Fastmarkets is an industry-leading price-reporting agency (PRA) and information provider for global commodities, providing price data, news, analytics and events for the agriculture, forest products, metals and mining and new-generation energy markets.
Fastmarkets' data is critical for customers seeking to understand and predict dynamic, sometimes opaque markets, enabling trading and risk management. Fastmarkets is a global business with a history dating back to 1865 and is built on trust and deep market knowledge. It has more than 700 employees spread across global locations in the UK, US, China, India, Singapore, Brazil, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland and beyond.
Job Description
As Global Head of Learning & Development, you’ll shape and deliver Fastmarkets’ worldwide L&D strategy to build a high-performance, future-ready workforce. This is a senior leadership role with real impact—driving initiatives that transform how our people learn, grow, and thrive. You’ll lead the design and execution of innovative programmes, from embedding our newly launched FM Academy (global learning platform) and introducing a new careers programme, to rolling out core and functional competencies and strengthening management and leadership development. Your mission: ensure every initiative aligns with business priorities, closes critical skills gaps, and delivers measurable results through data-driven insights. You’ll champion skills-based practices, optimise our learning portfolio for ROI, and harness technology and AI responsibly to create a culture of continuous learning across diverse, hybrid teams.
PRINCIPLE ACCOUNTABILITIES
- Set the vision: Define and execute a global L&D strategy aligned with organisational goals and future skills needs.
- Lead flagship initiatives: Embed FM Academy as the central hub for learning, develop structured learning pathways, and integrate the Talent Marketplace (career mobility platform) by April 2026.
- Career development: Design and implement a global early careers programme to accelerate internal mobility and progression.
- Build capability frameworks: Roll out core and functional competencies, integrating them into performance reviews, development conversations, and management programmes (Thrive).
- Leadership pipeline: Strengthen management and leadership development, launch a high-potential programme, and expand our mentorship marketplace.
- Measure impact: Use data-driven insights to build an L&D dashboard that tracks outcomes and links learning to capability, engagement, and performance.
- Drive culture: Foster continuous learning and innovation across a hybrid, multi-generational workforce.
- Tech & AI: Ensure responsible adoption of technology and AI in learning, maintaining compliance and ethical standards.
- Budget stewardship: Manage global L&D budgets effectively, prioritising initiatives that deliver measurable business impact.
- Blended learning: Curate experiences that combine education, exposure, and coaching; oversee internal and external coaching programmes and standards.
Key Interfaces
- CHRO & HR Leadership Team: Partner to align L&D with broader people strategy and integrate programmes with talent processes.
- Business Leaders & Managers: Collaborate to identify learning needs and embed solutions within teams.
- Finance: Manage budgets, track spend and demonstrate ROI; ensure full utilisation of apprenticeship levy and compliance with regulations.
Qualifications
We recruit talented, dynamic people with diverse backgrounds and experiences, all united by a belief in our mission to provide the world’s leading and most trusted price reporting, events, and intelligence service for the markets we serve. We’re proud to be an equal opportunities employer and are committed to creating a fully inclusive workplace, where everyone feels able to participate and contribute meaningfully.
If you are open-minded, curious, resilient, solutions-oriented and committed to promoting equality, then read on.
KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS
We are looking for an individual who is highly motivated, driven, and have a passion to be part of a fast-paced, successful team. Being a strong team player is also important as well as someone who is happy to work flexibly.
- Proven experience in senior L&D leadership within a global organisation.
- Expertise in enterprise-wide learning strategies and platforms.
- Strong understanding of competency frameworks, career development, and leadership programmes.
- Ability to leverage analytics for measuring effectiveness and ROI.
- Knowledge of emerging trends in learning tech, AI, and skills-based practices.
- Exceptional stakeholder management and influencing skills at executive level.
- Commercial acumen for budget and vendor management, including optimising spend and negotiating effectively.
- Strong communication and change management skills to drive adoption and engagement.
If you're excited about the role but your experience, skills or qualifications don't perfectly align, we encourage you to apply anyway.
Additional Information
Our Values
Fastmarkets people come from all different walks of life. It’s this mix of brilliant personalities, experiences and insights that gives us that warm, open, and friendly culture you can feel as soon as you meet us. But however wonderfully different we all are, there are six things we all have in common – and they form our Fastmarkets values.
Created by our own employees to reflect some of the personal traits that Fastmarkets people have, our values are key to what makes our culture unique. They reflect who each of us are and they're embedded in everything we do. Our values are:
- METRICS DRIVEN. We use insights to improve our customers’ experience and our business performance
- ACCOUNTABLE. We are accountable to ourselves and those we work with: we keep our promises and get things done
- GROWTH MINDSET. This value enables us to be nimble to the changing realities and operate with a sense of urgency
- INCLUSIVE. We are inclusive and respectful, celebrating each of us and giving everyone a deep sense of belonging with the desire to bring their best self to work every day.
- CUSTOMER CENTRIC. We are customer-centric in all that we do
- COLLABORATIVE. We are collaborative, able to work across teams and capitalise on the diversity of intellect, perspectives, and experiences.
We are committed to ensuring all candidates feel welcomed and supported. Should your application advance and you require accommodations for the interview process, please inform us so we can make the necessary arrangements.
You’ve read a little about us – now it’s over to you!
If you like what you’ve read so far and think you can see yourself as a Fastmarkets person, it’s time to fill in your application form. This form is an important part of the selection process: it’s used to determine whether or not you’ll be chosen to have an interview and acts as a basis for the questions we’ll ask you on the day.
It’s vital that you try to capture all the relevant information we have asked for on the form so we can get a good feel for who you are and why you’re great.
