People of Sucafina: Meet Conor Campbell 

Conor is originally from Northern Ireland. He arrived in Bogota in 2009 for work and his roles in the commodities sector took him to Barranquilla, then London, then back to Colombia with his family in 2018. He joined Sucafina and, almost simultaneously, invested in a coffee farm just outside Bogota. Most people start with one role in coffee. Conor started with two: both farmer and finance.

1. Can you tell us about your career journey and what led you to Sucafina?
I started my career in the Channel Islands, in audit, and from there I made the jump to Colombia with a Big 4 firm. After four years in Bogota, my wife and I moved to the Caribbean coast to work for a thermal coal company which gave me a strong foundation in commodities and a first-hand look at how companies work in the real world. For family reasons, we decided to move back to the UK where I worked for a major agricultural commodities player and this is where I got my first exposure to coffee (and haven’t looked back since!). When it was time to come back to Colombia, Sucafina had the opening for a Finance Manager and the rest as they say is history.  What made it interesting from the start was that we had also bought in a coffee farm, so I was living both sides of it.

2. What has it been like stepping into the MD role?
Great. The team has been very supportive. Everyone is driven and I am very positive. Although I will say that as Finance Manager I thought I had a solid understanding of the business, but becoming MD showed me that I clearly did not. You start seeing logistics, quality and trading up close and not just from one viewpoint (i.e. Finance). This has been the most challenging but also the most rewarding part of the transition.

3. What's the most valuable lesson you've learned at Sucafina?
Raise your hand and ask questions. A lot of people want to plough through and resolve things themselves or don’t want people to know that they don’t understand. But raising your hand means you get different perspectives: you get help but more importantly it generates trust within the team. In my case, my background is in finance. Yes, I understand trading, but I am not a trader and I recognize that, so I end up asking the trading team questions every day. If I didn’t do that, I’d be lost.

4. What advice would you give to someone starting out in coffee?
Leave the office and get out and about. I was saying to someone just recently – a finance person – who asked how he could get closer to the business. I said: take a car, go with the logistics person, drive from the warehouse to the port. Make the same journey the coffee makes. Because coffee is physical. It grows, it transforms, it moves. And if you do not know where your coffee is and the challenges it faces on the way,  then you won’t be able to ask the right questions: why did the milling costs double this month? Why did we have delays from Port A and not Port B? You must understand the nuts and bolts and not just see it as a theoretical exercise.

5. What inspires you, in your work and beyond?
At Sucafina our purpose is creating opportunities to change lives and I have the good fortune to see that every day through the team and their development. I’ve seen people grow within their current roles, move countries and take on challenges in other areas. From Finance we saw Kelly Oviedo and Alejandra Melendez move to our European offices, we’ve seen Gabriela Manjarres take a step up from Logistics Execution to Specialty coffee trading and then Nour Boukhoud from Lebanon moving in the opposite direction to Colombia. For me this is the best part of my role.

6. What's one thing people might be surprised to learn about you?
For the first four years I lived in Colombia, I was a football referee in the third division, which in Colombia sits just below the professional leagues, competitive under-20s level. So I spent my weekends running around a football pitch for fun! I stopped refereeing when I moved to Barranquilla.  

7. What's your favorite way to drink coffee right now?
Filter. For me it’s the fastest way to get a decent cup.

8. Morning person or night owl?
I like to wake up early, because once I’m up, the brain is wired and ready to go. The problem is getting out of bed, as I’m the person who sets the alarm at 05.10, 05.15, 05.20…