West Africa Commercial & Data Analyst in London

We are looking for an Analyst / Associate to own the data and commercial narrative behind the Group's West Africa (WAF) business. This is a commercial role for someone with an analytical mindset: you will build and maintain the evidence base — freight returns, cargo flows, and regional demand indicators — that lets the business make confident, defensible decisions about our WAF asset exposure, and you will be expected to use that evidence to influence colleagues, including pushing back constructively on the Chartering desk.

You will be the person in the room who can show, with data, that WAF-trading vessels continue to earn returns that hold up against the broader market, and that adding further WAF-exposed tonnage remains accretive to the Group even where it may tighten competitive dynamics in the trade.

Requirements

• Regional data collection: build and maintain a live picture of the West Africa market — port and berth activity, cargo volumes, waiting times, discharge rates, and freight levels — using a mix of desk research, subscription data services, and on-the-ground contacts (agents, brokers, terminal operators).
• Demand-driver tracking: monitor and interpret activity at key WAF demand centres — notably the Dangote Refinery and Fertilizer complex, alongside other major industrial, cement, and commodity counterparties in the region — to anticipate shifts in cargo flows and vessel demand before they show up in the freight market.
• Returns analysis: produce and maintain the comparative economics of WAF-trading assets versus the wider market (comparable trades, benchmark indices, alternative deployment options), so performance claims are always backed by a current, defensible dataset.
• Investment case-building: assess the accretive value of adding further WAF-exposed tonnage to the fleet, including the trade-off between incremental returns and any dampening effect on trade-level competition, and present a clear recommendation.
• Commercial advocacy: represent the WAF data and analysis directly to the Chartering team, and push back — with evidence, not opinion — when chartering decisions or market assumptions don't reflect what the regional data is actually showing.
• Cross-team influence: work with Operations, Chartering, and other internal teams to get the regional data and updates you need, holding teams accountable for timely input even where you have no direct authority over them.
• Reporting and recommendations: brief the Head of Asset Management and the CEO on a regular cadence, translating regional intelligence into clear, decision-ready recommendations on WAF exposure.
• Relationship building: develop and maintain a personal network of contacts in West Africa (agents, charterers, terminal and refinery contacts, local market sources) as a standing source of ground-truth information.

What you'll bring

• A genuinely analytical mindset: comfortable building models and datasets from scratch, and equally comfortable defending your numbers in a commercial conversation.
• Strong Excel / data-handling skills; experience with shipping and market data sources (e.g. Clarksons, Kpler, Vortexa, MarineTraffic, S&P Global Commodity Insights, or equivalent) is a strong advantage.
• Confidence and communication skills to challenge more senior colleagues, particularly on the Chartering desk, in a constructive, evidence-led way.
• An interest in — or existing knowledge of — West African trade flows, ports, and industrial demand centres such as Dangote; prior exposure to the region (professional or personal) is a plus but not essential.
• Some grounding in shipping, chartering, or commodities markets, or a strong, fast-learning quantitative/commercial background (e.g. trading, research, consulting, or asset management) if coming from outside the industry.
• A degree in a numerate, business, or maritime-related discipline is preferred but not required if experience demonstrates equivalent analytical strength.

Why this role matters

West Africa is a strategic growth area for the business, and decisions about how much further to lean into it are being made now. This role sits at the centre of that decision: the person in it will directly shape how much confidence the business — up to and including the CEO — has in the numbers behind our WAF strategy.