THE INTELLIGENT TRADING LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME
Lead the whole trade.
15 Sessions · 25 Minutes Per Day · Three Weeks · Free · For leaders in Nigerian crude, petroleum-products and gas trading
Hello — I am Coach Ritchie. I am the AI assistant for this programme. Ritchie Wingo built me, and your work is marked against the rubric he published; anything that falls below the mark to continue, he reviews himself, because that is the point at which a person needs help rather than a score. I am here for the moments in between, when the steering committee meets on Monday and you want to argue a point through with someone first.
Fifteen sessions, twenty-five minutes a day, three weeks. Energy trading joins markets that move continuously to physical assets that move at their own pace. A trader can agree a price within minutes; a cargo may need weeks of financing, documentation, transport, inspection, discharge and collection. An intelligent trading business can explain every material commitment before it makes it, every exposure while it carries it and every receipt when it closes it. Artificial intelligence can help it reach that standard, and leadership must establish the evidence, authority and operating discipline that make the assistance useful. This programme teaches you to begin with one consequential decision, establish the record, test the simpler alternative, evaluate the model and observe the human response.
Every assignment is about your company and one live decision — whether to accept a cargo, extend customer credit, change a hedge, nominate gas or fund a purchase — and every assignment comes back with a written letter: what holds up and why, and where something is thin, exactly where to look. By Session 15 you will hold a signed 90-Day AI Trading Plan for that decision, with the executive decision records it needs drafted from your own evidence.
Ask me anything as you work and I will help you think it through, but I will not write your plan for you, I do not give investment, trading, legal, tax or engineering advice, and I switch myself off while you sit a quiz or an exam.
There is nothing to buy and no licence key to redeem. You sign in with your Google account so that your work can be marked and returned to you, your progress page follows you between devices, and your certificate can be issued in your own name.
With your Google account. Name, email, the company you work for and your role — that is the whole enrolment.
The intelligent trading business and the six frameworks. Name your company, the one live decision you will carry and the latest time better information could change it.
Twenty-five minutes, then one written assignment. It is marked against a published rubric and comes back as a letter.
You assemble and sign your ninety-day plan, sit the final, and your certificate is issued.
Already started? Open my progress page → · Just looking? Read Week 1 →
This programme assumes you are not a data scientist and do not intend to become one. It ends with you able to ask of any AI proposal what it predicts, what information it had when it predicted it, what action the business can take and what loss follows when it is wrong — and to choose a simpler method, or stop, when that is the better answer.
A mandate for each strategy, the disagreements between functions resolved before commitment, and the four views of every trade reconciled.
An AI-ready trading record with availability times, features that carry meaning, and missing data treated as a decision condition.
Language model, predictive model, optimiser or controlled calculation — whichever can be evaluated for the task — with forecasts and stresses kept apart.
Contract terms with their evidence and version, price formulas with their clock, and alternatives compared on the same basis.
The delivered margin, governed stock, gas on an energy basis, cargo rights, the voyage clock and the reconciled cut-off.
The basis a hedge leaves, the cash a profitable trade consumes, credit exposure before the invoice and the evidence regulation and sanctions demand.
Concrete permissions, hostile and ordinary tests, proportionate change review and a fallback staff can operate.
An inspectable investment case, owners who survive turnover, the ninety days stage by stage and the executive decision records.
| It is written for | It is not written for |
|---|---|
| Executives of Nigerian crude, petroleum-products and gas trading businesses — crude exporters, product importers and distributors, refinery offtakers, regional merchants and gas aggregators | Analysts looking for model-building or coding work — that is a different course |
| Chief executives and executive and non-executive directors who carry the company’s commitments and remain accountable for the result | Anyone looking for investment, trading, legal or tax advice on a specific transaction |
| Heads of trading, treasury, operations and quality, risk, legal, credit and finance — the functions that share every commitment | Anyone wanting a certificate without writing about a real company |
| Investment committees deciding whether an AI proposal for contracts, forecasting, risk, cash or credit deserves funding | Anyone expecting twenty minutes of video and a pass |
This programme does not end in a folder of notes. In Session 1 you name your company and one live decision — whether to accept a cargo, extend customer credit, change a hedge, nominate gas or fund a purchase — with the latest time at which better information could change it, and every session after that writes one section of a single document — your 90-Day AI Trading Plan — around it. By Session 15 you assemble and sign it. Written properly, it is the paper you table at your next executive committee or board meeting.
