Client Services Team Leader (Investment/LISP) at Progressive Edge

Join a financial services business in a niche area of Transfer Agency administration services for Unit Trust, Retirement, Life and LISP products.

The primary responsibility will be to lead and manage the teams total operational and people capabilities. You will be required to manage a small team responsible for the resolution of exceptions and corrections on a day-to-day basis.

The role requires a passion for exceptional service delivery, a strong sense of ownership and responsibility for service exceptions and a solid understanding of the client and financial impacts of service failures. The team leader carries the responsibility of embedding processes and controls within the operational areas to ensure mitigation of identified risks and the measurement of the effectiveness of those controls. Along with management information reporting on exceptions and risk mitigation.

The candidate will be required to manage staff, including performance management, assisting with issues coming out of the daily operations, review of staff work and ensuring processes are followed and standards are adhered to.

The successful candidate needs to be passionate about understanding the root cause of any process or service failure and ensuring holistic improvements and controls are in place to manage day-to-day operational processes and to prevent recurrence of errors.

Main duties and responsibilities:

• Ensure that the team performs according to contracted performance areas to deliver the highest level of service to
• stakeholders.
• Plan, assign & monitor work of the team members.
• Continuously evaluate and improve processes to ensure effectiveness and efficiency.
• Pro-actively identify and manage operational risks.
• Investigate and resolve client and internal queries efficiently and on a timely basis.
• Regularly engage, interact with and report to management and the clients.
• Liaise with internal and external auditors.
• Identify ways of promoting accuracy and maximizing productivity within the team.
• Assist with the implementation of changes to existing products and processes as well as new products.
• Maintain high levels of teamwork within the team, different departments and external parties in order to resolve client queries.
• Respond in a professional, timely and empathetic manner to both written and telephonic enquiries from internal and external clients.
• Balance own priorities while directing and motivating others.
• Management of team deliverables, training, and day to day team management.
• Ongoing development of team members including training, upskilling, and performance management.
• Adhoc project management, reporting and other duties as needed by the Head of Operations.

Ideal Experience:

• A minimum of 3 years people management experience.
• A minimum of 5 years in Unit Trust and LISP experience.
• Strong leadership experience: both people management and operationally.
• Strong accounting, reconciliation, and analytical skills essential.
• Knowledge of tax laws in general for Unit Trust, Retirement, Life and LISP products.
• Knowledge of the applicable LISP and CIS legislative environment (specifically the FAIS Act, Pension Funds Act,
• Collective Investment Schemes Control Act, Long-Term Insurance Act).
• At least 5 years experience in Unit Trust and LISP (Discretionary and Life and Retirement Products) administration.
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end administration processes, including finance, trading / bulk orders and tax
• reporting.
• Experience in error corrections calculations, client communication, management to completion and reporting
• Process implementation.
• Proven track record of driving and implementing improvements.

Competencies and ideal personality attributes:

• Proven leadership and coaching skills with excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Keen attention to detail, passionate about exceptional client services, professional, with excellent stakeholder
• management skills.
• Proactive with a sense of urgency and the ability to make quick decisions and establish priorities.
• Ability to simplify complex problems and processes and be outcomes driven.
• Self-motivated, learns quickly and willing to be stretched in a challenging, dynamic and exciting environment.
• Able to deal with and manage difficult, demanding clients.
• Facilitation and presentation skills.
• Critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills.
• Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines, ensuring delivery of high-quality output (Flexibility required).
• Unquestionable integrity and accountability.
• Strong relationship building skills.