Head of Research

Job description

**We Are Sparta** Sparta is the next-generation commodity trading platform. We give trading desks the clarity, control, and collaboration they need to move faster and trade smarter. In February 2025, we secured $42 million in Series B funding. Now we’re scaling up across the business, and it’s an exciting time to join. Our people are the driving force behind everything we do. At Sparta, you’ll be trusted to take ownership, backed by a team who wants you to succeed. You’ll be challenged, supported, and given room to grow. Because building something this ambitious takes everyone at their best. At Sparta, your work has reach. From improving our platform, to powering smarter decisions for our customers, to changing how commodity trading is done around the world. And because we’re growing fast, you won’t just build your career. You’ll accelerate it, with a level of ownership and impact you simply don’t get at bigger, more bureaucratic companies. **Head of Research** Sparta’s research is how the market gets to know us. Our Market Outlook pieces, commentaries and podcast are read and heard by traders across the industry — they carry the credibility behind everything we sell, and they feed the top of our sales funnel. As Head of Research, you’ll own that output: the standard it’s held to, the schedule it ships on, and the voice it carries. This is a senior, visible, client-facing role — you’ll be our most senior market voice, fronting webinars, media appearances, client briefings and the podcast, while coaching a team of commodity specialists to write sharper research. You’ll also work directly with our founders to design Sparta’s supply & demand fundamentals offering, and become the face of that offering as it develops. **What you'll be doing** - Own the editorial standard for Market Outlook pieces and commentaries — if the writing isn’t good enough, it doesn’t ship. - Run a consistent publishing cadence across every commodity vertical, working alongside the Head of Commodities and Head of Product Experts. - Lead the Sparta podcast: its standard, schedule and editorial direction. - Be a lead market voice for Sparta — webinars, breakfast briefings, client events, media appearances and in-person briefings. - Stay on top of the whole barrel as a credible cross-market analyst, with particular depth in light ends (gasoline, naphtha/LPG). - Coach and develop the Commodity Owner team through feedback, mentoring and example. - Partner with Sales and Marketing so research generates leads and reinforces trust with customers. - Work with our founders to shape Sparta’s fundamentals offering for 2027, and become its client-facing lead as it develops. **About you** - A recognised name in commodity markets research, with a strong track record of published commentary the market already trusts. - A cross-market analyst with global, cross-barrel knowledge — particularly strong on gasoline, with Atlantic Basin (especially US) depth on products markets. - Hands-on experience building supply & demand balances at regional and macro level, comfortable with refinery outage, ship tracking and inventory data. - An excellent writer and generous editor, with a track record of mentoring junior analysts. - Comfortable and credible in front of customers and cameras — webinars, events, podcasts and media. - An existing network across the analyst community. - Commercially minded, but never swayed on market calls by external pressure — you back your own judgement. - Senior enough to balance day-to-day publishing against longer-term goals, and to lead people who don’t report to you. **Nice to have** - Experience working with engineers and data scientists to build research and models that shipped - A formed view on what a differentiated fundamentals offering looks like. This is a rare chance to be the senior market voice for a fast-growing, VC-backed platform — with real ownership over Sparta’s fundamentals story as it’s built from the ground up. *Sparta Commodities is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and promotes diversity within its workforce. We are determined that no-one will ever receive less favourable treatment on the grounds of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, race, veteran status or any basis covered by appropriate law.*