Senior Stakeholders.
• Develop Export User network within the organization in order to fully utilize the solutions and gather feedback of future solutions.  Drive adoption of this centrally provided service globally
• Maintain a global database of all prior Power BI reports that any future PC or manager could access or adapt for their own bespoksebespoke purposes, in order to more efficiently manage global report demands, but also ensure single best source of the truth, given multiple data sources

We are looking for individuals who following profile:

• Excellent mathematical and/or statistics skills, data mining and data visualization techniques
• Bachelor’s Degree in any subject that requires an understanding of data management, business processes and operations (e.g. Business, Business Administration, Finance, Economics, Engineering Computer Science, Data Science, or related field other degree equivalent.
• 5+ years of experience working with data analytics and prior Power BI proven experience, including prior roles as data analyst, data reporter or business analyst. 
• Expert experience with the Microsoft Power BI and how to troubleshoot and find opportunities for automation to streamline the day-to-day Operations of the platform
•  Experience in Micrososoft’s wider portfolio of products is an advantage, including its CRM and Dynamics ERP as other core data sources and usages.
• Assist in Power BI System Governance & Tenant Management 
• Strong experience in developing visual reports, dashboards and KPI scorecards using Power BI 
• Design and develop datasets, dataflows, row level security etc 
• Ability to effectively communicate in writing and orally with a wide range of audiences and maintain interpersonal relationships. 
• Ability to work within time constraints and manage multiple tasks against critical deadlines. 
• Ability to perform basic problem solving and apply critical thinking, deductive reason, and inductive reasoning to identify solutions. 
• Experience in working with virtual & global team across different time zones. 
• Experience working in an international environment.
• Intellectually curious; self-driven and self-motivated to experiment and play with global data with a view to “surprise and delight” for internal customers from volunteered self-driven new reports that could help the business or reveal insights.
• Problem solving skills and creative thinker; highly methodical and well organized in approach.
• Commodities experience preferred given complex concepts within our commodities data and interpreting it for trends and recommendations; ideally prior experience of near real time reporting environments involving a CTRM; prior iRely operating knowledge a distinct advantage.
• Experience in project management and overseeing processes from conception to completion also helpful.

Summary

Our First Mile projects are a key component for ECOM as an origin integrated trading company and have been a focus of our sustainability, traceability, and impact work for a long time. With recent updates in the EU regulations and increased stakeholder pressures, data capture within the first mile of our supply chain is now more important than ever.

ECOM’s First Mile technology project is key within the group as we work to increase transparency and traceability to support business and regulatory needs with timely deadlines and as we deliver our digital product that can support ECOM’s ongoing sustainable commitments in the future across all commodities. This project is working in an agile environment with developing business needs as the regulation changes and new pressures and requirements become known over the short and medium term.

The Role

The Commodities Business Analyst will work within the larger global Transformation Team and will provide a commodity/business focus to assess, report and assist with the deployment of the First Mile product in the different businesses within the Group in different origin countries.

This role is based on London and has a global scope, working with our different businesses analysing from a commodities/business perspective by spending time in the different origins to understand their business and be able to record and analyse current ways of working to the point of implementation and post implementation analysis.

Responsibilities

Tasks will include:

• Develop cross commodity business insight to be able to support the optimisation and development of business processes
• Highlight future transformational changes, initially focusing on the First Mile projects, with an opportunity to develop further
• Conduct discovery of origin as-is processes and compare and map differences compared to  global ECOM process templates
• Build relationships with the origin teams to facilitate integration and adoption of new first mile technology
• Build processes to improve data standardization, quality and coverage, with a specific initial focus on EU regulation compliance,
• Preparation of materials for various stakeholders
• To work closely with the Business teams to align on business requirements and ensure alignment with the First Mile projects,
• To make recommendations, proposal of standardisations and prioritisation methodologies for the Business teams within an agile project structure
• Coordinate the rollout plans for various projects and communicate these with the First Mile Change lead, Service team and First Mile Project Manager
• Provide updates and risks associated to activities assigned to the First Mile Product team in the format predefined for each of the projects

Skills & Experience:

• Minimum 2 years’ experience as a business analyst within a project environment with a proven interest in working in a business process/transformation area.
• A degree in Business, Management, or related field or equivalent experience
• Skills, knowledge and experience within the commodity industry or in a supply chain environment is highly desirable
• Knowledge and experience of communications planning and delivery to support change initiatives, and able to clearly articulate messages to a wide variety of audiences
• Proven numeracy, analytical and report writing skills
• Ability to work independently and in a proactive manner.
• Excellent communication skills and ability to engage in proactive ways with various teams within origin countries
• Strong attention to detail
• Fluent English required
• Spanish or/and French speaking would be desirable