Principal Advisor - Carbon

Why explore

• Work on Rio Tinto’s top Commercial priorities in Integrated Trading

• Drive meaningful strategies for the business

• Gain exposure across both Commercial and Product Group leadership

• Based in Singapore, a global commercial hub for Rio Tinto

About the role

We are looking for a Principal Advisor - Carbon Portfolio & Execution to support the growth and control of the Carbon Trading Team’s central carbon books. The role will lead the portfolio management and operating discipline across Rio Tinto’s carbon positions, ensuring carbon commitments, contracts, delivery obligations, registries, inventory, systems, costs and internal workflows are managed accurately and commercially. The role will support all CTT books, including Australian Compliance, International Compliance, Voluntary and Customer Carbon Solutions.

This is a commercially focused execution role, not a pure project management role. The successful candidate will bring strong commodity trading operations, commercial execution, contract management and stakeholder management capability, with the ability to grow into selected market-facing activity over time. Carbon market experience is preferred, but not essential where the candidate has strong trading lifecycle, commercial agreements and execution experience.

The Carbon Trading Team owns the central carbon books and carbon credit market execution for Rio Tinto, with shared controls, systems and governance across Australian Compliance, International Compliance, Voluntary and Customer Carbon Solutions. These books require active management of sourcing, inventory, contracts, registries, settlements, retirements, transfers, recharges, reporting, governance and stakeholder interfaces.

Reporting to the GM Integrated Trading, you will:

• Act as the day-to-day control point for portfolio visibility, trade lifecycle coordination, contract execution and internal stakeholder alignment. The role will support a scalable carbon trading business by ensuring controlled execution, accurate systems, clear documentation and reliable portfolio reporting.

• Work closely with Carbon Trading, Trading Operations, GCBO, Controllers, Finance, Legal, Tax, Treasury, Risk, Product Groups and Energy & Climate. It will also support external counterparty engagement where required, particularly around contract execution, delivery obligations, documentation, operational readiness and commercial follow-through.

• Over time, the role is expected to build capability to support and lead selected market-facing commercial activities, including transaction structuring, commercial agreement development, counterparty engagement and execution of approved carbon market opportunities.

Portfolio and book management

• Maintain a consolidated view of CTT carbon positions, contracted commitments, delivery obligations, inventory, transfers, retirements, recharges and known exposures across all central carbon books.

• Support accurate portfolio management across Australian Compliance, International Compliance, Voluntary and Customer Carbon Solutions, including demand signals, contracted supply, delivery timing and cost allocation.

• Ensure book positions are accurately captured, maintained and reconciled across relevant systems, registers, registries and internal reporting tools.

• Coordinate portfolio workflows linked to retirements, transfers, divestments, close-outs, ROFRs, delivery milestones and internal allocation decisions.

• Support clear visibility of portfolio value, delivery risk, financial impact and stakeholder implications.

Trade lifecycle, process and controls

• Act as the CTT business owner for trade lifecycle processes, ensuring clear hand-offs with Trading Operations, GCBO, Commercial Services, Finance, Legal and other support functions.

• Define, document and improve CTT processes for trade entry, contract capture, delivery tracking, registry movement, payment, settlement, recharge, retirement and close-out.

• Support the controlled growth of the carbon trading business by identifying process gaps, control issues and opportunities for simplification.

• Ensure systems and process requirements are clearly articulated for Fusion, registries, dashboards, reporting tools and other relevant platforms.

• Drive practical improvements that strengthen auditability, reduce key-person dependency and improve execution discipline.

Contract and commercial execution

• Manage the execution discipline for carbon-related contracts, confirmations, commercial schedules, delivery notices, amendments, milestones and counterparty obligations.

• Assist in developing commercial term sheets, review agreement structures and support internal review of MSAs, confirmations and bespoke contract terms.

• Ensure key commercial terms are accurately reflected in internal systems, approval materials, portfolio registers and reporting.

• Support transaction structuring by identifying execution issues, delivery risk, settlement implications, cost impacts, approval requirements and operational constraints.

• Coordinate internal inputs across Legal, Finance, Tax, Treasury, Risk and Commercial Services to enable timely and controlled transaction execution.

Stakeholder leadership and internal coordination

• Lead day-to-day internal coordination across Product Groups, Energy & Climate, Finance, Legal, CSP, Risk, Treasury, Trading Operations, GCBO and Commercial Services.

• Articulate CTT’s commercial position, portfolio status, execution risks and financial impacts clearly to internal stakeholders.

• Support governance papers, approval notes, portfolio updates, reporting packs and senior stakeholder briefings.

• Help convert commercial strategy into practical execution plans, with clear owners, timelines, dependencies and escalation points.

• Build trusted internal relationships that allow CTT to operate as a controlled, commercially credible central carbon desk.

Commercial and market-facing development

• Support selected external engagement with brokers, project developers, trading counterparties, registries, exchanges and other carbon market participants.

