Collaboration is the first of our ECOM Group values we explore in our series of Values focus months. Within this article, Jamie Marler, Founder and Managing Director of Keynote Coffee highlights how collaboration is at the centre of their work and shares how Keynote’s partnership and teamwork within and across ECOM advance shared business goals.  

Collaboration from the outset 

After almost a decade at sister company, Mercanta, Jamie founded Keynote Coffee in 2021, focusing on sourcing specialty coffees on a commercial scale. Jamie and his team were deliberate about collaboration from the outset, working alongside and not competing with other ECOM subsidiary companies, including Mercanta in the UK and Supremo in Belgium. To this day, they regularly meet and share clients, intel, market opportunities and warnings for their mutual benefit and success. Furthermore, Keynote buys the vast majority of their specialty coffee from ECOM’s partners at origin and works within the Group’s sustainability framework.  

Collaboration keeps Keynote nimble 

Working collectively with ECOM, means that Keynote’s team can remain nimble, whilst maintaining the best outcomes for their business and customers. Keynote works with ECOM’s departments to support their business including legal and HR departments as well as partnering with the Finance Team and the central coffee shipping desk in Vietnam to support their trading activities as there is key knowledge that can be used to compliment our work. This partnering affords Keynote 24-hour origin export operations, ECOM’s renown global sustainability framework, and world leading finance and logistics solutions. The impact of this collaboration results in efficiency, cost savings and knowledge on the market. 

Coffee networking across ECOM 

Keynote fits within the European coffee team and thus they work together with all ECOM coffee trading desks and businesses in the UK and Europe. Jamie is also part of the Nexco, an EXCO led initiative to develop connectivity across the generations of coffee leadership and the first cohort of ECOM University Advanced, which connects senior leaders across all ECOM’s global commodities and operations. This promotes communication flow and alignment and prevents duplication across our businesses.  

Full steam ahead 

Keynote Coffee is a key example of the collaboration within the ECOM Group. By focusing on clear communication and blending collective strengths expertise has allowed them as a company to achieve greater success together. 

"We are ECOM. We are part of one of the largest trading companies in the world. That’s how we exist. That’s how we can provide the service we do." - Jamie Marler.