Brett Stevenson
Managing Director
Brett Stevenson, who comes from a farming background (his family owned and managed grazing and cropping enterprises in the central west of NSW), gained a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Newcastle in 1982 and went on to establish a successful career in agri-commerce.
In 1995, Brett, with his wife, Jo, established AgRisk Management to provide a range of risk management services to Australian grain growers and wool producers.
In 1996, Brett and his team of expert analysts and advisers at AgRisk Management developed and established Market Check® Grain which has grown to become Australia’s most highly respected and widely used independent grain marketing program for grain farmers.
Since 1996, over 3,000 farmers have attended the Market Check Introductory Workshops and over 1,000 have participated in or become members of the Market Check Program.
In addition to his role as CEO of AgRisk Management and Market Check, Brett has served as: Chairman of the Sydney Futures Exchange’s Wool Futures Committee; a key member of the Securities Institute of Australia Futures Markets and Trading Training Task Force; a member of the Grain Trade Australia Compliance Committee; and a member of the ASX Water Derivatives Market Development Committee.
Prior to establishing AgRisk Management, Brett Stevenson was Manager - Group Risk for Wesfarmers Dalgety Ltd, responsible managing price risks for the company’s International Trading Division and Group Treasury. He also developed risk management services for Wesfarmers Dalgety’s wool division.
Brett has also worked as Associate Director, Futures for the Swiss Bank Corporation Australia (now UBS Australia), guiding general management of its Futures Broking division, and, before that as Australian Treasury Representative for Midland Bank (London, UK).
Adding real value
Brett Stevenson believes Australian commodity producers and buyers are ideally positioned to strengthen their positions and reap greater rewards in today’s deregulated markets.
“We might call cereals, pulses and oilseeds ‘commodities’,” Brett says.
“But, in a way, that term, ‘commodities’, short changes their potential perceived value,” he says.
“Increasingly, cereal, pulse and oilseed buyers are looking for and, indeed, demanding more and more tightly specified product to meet their requirements. This provides top growers with some amazing opportunities to ‘work’ the market to their advantage, while, at the same time, also advantaging discriminating buyers by giving them access to what they need.
“Our in-depth knowledge of and access to both local and international markets, combined with our proven grain marketing processes and procedures, means we can help both sides of the trading table get maximum value and rewards from their transactions,” Brett says.
“Even under tough seasonal conditions, there are tremendous opportunities for Market Check to help clients achieve results which, under yesterday’s monopolistic environment, were not possible,” he says.
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Tom Basnett
General Manager – Research & Market Operations
(Licensed analyst and advisor)
Tom Basnett has established himself as one of Australia’s foremost commodity marketing analysts and advisors.
Tom was born and grew up on the family sheep property near Gunning on the Southern Tablelands in NSW.
Following his graduation from the University of Sydney with a Bachelor of Agricultural Economics in 2001, Tom gained his PS146 accreditation through AFMA, allowing him to provide financial product and derivatives advice under a Financial Services Licence.
He also gained GTA (previously NACMA) accreditation in Trade Rules, Dispute Resolution and Grain Standards.
Tom is also completing a Masters of Agribusiness through the University of Queensland.
Before he joined AgRisk Management in March 2004, Tom worked for two years with Majuko Australia Pty Ltd based in Sydney where he assisted setting up the Australian office and was responsible for the company’s export execution into SE Asia.
Experienced commitment
In his role as General Manager – Research & Market Operations, Tom takes special responsibility for meeting grain buyers’ increasingly specific requirements for tightly specified cereals, pulses, and oilseeds.
With his background and experience, Tom understands how important it is for grain buyers to not only be able to access particular grains but to do so with full confidence that the parcels they bid for will meet their special requirements for processing and milling quality.
To underpin that confidence, Tom and his Market Check colleagues work closely with Australia’s leading, most innovative and committed cereal, pulse and oilseed growers to help them gain maximum value from providing local and overseas millers and processors with accurately described, tightly defined products, tailored to meet their requirements.
And, as a senior analyst and advisor, Tom also provides ‘first port of call’ hands-on counsel and advice to Market Check grower-members in south eastern and Central NSW.
He is also responsible for trade execution and systems development.
“Near enough,” says Tom, “is no longer good enough.”
