Speakers

Vanessa Davidson, Director of Base Metals Research and Strategy

Vanessa Davidson has worked for CRU since 1988. She has had extensive experience of analysing a wide range of metal markets including aluminium, nickel, stainless steel, ferrochrome and copper. Vanessa is currently director of CRU’s Base Metals Team with overall responsibility for the regular market and cost reports produced by this division. She is a specialist in the copper market and regularly delivers presentations on copper at international conferences. Vanessa is a member of CRU’s Executive Team. She holds a BA (Hons) in Economics.

Jessica is Head Strategist at Pala Investments. Her focus is on investigating decarbonization technologies such as electric vehicles, renewables, hydrogen and recycling, and forecasting the impact these trends will have on commodity markets and how investors will finance the future economy. She also leads Pala’s ESG due diligence process.

Prior to joining Pala, Jessica was Commodities Strategist and an Equity Research Analyst at BMO Capital Markets - a member of their top-ranked Metals & Mining global research team - where her in-depth analysis and integrity gained the trust of asset management and industry clients around the world.

Jessica is a frequent speaker at industry and corporate conferences, most recently at the FT's Global Commodities Summit and Fastmarkets’ Lithium Markets conference. She has appeared on CNBC and Bloomberg TV, and has been cited in other press such as the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Reuters and Streetwise.

Duncan Hobbs, Research Manager, Concord Resources

Tom Mulqueen is Head of Research at Amalgamated Metal Trading, which provides brokerage and dealing services across LME base and ferrous metal derivative markets. Tom is currently responsible for analysing fundamental, financial and macro-trends driving base metal price-performance. He was previously Head of Market Intelligence at the International Tin Association, with four years’ experience analysing global tin industry supply and demand fundamentals.

Dr Yanchen Wang is the managing director of SMM UK office, which was established in May 2021. He takes charge of SMM overseas commodity market research.

Dr Yanchen Wang is a well-known analyst in the global commodity industry. His areas of expertise include global aluminium, alumina, bauxite, downstream, recycling and power/energy market analysis, cost modelling and value assessment of aluminium assets. In recent years, he has extended his research in the other base metals and battery metal markets, macroeconomic and relative industries, like thermal coal, gas, power, and carbon emission markets. He has visited more than 100 bauxite mines, alumina refineries, aluminium smelters, downstream and recycling assets around the world, in China, Russia, Australia, Europe, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Middle East and North America. He also often attends technical and market conferences and gives presentations as a key-note speaker.

Before joining SMM, he was the principal analyst at CRU and the head of Chinese aluminium market research. Dr Yanchen Wang had worked at CRU for 15 years.

Yanchen has a PhD in Engineering from Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Neil Shearing is our Group Chief Economist. He has overall responsibility for managing our team of economists and leading our research, as well as developing the firm’s products and its relationship with clients. He is also a director of the company.

Neil is the first point of contact for many clients and presents regularly on the global economic and financial market outlook. He is a well-known voice within the investment community and has written articles in the Financial Times and a number of other newspapers, as well as appearing regularly on TV and radio.

Prior to becoming Group Chief Economist, Neil was our Chief Emerging Markets Economist, managing a team that won several awards for forecast accuracy. He also managed our New York office. Neil joined Capital Economics from HM Treasury where he worked as an Economic Adviser in various areas, including fiscal policy and global economics. He holds degrees in Economics from the University of York and the University of London and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Nick Snowdon, Metals Strategist, Goldman Sachs 

Timothy Weiner, Vice President Aluminum Pricing & Risk Management, Harbor Aluminum

Geordie provides insights and comprehensive analysis on macroeconomics, metals, agriculture and the FX markets. He is recognised as a key metals market commentator, authoring Sucden Financial’s daily base metal reports, its benchmark Quarterly Metals Report and in-depth investment research in electric vehicles and the coffee markets. Geordie joined Sucden Financial in 2016, he holds a degree in Agricultural Economics and is currently completing a Masters in Sustainable Resources and Economics at UCL.

Amelia Xiao Fu is the head of Commodity Markets Strategy at Bank of China International. Her team covers all commodity sectors ranging from energy, base metals, precious metals and agriculture. The team’s focus is to combine top-down global macro / financial drivers with fundamental analysis to provide investment advice. In 2019, BOCI won ‘Commodities Research House of the Year’ Award by Energy Risk.

She speaks regularly at global conferences and is frequently quoted by media including Bloomberg, Reuters, the FT and the Wall Street Journal.

Before joining BOCI, Xiao worked as a commodity strategist at Deutsche Bank in London. She studied Economics at the London School of Economics and Harvard University.