The 9 essential traits of successful commodity traders (you either have them or you don’t)

“I can teach you to trade. I can’t teach you to be hungry.” — Rob Gosman, Global Commodity Head, BP.


Considering a career in commodity trading?

Think again, and think hard.

This isn’t your average desk job. Commodity trading is a high-stakes, high-speed world where market moves can be brutal, uncertainty is the norm, and your edge isn’t just what you know, it’s who you are.

At The Strong Source podcast, we’ve interviewed over two dozen titans of the commodity world, from legendary cocoa and grain traders to former CEOs of the biggest houses in the game, including Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Company, Glencore Agriculture, Olam, Bunge, and Viterra. These are people who have not only survived the chaos of commodity markets but built careers and companies on top of them.

And one truth stood out.

The best traders aren’t just trained. They’re wired differently.

Some skills you can learn. But others, the traits that keep you steady when the screen bleeds red, are baked in.

Here are the 9 essential traits that came up repeatedly in our conversations with guests like Alex Sanfeliu, Tom Kopczynski, Rob Gosman, Edwin van Stipdonk, David Behrends, and more.

1. Thrive under extreme pressure

Commodity markets aren’t just volatile, they’re often chaotic. And it’s in that chaos that the best traders reveal themselves.

In 2013, Alex Sanfeliu, now President, World Trading Group at Cargill, found himself staring down a potential significant loss when a customer defaulted on 90,000 tonnes of corn already en route. Most would have panicked. Alex didn’t. His team went into overdrive, rerouting vessels, renegotiating freight and payment terms, and unlocking creative arbitrage opportunities to considerably reduce the exposure. “It was like an MBA in cash trading, futures, freight, and payment,” he recalled. The following year, he was promoted to lead the World Trading Group.

He wasn’t alone in treating crisis as a proving ground.

During the 2020 oil crash, prices swung $37 in a single day. For Rob Gosman, clarity under pressure became non-negotiable. “You had to be crystal clear,” he said. “You couldn’t hesitate.”

When things fall apart, the best traders don’t flinch, they lean in.

2. Genuine passion for the game

Commodity trading isn’t a job you take because the pay is good. At least, not if you want to last.

It demands obsession, a deep, almost irrational curiosity about how markets move, how people behave, and how everything from weather to geopolitics to freight rates connects.

Jan Dieleman, former global head of ocean transportation at Cargill, has seen both types of hires. “You need to follow your passion. Follow your interest. Don’t just go for the highest offer in the job market,” he said. The ones who chase puzzles stick around. The ones who chase paychecks usually don’t.

Rob Gosman remembers interviewing junior traders and listening closely, not for credentials, but for fire. “I can teach you to trade,” he often said. “But I can’t teach you to be hungry. I can’t teach you to love the market.” His best hires? The ones who couldn’t stop talking about basis levels or weather reports, even over coffee.

Passion shows up in the strangest ways. Dwight Anderson didn’t just look for market knowledge, he looked for people who compete. At chess. In debates. On the football field. “Those are the people who stay up late to win, even if no one’s watching,” he said.

And while Alex Sanfeliu talked often about intelligence and discipline, he always came back to energy. “The people who thrive,” he said, “are the ones who are attracted by what trading means, the intellectual challenge, the sense of winning.”

Finally, Martijn Bron, having built and led trading teams himself, urged young professionals to pay attention to what they do outside work. “What news sites are you opening in the morning?” he asked in Episode 13. “What books have you read, and not because someone told you to, but because you wanted to?” If you’re not reading up on markets in your free time, he said, maybe this isn’t your destiny.

3. Natural risk appetite

If you’re noJan Dielemant comfortable with uncertainty, commodity trading will chew you up.

Risk isn’t just part of the job, it is the job. But as many of our guests pointed out, there’s a massive difference between calculated courage and reckless gambling.

For Rob Gosman, who’s managed volatile energy books from Y2K to COVID, that distinction is critical. “Anyone with a risk appetite could be a trader,” he said. “But it needs to be the right kind of risk appetite.” He’s seen traders mistake impulse for boldness, and disappear just as fast.

Rather than fearing risk, Marc Perathoner, Director of Commodity Risk at FrieslandCampina, treats it like a language. Navigating illiquid dairy markets, he works without a clear playbook, yet embraces that ambiguity. “Managing risk,” he explained, “is often about operating without a clean playbook.” In those moments, the instinct isn’t to freeze, it’s to game out scenarios.

Corinna Olearo, leading commodity research at Nestlé, sees risk appetite not as a fixed personality trait, but a situational mindset. “It depends on the moment,” she said. “Some business units are more risk-averse at certain times, depending on their marketing strategy. The key is alignment.” In other words: it’s not about fearlessness, it’s about fit.