For Tom, it is vital that growers and buyers regain and maintain real trust in and derive bankable value from what is becoming an increasingly well informed and ever more competitive market.
“Quality buyers deserve access to quality growers,” Tom says.
“My role is to bring them together in a spirit of trust and mutual respect.”
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Dean Smith
General Manager – Grower Services
(Licensed analyst and advisor)
Dean Smith hails from Birchip, in the heart of the Victorian Mallee. He knows grain production inside out.
Dean remains involved with the family farm having currently leased land in partnership with his parents company.
In 2000 he graduated from Deakin University, in Geelong, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. He then complemented this with a Graduate Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment through Kaplan Professional (FINSIA), and also PS146 accreditation through AFMA, allowing him to provide advice on financial products and derivatives.
For three years, Dean worked in the Grower Services division of AWB Limited where he was responsible for both client and database management.
From there he moved onwards and upwards, managing the operational aspects of AWB ‘Risk Assist’.
A year and a half later, Dean joined ANZ Investment Bank, as part of the Commodity and Currency options operations division with the primary focus being on the operational aspects of ANZ’s inventory finance products. Dean also provided operational support to ANZ’s OTC Energy division.
He joined AgRisk Management in April 2007 and, today, has primary responsibility for meeting the needs and requirements of Market Check’s fast growing collegiate of competitive, proactive, innovative cereal, pulse and oilseed growers.
Understanding and support
Dean Smith understands competitive, pro-active, innovative grain production, because, through his family, in the Victorian Mallee, that is exactly what he’s been doing for years.
That is why Dean, and his Market Check colleagues, appreciate the challenges and constraints under which growers, these days, have to operate.
And, that is also why he and his team members are also acutely mindful of and have become familiar with the wealth of opportunities awaiting growers prepared to pro-actively manage their grain marketing and work towards ensuring their harvested offerings are maintained and presented to their customers in the most favourable light.
When Dean Smith was young, growers like his parents had little if any control over how their grain was handled, presented or sold. Today, Dean believes growers have been given the opportunity to take back control. And, through Market Check, he is there to help them.
In the years before he joined AgRisk Management and since he joined and became part of Market Check, Dean acquired a wealth of experience and expertise — not so much in grain selling (“Anyone can ‘sell’ grain,” Dean says) — but in grain marketing, by:
- working with and taking advantage of market movements and trends;
- using innovative financial instruments as tools to take advantage of rises and buffer the impacts of falls as each season unfolds; and as the harvest rolls on, and the silos fill,
- working with his Market Check colleagues to identify informed and discriminating buyers who understand and are prepared to pay top dollar for grain they know they can trust.
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Sarah Donovan
Manager – Grower Services
(Licensed analyst and advisor)
Sarah Donovan is very much ‘from the land’. She knows and understands farming. And, even more importantly, she knows and understands the very real differences between passive ‘selling’ and proactive ‘marketing’.
“Those differences can mean thousands of extra dollars in the bank,” Sarah says.
Before she moved south to become involved in commodity marketing and logistics, Sarah gained a wealth of hands-on farming and farm management experience working on her family’s grain and beef fattening operations at Duaringa, west of Rockhampton in Central Queensland.
In 2002 Sarah gained a Bachelors Degree in Applied Science (Agronomy) from the University of Queensland and is currently completing a Finsia Post Graduate Diploma of Applied Finance.
While working towards obtaining her degree externally, she spent 6 years working on and co-managing significant elements of her family’s grain and cattle properties.
From 1998 to 2003, she co-managed the family’s 3,000 head cattle feedlot: feeding out; formulating rations; and managing feed bunkers, environmental compliance, record and data collection and analysis; and commodity stock control.
In early 2003 Sarah moved south, to Melbourne, to work with AWB Ltd in its Grower Services Centre and, later, in AWB’s Domestic Trade and Logistics Division.
Then, from 2004 to 2008 she worked for Ecom Commodities and its subsidiary, Agrinational, as its Logistics and Shipping Manager:
- coordinating the execution of domestic grain contracts into stockfeed/flour mills, other end users and containerisation facilities;
- facilitating the containerisation and export of various commodities into south-east Asia and the Middle East; and
- liaising with rail companies to coordinate rail schedules to execute multiple containerisation programs throughout Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia.