| Week | Sections you write |
|---|---|
| Week 1 The Leadership Mandate, Evidence and Intelligence | 1. Section 1 — Our trading business, the one live decision we will carry, its latest useful time and where its loop breaks. 2. Section 2 — The mandate, the disagreements between functions and the interval between the first change and the last useful intervention. 3. Section 3 — Our activity classified, the value chain mapped and the four views of our decision reconciled. 4. Section 4 — The minimum record for our decision, the availability of each input, the missing-data rules and the first audit. 5. Section 5 — The forecast our decision can use, its baseline, its uncertainty test, the stresses kept separate and the suspension conditions. |
| Week 2 Crude, Products, Gas and Physical Execution | 6. Section 6 — The contract terms our decision depends on and the contract-to-trade acceptance record. 7. Section 7 — Our price formula and its clock, the same-basis comparison and the quality evidence our decision needs. 8. Section 8 — The delivered margin, its funding currency and the constraints that govern available stock. 9. Section 9 — Our accepted quantity basis, the order-to-cash reconciliation and every option tied to a right. 10. Section 10 — The voyage clock, the delay decision and the reconciled cut-off behind our decision. |
| Week 3 Risk, Treasury, Trust and the Leadership Charge | 11. Section 11 — The exposures, the residual basis after hedging and the dated cash ladder with its first infeasible day. 12. Section 12 — Credit exposure and its approval, the regulatory evidence record and the controls on identity and payment changes. 13. Section 13 — The application register entry, the agent's concrete permissions and the change, monitoring and fallback rules. 14. Section 14 — The inspectable investment case, the benefits register, the pilot design and the owners who survive turnover. 15. The signed 90-Day AI Trading Plan. |
This programme is free, and nothing is upsold to you inside it. When you finish, you receive an ERW CommandTrading certificate of completion in your own name — issued on a pass, not on attendance.
| To receive it | What that means |
|---|---|
| Every assignment passed | Sessions 1 to 14, each marked at 70 or above against its published rubric. Work below the mark comes back with what to fix; resubmit and the new mark replaces the old one. |
| The capstone passed | Your signed 90-Day AI Trading Plan, Session 15, marked at 70 or above. |
| The Final Exam passed | Fifteen questions, three of them rebuilt from your own earlier mistakes, at 70 or above. |
The certificate is emailed to the Google address you signed in with. It certifies completion of an ERW leadership programme; it is not a professional licence, a trading or regulatory authorisation or a university award.
Only people who have finished the programme can write one — the Session 15 capstone passed and the marked Final passed, both recorded by the server rather than by anyone’s say-so. They are shown exactly as written, never solicited and never edited.
One session a day, twenty-five minutes. Each one teaches part of the doctrine and makes you use it on your own company.
Every session ends in a written assignment — a diagnosis, a value case, a pilot design, a plan section. Four hundred to nine hundred words.
Against the rubric printed under the assignment. A written letter comes back, usually within minutes.
Session 15 assembles fourteen sections into one document, then the final exam — three of whose questions are rebuilt from your own mistakes.
No mystery, and no waiting days for a mark. Here is the whole loop.
One document per session — Word or Google Docs — with the first line reading Session: N. Your own company, your own numbers.
Against that session’s published rubric, criterion by criterion. The same rubric every time, for everybody.
Not a score — a letter naming what holds up, what is asserted without evidence, and exactly where to look to fix it.
Your mark joins your progress page and the corrected section goes into your plan, so Session 15 is assembly rather than writing.
An illustration of the letter format, using Session 3’s real rubric.
| Criterion | Awarded |
|---|---|
| Classifies the activity on title or agency, inventory, transport, continuing obligations and permitted optionality | 24 / 20 |
| Maps the value chain with one trade identity and linked records, and names the product-specific attributes missing today | 19 / 25 |
| Sets out all four views of the decision with a status for every number and explains the differences | 20 / 30 |
| Records one real discrepancy with competing values, sources, cause type, affected decision, materiality and an owner by role | 16 / 25 |
Three weeks. Five sessions a week, twenty-five minutes each, at whatever pace your diary allows. Every session ends in one written assignment about your own company, and every assignment becomes a section of your ninety-day plan.
