As a global company, ED&F Man Cotton has an experienced leadership team with a broad international outlook and global trading expertise. Here you can learn about some of the people guiding Cotton’s work.
Colin Iles
Colin joined ED&F Man in the second half of 2025, taking up the position of Managing Director (Cotton) to spearhead the creation of a new cotton trading desk alongside the company’s legacy commodities.
Prior to joining ED&F Man, Colin had been a member of Glencore Agriculture’s (thereafter Viterra’s) executive management committee with specific responsibility for its cotton and sugar trading operations, including a large asset footprint in sugar cane farming and sugar milling.
Colin began his career with Cargill where he gained experience across a range of commodities and had the opportunity to work in a number of senior management roles in the UK, South Africa, USA and Switzerland before leaving to join Glencore Agriculture in The Netherlands.
Colin is a strong advocate for the cotton industry having served on the boards of all of the main industry associations and sitting on both the ICE Cotton Committee and the cross-commodity ICE Risk Advisory Working Group.
Andrew Kelley
Andrew joined ED&F Man Cotton in June 2025 as Director and Global Head of Physical Trading based in Amsterdam.
With nearly 30 years of trading experience, he started his career with Ralli Brothers & Coney, a division of Cargill PLC in Liverpool, UK in 1997.
His first senior trading role with Cargill was managing the West African origination alongside responsibility at destination for several key sales markets including Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan & China.
Having worked at Cargill for more than 17 years he continued his career with BTG Pactual Commodities (ECTP) in 2014, leading the physical cotton trading team from London.
After five years in London, Andrew joined Glencore Agriculture in Rotterdam (thereafter Viterra) working as the Head of Physical Trading until mid-2025 when he accepted an offer to join ED&F Man.
He has twice served on the board of directors of the International Cotton Association, is an active ICA arbitrator and participates as a committee member of various trade associations around the world.
Josh Taylor
Josh joined ED&F Man Cotton in June 2025 as Director and Head of Cotton Trading. He previously spent 13 years at Viterra (formerly Glencore), where he began his career on the graduate programme. During his tenure, he worked across multiple commodities and geographies, with his final role managing the cotton proprietary trading team.
Beyond the trading floor, he is a proponent for industry standards, serving on the Board of Directors for the International Cotton Association (ICA) and contributing to various global trade committees
