Head of Valuations (Asset Management) at The Career Network

About the job

• We're on the lookout for a seasoned Senior Manager to take the lead in our Valuations team! If you're passionate about corporate actions, instrument pricing, and fund pricing across diverse portfolios—think life portfolios, collective investment schemes, and exchange-traded funds—this could be your perfect fit.
• In this role, you'll be the mastermind behind valuation policies, procedures, and controls while leading a talented team. You'll also be the go-to expert for tackling complex valuation challenges and collaborating with key teams like Investment, Risk, and Compliance to keep everything running smoothly and in line with regulations. Plus, you’ll have the chance to drive process improvements, build strong stakeholder relationships, and stay ahead of industry trends and best practices. 

Key responsibilities include:

Strategic leadership:

• Managing the Valuations Committee and overseeing the Valuations Policy;
• Provide strategic direction and leadership to the centralized Valuations team;
• Collaborate with senior management to ensure valuation processes are aligned with regulatory requirements

Team Management:

• Lead, manage, and develop a team of valuation professionals, providing guidance, coaching, and mentoring;
• Ensure effective communication, coordination, and workflow management within the team;
• Foster a culture of excellence, innovation, and continuous improvement.

Corporate Actions:

• Oversee the processes and controls for processing and valuing corporate actions accurately and timeously, including mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs, capital repayments and dividend payments; 
• Assisting the team with the interpretation of complex corporate events;

Instrument Pricing:

• Overseeing the processes and controls for the valuation of financial instruments including listed and unlisted equities (local and foreign), bonds, derivatives, pooled products, segregated portfolios, and alternative investments such as private equity and debt structures;
• Ensure accurate and timely pricing, using market data, pricing models, and other relevant sources and ensuring instruments are priced according to the valuations policy;
• Overseeing the design/automation of exception reporting.

Portfolio Pricing:

• Overseeing the processes and controls for the valuation of life portfolios, pooled portfolios, segregated portfolios, collective investment schemes and exchange traded funds;
• Overseeing the use of benchmarks in portfolio return controls;
• Overseeing the design and/or automation of exception reporting.

Risk Management:

• Identify, assess and mitigate risks relating to the valuations processes and controls;
• Incident management and reporting;
• Collaborating with Risk Management team to ensure alignment with overall risk management framework.

Regulatory Compliance:

• Ensure compliance with relevant regulatory requirements;
• Collaborate with Legal and Compliance team to ensure alignment with overall compliance framework.

Process Improvement:

• Continuously review and improve valuation processes, systems, and controls;
• Identify and implement process improvements, including automation and re-engineering.
• Collaborate with internal stakeholders to ensure alignment with overall process improvement initiatives.

Technical Expertise:

• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of valuation methodologies, accounting standards, and regulatory requirements;
• Provide technical guidance, interpretation and support to the valuations team;

Stakeholder Management:

• Communicate with stakeholders, including internal and external clients, asset managers, local and foreign custodians, regulators, data providers and auditors;

Qualifications required:

• Bachelor’s degree in finance or accounting;
• Postgraduate degree or diploma in relevant field could be advantageous;
• CFA

Experience required:

• Minimum 8 – 10 years of experience in the asset management and/or fund administration industry with a focus on valuations;
• Proven leadership experience, including managing teams
• In-depth knowledge of the asset management industry and the different financial instruments
• Proficiency in Excel (Power Query advantageous)