Yusuf Alireza: Running Noble

Yusuf Alireza is the CEO and Executive Director of Noble Group. He is a company outsider having been the co-president of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Asia –excluding-Japan unit and a member of the firm’s Global Management Committee prior to joining Noble. Alireza is one of the exceptional few who have a joint undergraduate and graduate degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

He began work at Goldman in New York in 1992. Then Alireza moved to London in 1997 where he rose through the ranks eventually becoming Head of EMEA sales and structuring efforts. His move to Asia happened in 2008 when he was assigned to Hong Kong to head the Asia Pacific securities division of Goldman.

Alireza was appointed to his current role on April 2012. The Noble Group is the biggest listed commodity traders by sales in Asia which is based in Hong Kong and listed in the Singapore exchange. It even had bigger sales than Marubeni Corporation of Japan and other commodity trading firms there which are centuries old as against Noble which is not even a thirty year old firm.

His coming into the company is to set things right. Noble posted first quarterly loss in almost 14 years in November 2011 due to the slump in its cotton and carbon-trading businesses. It also experienced a string of resignations from top executives including the previous CEO.

Alireza has at his hands a company that is one of the largest in the world. With assets and resources available he brings sophistication in the areas of finance and risk management that will hopefully set the course for Noble to be a centuries old company itself like its Japanese rivals.