• Build capability to support and, over time, lead selected market-facing transactions or workstreams within approved mandates.

• Support commercial analysis of carbon market opportunities across ACCUs, SMCs, EUAs, CBAM, WCI/CCOs, voluntary units and customer carbon solutions where relevant.

• Contribute to the development of practical transaction structures that balance value, risk, timing, governance and operational feasibility.

• Maintain awareness of relevant carbon market, regulatory and methodology developments that could affect portfolio management or execution.

About you

To be successfully considered for this role, you will have:

• Relevant Degree qualifications.

• Strong experience in commodity trading operations, commercial execution, trade lifecycle management, portfolio management, contract management or a related commercial role.

• Good understanding of physical and/or financial trading processes across front office, middle office and back office.

• Experience supporting or managing commercial agreements, confirmations, contract schedules, transaction documentation or structured commercial arrangements.

• Strong commercial acumen, with the ability to understand transaction economics, delivery risk, settlement mechanics, cost impacts, controls and approval requirements.

• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to lead internal coordination across Legal, Finance, Tax, Treasury, Risk, Operations and commercial teams.

• Highly structured and organised, with the ability to manage multiple workstreams, dependencies, deliverables and senior stakeholder expectations.

• Strong written communication skills, with the ability to prepare clear commercial summaries, approval materials, process notes and portfolio updates.

• Ability to work in ambiguity and build scalable processes without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

It will also be beneficial if you have:

• Carbon market experience across one or more of Australian Safeguard, ACCUs, SMCs, EUAs, EU ETS, CBAM, WCI/CCOs or voluntary carbon markets.

• Exposure to environmental products, energy markets, commodities, trading houses, brokers, project developers, exchanges or registries.

• Experience with CTRM platforms, Fusion, SAP, Power BI, JIRA, registry systems or equivalent trading/process tools.

• Experience working with Legal on MSAs, confirmations, commercial schedules, term sheets or bespoke contract terms.

• Exposure to market-facing commercial activity, including counterparty engagement, transaction structuring, deal execution or origination support.

• Understanding of portfolio reporting, controls, governance, auditability or financial risk management.

What we offer

Be recognised for your contribution, your thinking and your hard work, and go home knowing you’ve helped the world progress.

• A work environment where safety is always the number one priority

• A competitive salary package with annual cash incentive awards for eligible employees

• Career development & education assistance to further your ambitions

• Access top tier family-friendly health and medical programs and pension plan

• Wellbeing benefits

• Generous Rio Tinto employee share program

• Employee Assistance Program

• Ongoing individual wellbeing support for you and your family for personal and professional matter

• Leave for all of life’s reasons (vacation/annual, paid parental, sick leave)

Where you will be working

Our Commercial function at Rio Tinto connects our product groups, customers and suppliers from mine to market. We bring together Sales & Marketing and Trading (Sell), Global Procurement (Buy), and Marine & Logistics (Move) to buy, sell and move the materials the world needs, by partnering across the value chain to optimise outcomes for our customers and the Group. Headquartered in our global Commercial hub in Singapore, and with a strong presence in Chicago, Frankfurt, Antwerp and across Asia in Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo and Seoul, we work as one team to deliver customer centric value, safely and sustainably.

Work at the heart of our global Commercial hub in Singapore, partnering cross‑functionally across Buy, Sell and Move to shape strategy and deliver mine‑to‑market value around the world.

Application Deadline: 12 August 2026 (Rio Tinto reserves the right to remove job postings prior to the stated closing date)

Please note, in order to be successfully considered for this role you must complete all pre-screening questions.

Rio Tinto does not accept unsolicited CVs or candidate profiles from recruiters or employment agencies. Rio Tinto will not consider or agree to payment of any referral compensation or recruiter fee relating to unsolicited CVs or candidate profiles. Rio Tinto reserves the right to hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the recruiter or agency. Any unsolicited CVs or candidate profiles, including those submitted to hiring managers, are deemed to be the property of Rio Tinto.” 

About Rio Tinto
 

Rio Tinto is a leading global mining and materials company. We operate in 35 countries where we produce iron ore, copper, aluminium, critical minerals, and other materials needed for the global energy transition and for people, communities, and nations to thrive.
 

We have been mining for 150 years and operate with knowledge built up across generations and continents. Our purpose is finding better ways to provide the materials the world needs – striving for innovation and continuous improvement to produce materials with low emissions and to the right environmental, social and governance standards. But we can’t do it on our own, so we’re focused on creating partnerships to solve problems, create win-win situations and meet opportunities.

Respect and Inclusion

At Rio Tinto, we particularly welcome and encourage applications from Indigenous Peoples, women, the LGBTQIA+ community, mature workers, people with disabilities and people from different cultural backgrounds.

We are committed to an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable to be themselves. We want our people to feel that all voices are heard, all cultures respected and that a variety of perspectives are not only welcome – they are essential to our success. We treat each other fairly and with dignity regardless of race, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, religion, age, sexual orientation or anything else that makes us different.