Why explore
- An exciting opportunity to work with one of the world's leading multinational corporations
- An opportunity to develop your career and lead a significant global freight portfolio
- Located in Singapore, a global commercial hub for Rio Tinto
About the role
We are looking for a Global Desk Head - Panamax to join Rio Tinto Marine's global freight leadership team with full P&L accountability for the global Panamax vessel portfolio. You will play a pivotal leadership role to achieve best-in-class freight trading and chartering outcomes for the business.
This is a senior leadership role requiring deep expertise across physical chartering, freight derivatives, and market positioning. You will be responsible for setting and executing the Panamax portfolio strategy, actively managing freight exposure, and optimising portfolio performance across market cycles whilst ensuring highest levels of service and safety for internal and external stakeholders.
A critical component of this role is the reliable and efficient provision of freight to Rio Tinto's operations, ensuring that vessel supply consistently meets operational requirements. Delivering the highest levels of service, safety, and reliability to internal customers is fundamental, requiring close alignment with supply chain, operations, and product groups.
You will lead a team of experienced charterers, driving commercial outcomes through a combination of market insight, disciplined risk management, and proactive engagement in both physical and paper freight markets, while balancing trading performance with operational excellence.
Reporting to the General Manager, you will:
- Own and lead the global Panamax freight portfolio, including strategy development, execution, and performance delivery
- Ensure consistent and reliable freight coverage for Rio Tinto operations, meeting volume requirements while maintaining high service level sand operational flexibility.
- Define and implement trading strategies across physical chartering and FFA markets to optimise cost/earnings and manage freight exposure.
- Actively position the portfolio based on market views, balancing spot, period, and derivative exposure to capture arbitrage and optionality while safeguarding supply continuity.
- Drive commercial value through sophisticated freight trading decisions, including cargo-vessel matching, route optimisation, and timing strategies.
- Lead market engagement with shipowners, shipyards, operators, brokers, and financial counterparties to originate and execute opportunities and secure high-quality tonnage.
- Develop and oversee freight risk frameworks, including exposure limits, hedging strategies, and scenario analysis across volatile market conditions.
- Integrate insights from market analysis, macro trends, asset valuations and supply-demand fundamentals into actionable trading decisions that support both profitability and service reliability.
- Collaborate closely with internal stakeholders (commercial, operations, derivatives, analytics) to maximise end-to-end value across the supply chain and ensure seamless execution.
- Partner with voyage operations and vetting teams to uphold safety, reliability, and performance standards across the Panamax fleet.
- Build, mentor, and lead a high-performing Panamax desk with a strong trading mindset, accountability, and customer service orientation.
- Ensure all trading and chartering activities are conducted within Rio Tinto's governance, safety, and compliance frameworks.
About you
To be successfully considered for this role, you will have:
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Economics, International Trade, Marketing, Supply Chain or Maritime/Logistics.
- Minimum 15 years of experience in dry bulk freight trading and chartering, ideally with significant exposure to Panamax markets.
- Demonstrated track record of managing and optimising a freight trading book (physical and/or derivatives).
- Strong working knowledge of FFA markets, freight risk management tools, and trading systems.
- Proven ability to balance commercial performance with operational service delivery in a global environment.
- Excellent communication, negotiation, and leadership skills.
- Experience with safety aspects of dry bulk vessels (beneficial).
