Engaged minds

You are 'good'! You are deserving and the chosen few for this life and this program!!  Find and be passionate of your purpose and values that will energise you and others; harness your energy that help make a better future for others and everyone. Make this world a better place!  Stay calm and authentic, its about learning; it's not about ego nor competing!  In a case study, there is no right nor a wrong answer - it is the learning process that matters. There are no easy answers, walk the tight rope and flex.  We get stresses when we are unable to manage our body, mind or soul. Self assess and reflect, Self coach, self visualize, self talk, self critique to find answers.  Integrity, Compassion, Forgiveness, Empathy will take you far ahead in the game !  Rule 10: 90 - work on your 10% priorities; as rest is less important and can be managed later. Rule 90:10 - 90% factors are contollable or self generated and 10% non-con...

GTR Asia Finance week – 9 September 2015:  Performance, pricing and managing the supply chain: Coping with challenges in the soft commodity space Moderator : Chris Pardey, Chief Executive Officer, RCMA Commodities Gopul Shah, Director, Corporate Treasury & Trade Finance, Golden Agri-Resources Jacqueline Chang, Regional Head of Commodities, Asia, ABN Amro John Reeve, Director, AgRee Commodities Jean-Francois Lambert, Global Head of Commodity & Structured Trade Finance, HSBC *  S ugar, coffee, cocoa, grains, cotton, and palm oil: How have these various sectors performed over the past year when it comes to pricing? Where is the most volatility predicted? *  Are we seeing fewer participants in the commodity space as we near the end of the ‘super-cycle’? Is this expected to be a long-term trend or something more cyclical? *  With banks keen to minimise risk and limit exposure to price volatility, how has this impacted on the use of hedging a...

Golden Agri Adopts Bloomberg''s Foreign Exchange Trading Platform By PR Newswire,  August 10, 2015, 09:32:00 PM EDT Vote up AAA Sets Industry Standard in Treasury Management SINGAPORE, Aug. 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Golden Agri-Resources Ltd has selected Bloomberg's Foreign Exchange trading platform (FXGO) for currency hedging and risk management. The world's second largest palm oil plantation company is part of a growing number of regional centers globally using Bloomberg FXGO to manage and trade risk for its businesses in Asia Pacific. "Bloomberg FXGO enables us to seamlessly trade G10, regional and emerging Asian currencies with best execution and straight-through processing," said Gopul Shah, head of global treasury and trade finance at Golden Agri. "The efficiency and cost savings gained using Bloomberg as an integrated trading solution allow us to better support the company's operational and strategic decisions while adopting industry best practi...

As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Sun Tzu evidently underscores the importance of understanding risk and also explains that the flip side of risk is returns  Knowing the risks either helps in staying hedged or enables making money by riding on volatility. Just as returns are the flip side of risk, properly managed risk is cost saved. Volatility is here to stay; notice that there isn’t a straight line nor any direction in the commodity or foreign currency and the volatility index.  Case study:  The company imports commodity X in US dollars (USD) on sight terms, and it processes and sells consumer packs to its customers in local currency (LCY) through a countrywide local wholesale network on credit terms and t...

By  Gopul Shah Published:  2015-07-31 Commodity, currency, capital and money markets are facing increased volatility, and either price correlations are being broken or new market connections and correlations are being established amidst increasing basis risk. In current market conditions, where commodity prices are at their lows, most economies and companies are facing economic hollowing and deflationary impacts, shrinking corporate and bank lending budgets, and increasing tax burdens.  Multiple and diverse factors which are interconnected are exacerbating volatility—finance, fuel, food, environment, geopolitics and regulations. Corporates have to grapple with these factors and events, which exacerbate volatility into corporate business models. In this environment, businesses can thrive or perish.  Volatility is challenging companies’ fundamental business models, revenues and cost bases, and thus distorting their cost structure and pricing programs with customers and...

My sporting and evergreen daddy had always been a big bear for us in the family!!  Thanks Dad for everything and the inspiration to remain positive, sporting, smiling, resourceful and never give up. I still remember playing cricket with him and partnering about 20 runs at the P&T colony; I was 19 and dad 52. My dad ensued that we in the family are well educated, travelled and experienced so every 6 months we were on the trains travelling to all parts of India. My dad and mom ensured that we received the best education and values - despite all odds with the family they enrolled us in a catholic English medium school which in those days was a luxury and ground breaking for the entire family that did not have any formal English education.   His work ethics, positive attitude, determination, and focus were his biggest strength to ensure success and happiness. We never knew of his hardships and the constraints that he and my mom faced.  Around 50, he...

Start interning early in life so that the opportunity can be used well to understand personal aptitude and attitude.  The benefits to companies and employees are immense and mostly unquantifiable thus every company must create opportunities for interns. Intern-ship is a great opportunity for both the young and the mentors to learn and unlearn. Teens have great potential and mentors have good experience; a combination could be potent value addition to the intern, mentor and the company. Teens have a very bright future, good journey ahead and are obvious risk taker and candid so make the best of the opportunity; teens can bring new ideas and perspectives that could be missing. Interns are also potential future employers or customers and also carry reputation and goodwill of the company.  Some useful tips for interns! ·     Enjoy to lean and unlearn; knowing yourself, your aptitude and a little bit about what you want out ...