About the Authors
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Mads Frank Markussen
Mads Frank Markussen is a former freight trader and current Head of Freight Research and FFA at Navi Merchants and CM Navigator, both part of the Copenhagen Merchants Group. He has more than a decade of trading experience in dry bulk shipping and commodity markets, having previously worked as a freight trader at firms such as DS NORDEN and Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC). His work focuses on the intersection of freight markets and agricultural commodity trading, with particular emphasis on price formation, basis trading, and supply chain optimisation.
Mads Frank is closely involved in the development of digital trading tools, notably through CM Navigator, a platform combining trade flows, freight modelling, and market analytics. His professional work emphasises translating complex freight dynamics into actionable economic frameworks, enabling commodity traders to incorporate freight more directly into decision-making.
Liping Jiang
Liping Jiang is an Associate Professor at Copenhagen Business School (CBS), where she specialises in shipping economics, maritime transportation and supply chain management. Her research focuses on the fundamentals and evolution of shipping markets, with particular emphasis on freight rate dynamics, shipping investment, maritime sustainability and the interaction between shipping operations and global trade.
Jiang’s academic work combines economic theory, quantitative modelling and industry practices to analyse how shipping markets respond to changing economic, regulatory and geopolitical conditions. By integrating insights from economics, operations management and data analytics, she seeks to develop a deeper understanding of how the shipping market facilitates global trade while adapting to emerging challenges such as decarbonisation and supply chain disruptions. Her work aims to support both academic inquiry and applied decision-making in shipping and commodity trading.
Acknowledgements
A special thank you to Kathrine Sofie Rasmussen for her contribution to the conceptual framework and data modelling behind the Value at Risk section.
We are also grateful to Marcus Christian Larsen and Anders Winther Jensen, whose questions helped clarify which topics may appear obvious to experienced practitioners, but remain far from obvious to aspiring juniors.