Likewise, Alex Sanfeliu, known for analytical depth, doesn’t try to systematize risk appetite too much. “It’s difficult to define,” he admitted, “but if your risk appetite is low, it’s not going to work.”

From his years running cocoa books, Martijn Bron added a practical lens: “The game is to survive, not to shine.” He stressed the value of hiring traders who push risk forward, but only within clear boundaries. “I’ve always hired people who wanted to take more risk than me,” he said, “but I’d set the limits to make sure we don’t blow up.” 

4. Insatiable intellectual curiosity

Markets don’t reward people who know everything.
They reward the ones who never stop trying to.

It’s not just about having answers, it’s about asking sharper questions. That’s why David Behrends, Managing Partner at Sucafina, doesn’t hire based on commodity knowledge. He hires based on curiosity. “When we’re 21, we think we know everything,” he said. “By the time we’re 51, we realize we know nothing.” What he wants is someone who’s still learning, and loving it.

That same hunger shows up in hiring desks across the industry. Jan Dieleman, when building freight and trading teams at Cargill, prioritized people who were “curious, quick learners.” Whether or not they’d seen a commodity contract before didn’t matter. What mattered was how fast they could connect dots, and how badly they wanted to.

Rob Gosman told the story of a young hire who shadowed one of his top traders. “Didn’t talk much,” he said. “Just asked sharp questions and paid attention. That kind of curiosity? You can’t fake it.”

And it doesn’t wear off with experience. Dwight Anderson, founder of Ospraie, still approaches markets like a student. “You always want to learn,” he said. “If you’re not humble, the market will make you humble.”

Even technology hasn’t changed that mindset, it’s only sharpened it. In today’s world of data overload and AI, Alex Sanfeliu says learning is about more than knowing markets. It’s about knowing which questions to ask your “virtual analyst.” “You can summarize 100-page policies in seconds now,” he said, “but you still need to know how to think.”

5. Drive to win

You can’t teach hunger. And in commodity trading, hunger is everything.

It’s what gets you up early to read overnight flows. It’s what makes you double-check your position sizing after a long day. It’s what pushes you not just to be right, but to win.

Edwin van Stipdonk, Chief Commercial Officer at Interfood, doesn’t glamorize trading. He credits his long-term success to something far less flashy: discipline. “You need people who want to be successful,” he said, “and have the drive to win on a day-to-day basis. Without commitment, it’s very hard to be successful in the trading world.” His edge? Relentless consistency.

Others spot that fire in more surprising places. Dwight Anderson sees competitive instinct as the biggest tell, and it doesn’t have to show up in a trading sim. “Whether it’s debate, bridge, or sports,” he said, “I want people who compete.” For him, a strong resume isn’t enough. He’s looking for the people who have to win, no matter the arena.

Alexander Sterk, co-host of The Strong Source, echoes this when evaluating commercial talent. “Sure, I look at credentials, but what I really focus on is the person because if you’re commercial, it’s already in you. It’s who you are as a person – you get energy from it. You’re an extrovert most of the time. You want to be outside, challenging customers. You’re a bit more aggressive. You want to get things done. You want someone who rolls up their sleeves. It’s a different kind of person. You cannot study for that.”

At Cargill, Rob Gosman built teams around that same DNA. “The ones who made it,” he said, “were the ones who couldn’t stand losing, even in internal debates.” They didn’t argue to prove a point. They argued because they cared. Because they wanted to win.

Moreover, Alex Sanfeliu, brought it back to something more primal. “Competitive nature helps being resilient,” he said. “In volatile times, and there are always volatile times, it’s not necessarily the smartest who make it. It’s the ones who refuse to back down.”

Both podcast hosts have weighed in on what this kind of drive looks like in practice. Martijn Bron recalled early lessons from his Geneva days, where success often came down to showing up first and staying sharp longest. He also quoted a former Cargill executive who once told him, “We look for people who are trading to win, not trading not to lose”.

6. Exceptional work ethic and stamina

Success in commodity trading rarely comes in a flash.
It’s earned in the early mornings, the late nights, and the thousands of quiet moments when no one’s watching, and the market still demands answers.

There’s no shortcut around effort. Just ask Stephane Bernard, who spent over a decade building trading books at Louis Dreyfus. He described it simply: “It takes time to build yourself out to really know what you do.” The job isn’t glamorous, and he never pretended it was. But he made it clear: the people who last are the ones who grind, reflect, and show up again.

Talent alone doesn’t cut it. That’s why David Behrends hires based on “phenomenal drive and hard-working ethics.” In his view, intelligence is a baseline. But effort, consistency, and patience? That’s what separates promising hires from long-term performers. “I don’t think commodity trading is easy,” he said. “It requires a lot of effort, a lot of work, a lot of patience.”