Seven papers, marked the moment you submit, every question returned with the reasoning behind it. Three pop quizzes of five questions, three practice exams of fifteen, and a fifteen-question final. You are never left to guess when to sit one: the session that opens a paper says so, prints the paper beside its assignment, and flags itself on the session tab — and your progress page always names the paper due now. Closed book, no notes, and Coach Ritchie switches himself off while you sit one. Pass mark 70 — and you may resit the practice papers as often as you like.
5 questions · after Session 3
15 questions · after Session 5, closing Week 1
5 questions · after Session 8
15 questions · after Session 10, closing Week 2
5 questions · after Session 13
15 questions · after Session 14, before the final
15 questions · in Session 15
Fourteen sections written one per session, assembled and signed in Session 15: the one live decision you carry and its latest useful time, the mandate and the four views of the trade, the trading record and the forecast it can use, the contract, price, margin, quantity basis and voyage evidence behind it, the exposure, the cash ladder, the credit and regulatory evidence, the governed application and its inspectable investment case, and the ninety days stage by stage with the executive decision records drafted from your own evidence.
The Intelligent Trading — A Leadership Doctrine for AI in Nigerian Crude, Petroleum Products and Gas Trading. An executive book on AI organised around energy-trading decisions: a reader’s toolkit of six frameworks, twenty-two chapters in six parts and five appendices, covering crude oil, refined petroleum products and gas. Part One sets the trading leadership mandate; Part Two builds the evidence and intelligence; Part Three covers crude and petroleum products; Part Four gas and physical execution; Part Five risk, treasury and trust; Part Six the investment case, the team and the first ninety days.
These 15 sessions teach the doctrine and make you use it. The book carries what twenty-five minutes cannot: every chapter in full with its figures and sources, every model design, the executive decision records, the technical models and validation, a cargo followed from approval to collection, the source register with its use boundaries, and the AI model atlas with its reproducible laboratory.
Nothing in this programme depends on buying it. Every session, paper and certificate is free whether you own the book or not.
The whole programme on one printable page — the six frameworks, the four views of every trade, the decision record, the ninety days stage by stage and the executive decision records. Keep it beside you from Week 1.
The document every assignment is written in — opens in Word or Google Docs, with the first line already correct.
Read the first session before you sign in, and decide for yourself whether the rest is worth three weeks.
Your marks, your letters, your plan sections and your paper results, in one place.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is it really free? | Yes. No card, no key, no paid tier. The certificate is free too. The book is available separately for anyone who wants the full chapters, figures and sources, and nothing in the programme depends on it. |
| How much time, honestly? | Twenty-five minutes of reading and thirty to sixty minutes of writing per session. Call it six to eight hours over three weeks, and rather more if you do the capstone properly. |
| Do I need a technical background? | No. The book’s model designs are taught as the questions a leader must ask, not how to build them. You need a real company, a real decision, and the willingness to look at both honestly. |
| Is this specific to trading? | Yes. It is written for Nigerian crude, petroleum-products and gas trading — exporters, importers and distributors, refinery offtakers, regional merchants, gas aggregators and the functions around the trade. Every session sets a case in the physical view — the cargo, the tank, the nomination, the vessel, the measurement — beside the same decision in the commercial, risk and cash views: the contract and price formula, the exposure, the credit line, the funding and the collection. |
| Is this investment or legal advice? | No. It is a leadership doctrine. Institutions, statutes and standards are taught only as the book states and sources them, and its worked examples use assumed inputs, not market prices. |
| Can my leadership team do it together? | Yes, and it works better that way — but each person signs in and submits their own work, because the plan is only useful if it is argued over. |
| What if I miss a week? | Nothing happens. There are no cohort dates and no deadlines. Your progress waits for you. |
| Who marks it? | It is marked against R. Wingo’s published rubric, criterion by criterion, the same way every time. Anything that comes out below the mark to continue, he reviews himself before it reaches you. Coach Ritchie helps you think; he does not mark and he does not write your plan. |