Shaped and mentored by a great generation of Cargill Inc. (Cargill.com) leaders, I will forever be indebted to my 18 years in the "Mother Ship" and to the people who coached me and worked with me.One is lucky enough to work in/on a startup in one's career; two is a heavenly blessing and I have been blessed.Starting my career in Cargill Egypt, a startup at the time, for the next 18 years, myself and a group of exceptional young Egyptians took the business to a successful and profitable multi billion USD commodity trading and distribution business. Along the journey, we added to 2 assets in port logistics and oil seed processing.Risk Management is THE HEART of Commodity Trading and Distribution. Exposure to market price, origin, sea freight, exchange rate, interest rate, local logistics, credit risks in a generic commodity constitutes the ultimate experience in Risk Management. Losing money is imminent and can't be avoided; however, how much you lose is the difference between success and bankruptcy. Aggregating your annual PNL eventually gets you in the black when you master Risk Management.Turning the page in 2012 to Establish a 1 Billion USD Greenfield, Agro-Industrial project, Canal Sugar, was another blessing.Dealing with the government in the most informal of sectors, Agriculture, was a unique, once in a lifetime experience.Finding the proper desert plot of 77k HA (182k Acres), the size of the Kingdom of Bahrain and larger than Singapore was a well thought out process. Acquiring it from the government with clear and balanced terms took 6 years of lobbying.Securing ground water rights and ensuring sustainability of the aquifer and negating possible adverse effects on surrounding farmers was a Mission Impossible type of of Mission. We did it. A wonderful team of colleagues accepted the challenges and got to finish line.The prize of a well thought out Green Field Project management was the awarding of USD 700 Million in long term debt. Of which USD 200 Million were sourced from international institutions like the German Export Credit Agency Euler Hermes, now Allianz Trade (allianz-trade.com) and the Saudi Fund for Development SFD (sfd.gov.sa). Lead arranger was Egypt's prominent financial institution, National Bank of Egypt (NBE.com) and security agent was QNB AlAhli (qnbalahli.com).A long journey full of excitement, achievements. Downturns were an essential part of the journey.Best of all, one got to know an amazing group of human beings who took the ride to what seemed impossible with passion and determination.