The results of the elections for the ICA’s new leadership team were announced at our Annual General Meeting, which took place during our recent San Francisco trade event on 31 October 2015.
Mr Jean-Marc Derossis (Head of Physical Cotton Trading, BTG Pactual Commodities, UK) takes on the role of ICA President. Jean-Marc will be supported by Mr Jürg Reinhart (Chairman, Paul Reinhart AG, Switzerland) as First Vice President and Mr Salman Ispahani (Managing Director, Pahartali Textiles) as Second Vice President.
New to the board are Mr Bill Ballenden (General Manager, Louis Dreyfus Commodities Suisse), Mr Carl Peltzer (Trader – Cargill Cotton Ltd, UK), Mr Raymond Faus (CEO, Omnicotton Inc, USA), Mr Alex Hsu (Managing Director, Formosa Trading Co Ltd, Taiwan), Mr Alexandre Lins (Managing Director, Laferlins Ltda, Brazil) and Dr Joon Kim (Chairman, Spinners & Weavers Association of Korea, South Korea).
On accepting the role of President, Jean-Marc thanked his co-colleagues at the ICA, especially his predecessor, former President, Jordan Lea, who he said was one of the finest gentlemen he had ever met. He also spoke passionately about his stance on trading with defaulters:
“The Association has been taking a very benign and patient approach to those members that were found out to have traded with defaulters…But regretfully, it seems that the benign approach isn’t working. On the contrary, the problem is getting worse for a simple reason: the cotton market has been very un-volatile in the past couple of years, which means that defaults are few and far between. Arbitrations inherited from the 2010/11 season are drawing to a close. Merchants find it more difficult to generate margins. So the temptation is great to cut corners. The ICA principles are NOT optional – they are permanent. Either one is prepared to abide by them at all times, or one shouldn’t be a member of the ICA at all.
“We cannot stop people buying from or selling to defaulters. But we can and we will stop members from doing so. Keeping up appearances in front of the cotton world whilst making a living out of dealing with defaulters behind the scenes is over. We just cannot afford to tolerate this sort of behaviour anymore because it ruins the credibility of the association. Our Association still needs to make major progress in enforcing awards and ensuring that defaulting comes at a price that is too high to bear. I will spend the next year putting all my energy to bring us closer to these goals.”
Born in Grenoble in the French Alps, Jean-Marc is a graduate of the EDHEC Business School, where he majored in futures and options markets. He began his cotton career in Liverpool as a trader and then managing director at Plexus Cotton. In 2014 Jean-Marc joined BTG Pactual Commodities as Head of Physical Cotton Trading. He was appointed to the ICA Board in 2004 and now lives in London with his wife Maura and their son Louis-Antoine.
Now comprising 24 members, the new board line-up continues to represent the ICA’s global membership across all sectors of the supply chain and builds on its commitment to engage the entire global cotton community.
