Nestor `Mr. Coffee' Osorio Leaving ICO to Join United Nations in New York

International Coffee Organization Executive Director Nestor Osorio is leaving the industry he entered in 1978 for a role at the United Nations.

Osorio is taking on the new job after coffee jumped 35 percent this year in New York trading and gained 22 percent in London. The market has evolved to have “a very tight situation between supply and demand,” Osorio, 64, said in a phone interview from London today after announcing his resignation.

“I have never seen in 14 years such a strong market,” he said. Brazil and Vietnam, the world’s largest growers, have “problems” of quality in the beans, Osorio said.

Osorio said he is sometimes referred to as “Mr. Coffee” or the “Coffee Czar” because of his tenure in the industry. He started out working with Colombia’s delegation to the ICO, an intergovernmental organization of growing countries and buyers. He will leave the London-based ICO Nov. 1 and be replaced in the interim by Jose Sette, head of operations.

At the UN, Osorio plans to take on a more political role. Osorio worked with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for four years in London before he returned home in 1992.

“I’m very close to the president, and he needs someone close to him,” Osorio said. “It’s a top diplomatic post in Colombia. It’s quite an honor to be asked to serve there.”

Osorio left London in 1994 to be Colombia’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization in Geneva. He then served as an adviser to the minister of coffee and trade in Bogota for 18 months before joining the ICO.

Any surplus of coffee in the 2010-11 crop year probably will be “small,” and rebuilding of inventories “may be limited” as global consumption increases, the ICO said in a monthly report for May.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Kay in London at ckay5@bloomberg.net

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