Sr. Lead Analyst, Commodity Risk

Supply Continuity Stewardship is about managing costs and risks to be faithful stewards over our area of responsibility. Supply Continuity Stewardship activities support CFA and our sourcing leads via commodity analysis & hedging activities. Further, we lead the capacity & contingency planning (CapCon) practice to support future growth and measure supply chain health. We also create informational advantages for negotiations and pricing through our Expected Cost Tool (ECT), negotiation support, sustainability, new risk identification and mitigation strategies, and diverse supplier development.

In our work, we interact with all sourcing leads, suppliers, and secondary suppliers. We require strong analytical skills balanced with creativity to identify, strategize, and communicate our priorities to attain cross-functional support. Our ideal candidate is humble, willing to learn, a teacher, a leader, a great communicator, and focuses on serving others. This role requires a seasoned commodity trader, who has managed through a variety of challenging markets, and has the mental scars necessary to manage through the next unforeseen event. This person knows when to stick to their bias and when they need to shift their strategy. The Commodity Analyst will play a crucial role in ensuring the seamless oversight and mitigation of commodity risk within Chick-fil-A’s supply chain. This person will help formulate strategy, execute our bias, and will have responsibility for the continuous improvement of the program – there is still a lot of white space. This person will lead the COGS reporting and forecasting process and become an information source for negotiations. This position strongly favors previous procurement or sales experience as the role is expected to offer novel negotiating tactics and solutions as a supportive coach to the team. While the primary work is around commodity risk, this person must be able to offer far more via their past experiences. Should Chick-fil-A pursue hedging via its own brokerage account instead of via OTC swap counterparties and supplier partners, this person will have the ability to build the necessary infrastructure with appropriate oversight, as well as help build out the team managing trade execution and delta hedging.

This position is based out of the Chick-fil-A Support Center Office in Atlanta, GA.

Our Flexible Future model offers a healthy mix of working in person and virtually, strengthening key elements of the Chick-fil-A culture by fostering collaboration and community.

1. Commodity Risk:

• Create commodity risk mitigation strategies to manage our grains, edible oils, dairy, softs, and energy exposure. This includes decisions on which structures are best suited to execute the strategy with deep knowledge in several commodities
• Understand the global factors impacting commodity markets key to CFA’s success and articulate them to build consensus as well as explain market dynamics
• Maintain relationships with suppliers and financial counterparties
• Build and maintain relationships within supply chain, finance, and the broader business
• Improve existing reporting and accessibility for internal consumers
• Create a prioritization of work to elevate the existing program and ensure CFA has the informational resources needed to support a $50B business This may include changing the way we execute hedges and access OTC structures
• Use fundamental analysis cohesively with technical analysis

2. COGS Process:

• Build and maintain strong relationships with sourcing leads and Supply Chain FP&A to manage the process seamlessly and automate reporting to deliver meaningful insights

3. Negotiation Support:

• Work closely with sourcing to support the RFX and negotiation processes
• Identify activities that can be automated and prioritize that work
• Provide detailed information to elevate our sourcing lead’s knowledge and fend off inflationary asks that are not supported by market data
• Develop a bank of knowledge, strategies, and training to arm sourcing leads with skills to counter supplier’s claims and identify the middle ground
• Help sourcing leads attain cost-bar transparency in conjunction with ECT via negotiations

4. Curiosity & Learnings:

• Be inquisitive, ask questions, think, ponder, formulate hypotheses, and challenge your own logic continuously
• Take managed risk to develop learnings that can positively impact CFA

1. Education:

• Bachelor's Degree

2. Experience:

• 8+ years of experience with significant responsibility for Commodity Risk Management, preferably in a food/ag related procurement setting
• Understand risk management practices and tools within supply chains, preferably food/ag supply chains
• Depth as a negotiation lead and/or significant negotiation support experience within supply chain to make a difference at CFA

3. Skills:

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Excellent communication, relationship building, and interpersonal skills
• Proficiency in risk management systems including reporting and execution
• Knowledge of supply chain management systems
• Fundamental & Technical Analysis proficiency

4. Abilities:

• Willingness to serve others and remain operator focused
• Ability to work collaboratively in a cross-functional team
• Detail-oriented with a focus on accuracy
• Ability to influence and communicate effectively through presentations
• Ability to lead others without authority
• Capacity to adapt to changing priorities and handle multiple tasks
• Immense curiosity and ability to identify key issues worthy of effort/prioritize future effort
• Ability to jump from micro to macro & vice versa without losing sight of either
• Add more value beyond a single subject matter expert

• MBA Degree