Sumitomo Corporation

Switzerland

Interacid Trading S.A.

What are your main responsibilities?: Interacid Trading Group (among friends ITSA) is adding value by the reliable off-take and marketing of sulphuric acid and sulphur, world-wide, thanks to its expertise and unique 250’000 MT own tank farm capacity and additional rented space, managed by its own subsidiaries in Australia (Melbourne and Gladstone), Chile (Santiago, Mejillones and Punta-Patache) and the USA (Tampa). ITSA also has a powerful network of long-term exclusive agents, who cover customer needs in other markets.
ITSA Group's main suppliers are base metal smelters or Sulphur burners for the S-Acid and crude oil/gas refineries for the Sulphur itself on the off-take side. On the marketing side the base is very large, with the main being mining, fertilizers and other industries.
As the CFO, I am one of the members of the group general management. My responsibilities cover finance, accounting, business execution (in Lausanne), but also HR, IT and many other areas. It's an exciting and never boring job.
ITSA wants to serve its stakeholder needs reliably and with 1st class service.

View from a chalet in the Swiss Prealps

Which parts of your work do you find the most satisfying?: We have colleagues from the 5 continents. With this we have lots of different needs, ideas and cultures, of course and we have to genuinely find means to put all those different valuable ways to look at things together, to satisfy at best all. I believe that by doing so we shall become stronger as a company to reinforce trust, pride and satisfaction among our stakeholders. This will allow us to develop further.
In short, my reply would be: Have the chance to actively contribute to shaping our group's future, to allow us to develop further as a company, group and human.

We practice casual Fridays (in Lausanne)

What are some of the difficulties of your job?: I already mentioned the multicultural environment, which however is also rich. In another area, I would a recent change, whereby the prices of our commodities started to show unprecedented price swings, which required the development of new risk-management tools. To develop such tools was really tough, but which made us more mature. Now are back on safe land again and with all our means.

With ITSA Group colleagues from Japan, USA, Chile and colleagues from SC Tokyo Inorganic Chemicals