Behind those long days is something more fundamental: resilience. During periods of high volatility, Rob Gosman would find his team in the office at 6 a.m., adjusting positions, calling counterparties, triple-checking risk. “You could see who was built for it,” he said. “It wasn’t the loudest. It was the ones who never took their foot off the gas.”

There’s no badge for stamina in trading. No trophy for checking prices over the weekend. But Dwight Anderson has seen how the compounding effect of effort pays off. “There’s a tremendous amount that can really be done in terms of the willingness to really put those hours in,” he said. For him, work ethic isn’t a character trait, it’s the ticket in.

Unlike passion or instinct, stamina can’t be faked. You’re either wired for the grind, or you aren’t.

7. Natural problem-solving orientation

Every trader has a plan, until the vessel gets delayed, the buyer defaults, or a government bans exports overnight.

This isn’t a profession of clean inputs and perfect models. It’s a world of tangled logistics, weather shocks, broken contracts, and vanishing arbitrage. The ones who survive, and thrive, are those who treat every problem as a puzzle.

Martijn Noordhoek, Commercial Director at Viterra, lives this daily. He described the mental game not as solving equations but as playing chess. “You need to come with energy to your job and enjoy solving the puzzle of a commodity,” he said. Success, in his view, comes down to mapping moves, spotting gaps, and staying two steps ahead.

For Tom Kopczynski, one of the cocoa industry’s sharpest minds, trading was tactile. He used to sketch trades out by hand, pen to paper. If the logic didn’t hold visually, he’d toss it. “You need to feel the trade,” he often said. That gut feel wasn’t intuition, it was the byproduct of hundreds of puzzles solved over decades.

At Glencore Agriculture, logic was the operating system. Chris Mahoney recalled how his team was trained to think in moves and countermoves, not slide decks. “It was a big game of logic,” he said. “You had to be fast and pragmatic.” There was no time for perfectionism, just action rooted in clarity.

8. Mathematical and analytical aptitude

In today’s commodity markets, gut instinct still matters, but only when it’s grounded in numbers.

The age of “feel-first” trading is over. Algorithms, quant funds, and real-time data flows have changed the game. Now, being numerically fluent isn’t a competitive edge, it’s the baseline.

Back in 2002, Dwight Anderson could run his fund with a cocoa analyst and a copper analyst. These days, he needs someone who can model how systematic trading behavior impacts market volatility. “It’s not just fundamentals anymore,” he said. “It’s algorithms, flows, and second-order effects.” He doesn’t just want analysts, he wants thinkers who can code, correlate, and anticipate.

That evolution shows up in hiring, too. Alex Sanfeliu no longer just looks for physical market experience. “Understanding mathematics is one of the most important criteria we’re looking for,” he said. His ideal trader? Someone who reads an S&D sheet and instinctively spots what’s off, not because it says so in the numbers, but because they’ve run the logic in their head a thousand times.

The smartest traders don’t forecast, they frame. Boudewijn van Vliet, a veteran of sugar and softs markets, sees trades not as single bets, but as relationships between instruments. “It’s about equilibrium,” he said. “It’s not just where prices go — it’s how the different parts of the curve interact.” Whether it’s time spreads, quality spreads, or substitution logic, the best decisions come from geometric clarity.

No one’s saying you need a math degree to thrive here.

But if numbers confuse you, or logic feels like a burden, this isn’t your arena.

9. Unshakeable integrity and character

In a world built on speed, risk, and profit, your word is your reputation.

When deals are made over the phone, cargoes are in motion, and millions ride on trust, integrity isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the ground beneath your feet.

One of the first filters Dwight Anderson applies when evaluating talent has nothing to do with market skill. “Is this person honest, in all aspects?” he asks. Over the years, he’s passed on technically brilliant candidates who failed that test. “I’ve had exceptional people in terms of market skill,” he said, “but they didn’t treat people well. That’s a dealbreaker.”

Transparency has also been the cornerstone of Rob Gosman’s trading career. “I’ve always gone with being direct and speaking the truth,” he said. “Let the cards fall where they may.” For him, it wasn’t just about principle, it was about efficiency. In high-volatility environments, deception creates friction. Truth keeps the machine running.

Edwin van Stipdonk, who scaled Interfood into a global force, sees character as something you don’t need to advertise, because it shows up everywhere. “If you don’t treat people well, you won’t last,” he said. Promotions, trust, and long-term relationships? All flow from consistency of behavior when nobody’s watching.

In commodity trading, fortunes can shift fast.

But trust travels even faster.

Keep learning from the best

Having the right traits is where it starts. But thriving in commodity trading also means constantly learning, adapting, and sharpening your edge.

That’s why we created The Strong Source Podcast to give you direct access to the thinking, experiences, and lessons of the world’s top traders, strategists, and CEOs.

The Commodity Podcast is available on all platforms Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Youtube Music, or Deezer.