Throughout 2008 and early 2009 Sarah worked for GrainCorp and it’s subsidiary, Hunter Grain Pty Ltd, as the company’s Trade Support Manager:
- managing back office operations
- providing risk management and internal control functions;
- undertaking and coordinating risk reporting and analysis;
- handling the transactional management of all financially traded instruments; and
- ensure compliance with the company’s Trading Risk Management Policy.
With AgRisk Management, Sarah provides hands on marketing advice and analysis for wheat, sorghum, chickpea, maize, and barley grain growers, primarily in Queensland and northern NSW, but also other parts of Australia.
“More and more growers are coming to realise the potential to not just protect their returns but to actually gain major premiums by pro-actively managing their marketing based on Market Check’s analysis and professional advice,” Sarah says.
Alex Campbell
Trade Support Assistant
Alex Campbell joined AgRisk Management as its new Trade Support Assistant towards the end of 2009.
Working alongside Tom Basnett and other members of the Market Check team, Alex assists in placing and executing grain trades as well as ensuring Members and other clients are kept up to date on and fully informed about latest futures and physical commodity market movements.
Since completing his HSC in 2004, Alex has worked in hardware and nursery retailing and also in the hospitality industry.
Before embarking studies towards a Bachelor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Sydney in 2006, Alex also spent a year working with the Australian Agricultural Company’s Rockhampton Downs Station in the Northern Territory where he assisted in the training of new staff, managed and maintained the station’s vast network of bores, and played a leading role in managing stock and stocking logistics and placements. He also studied for and gained his Certificate II Agriculture, specialising in beef production.
In his final year at university, Alex is majoring in Economics and Agricultural Economics which he considers essential platforms for his chosen career in agricultural commodities, agribusiness and financial management.
Alex has long held a strong belief in the importance of customer service and team work and is “ … committed to providing Market Check clients with support, as and when they need it, helping them to achieve their commodity marketing goals.”
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Jo Stevenson
Financial Controller and Administration Manager
Jo Stevenson is co-owner of AgRisk Management with her husband, Brett, and takes special responsibility for all financial and administration functions within the business.
Before she and Brett met up and joined forces, Jo acquired a range of qualifications and gained significant experience in both the commercial sector and also in early childhood education; an area in which she did her early professional training (Diploma of Teaching at UTS).
She must have know something about the demands to be placed on her in the future, because while she worked on her teaching diploma, she also studied business administration.
Along the way, Jo Stevenson gained significant experience in commercial sales and marketing as well as commercial administration, both in Australia (from 1985 to 1990 with commercial office furniture and interior design company, Arthur Stutchbury) and in the UK (in 1987, with Facility Group). She also spent a year, in 1984, as a pre-school teacher.
Jo has managed the financial and office administration of AgRisk Management since its inception, in 1994.
Efficiency and security
“In our experience, making sure the financial and accounting systems and processes are in place and on track plays a major role in developing strong and effective relationships with our clients,” Jo says.
“We tend to run our accounts section a bit like the people who work backstage in a theatre: beavering away behind the scenes, making sure the business runs smoothly and enabling our stars to perform to their best for and on-behalf of our highly valued clients.
“Clients, too, seem to value our friendly efficiency and feel we provide an added level and layer of risk management and, therefore, security,” she says.
Julie Paine
Admin Support Manager
Julie Paine has a Bachelor of Business (Human Resource Management/Marketing) from Monash University in Melbourne.
She worked for the Australian Customs Service for 13 years, in commercial imports and exports, based in Melbourne and for two years at the Customs Office in Whyalla, South Australia.
In 1997 Julie and her husband moved to San Francisco for two years, where she undertook volunteer work at the local hospital, studied and gave birth to their first of two children.
Since moving to Sydney with her husband and family, Julie has combined working part time as AgRisk Management’s Administration Support Manager with raising her family and volunteering at her children’s school.
Julie has also been a partner in a finger lime farming operation at Wollongbar, on the NSW far north coast.
For AgRisk Management, Julie is involved in the management of client and market-related data, arranging and organising Market Check seminars and road shows, and assisting in account management.
“It’s all good fun, especially with such a great team and great clients to work with, “ Julie says.