Senior Manager - Offshore Funds at Apex Group

Summary of the position

• The Senior Manager – Offshore Fund Accounting role includes the functional leadership for the delivery of core fund accounting and financial reporting services to clients of the Offshore Fund Accounting department and will focus on managing, measuring and driving the effectiveness of the department to ensure effective, efficient and timely delivery of these services.
• These services will include but are not limited to all fund NAV calculation activities, income distribution calculations, payment authorizations, financial statement preparation, regulatory reporting and reporting to clients, depositories and client directors.

Outline of main duties and responsibilities

The Senior Manager – Offshore Fund Accounting will be expected to:

• Provide strategic leadership to the department, ensuring close collaboration and alignment of operating model with other departments within the Fund Administration division.
• Drive the further maturity of the department into a global servicing hub, that provides centralized operational services meeting the requirements of each jurisdiction serviced.
• Serve as the primary accountable owner for service quality of the department to external and internal clients and for any material escalations from clients relating to service delivery.
• Drive the implementation of efficiencies in the operational area by improving the technical skills of people, improving the controls of processes, and increasing the automation of operations with technology;
• Drive the implementation of an operational quality control framework in the department in line with the functional and regulatory requirements and in order to minimize operational risk;
• Deliver high standards of service quality to external and internal clients in accordance with agreed Service Level Agreements;
• Ensure service delivery issues and challenges in the department are managed and dealt with in a timely and efficient manner.
• Ensure all operational controls, policies, and standard operating procedures relevant to the department are adhered to.
• Develop strong and trusted relationships with external and internal clients, and set and maintain the standard for the quality of the department's engagement with clients;
• Monitor operational risk for the department by ensuring incidents are managed and dealt with in a timely and efficient manner.
• Demonstrate technical and management leadership in the subject of Offshore Fund Accounting and be a key representative of Maitland on this with external and internal clients;
• Implement internal controls to strengthen control framework and to reduce operational and business risks for the department.
• Ensure audit findings relating to department are appropriately responded to and addressed in a timely manner.
• Manage operational costs for the department to ensure alignment with budgets;
• Ensure Offshore Fund Accounting clients are accurately and timeously invoiced to ensure alignment with budget;
• Ensure experienced staff are recruited at Manager and lower level in department to discharge daily functional activities of their responsible teams
• Manage and build out key performance indicators (‘KPIs’), targets and measures of success for the department and manage performance against these; and deliver towards them;
• Produce monthly management reporting packs for Offshore Fund Accounting department to the Service Head detailing key performance indicators for your area.

 Skills and experience required.

• Extensive experience of operational leadership within the broader Fund Administration and/or Financial Services industry;
• A minimum of 8 years' work experience in this sector and a minimum of bachelor's degree;
• A relevant accounting qualification (e.g. CA, ACCA, CIMA) or an equivalent investment management qualification (e.g. CFA) is mandatory;
• Proven leadership with at least 3 years of management experience and skills obtained to manage various operational teams that ensures delivery against department strategic targets and objectives;
• Project management capability with a practical hands-on approach and the ability to ‘get things done’;
• Strong business acumen with excellent numeracy, logical and analytical approaches, with the ability to work and manage deliverables independently.
• Strong technical knowledge of the middle and back-office services and processes, and a good understanding of the upstream and downstream processes and risks;
• The ability to design new processes and conceptualize and assist in the development of systems to support those processes;
• Knowledge of IFRS reporting standards to provide support to financial reporting teams and to liaise with client/auditors/Service Heads on financial reporting requirements. Experience in other financial reporting standards will be an advantage.
• Prior experience in liaising with auditors/clients on audit related matters.
• Previous experience in managing, developing and motivating teams and driving a high-performance culture.
• Experience in managing large teams both local and remote.

Critical competencies for success:

Commercial acumen;

• Acts with a ‘one firm’ mentality, ensuring first class delivery and client service on a holistic basis;
• Ability to manage effectively in a faced-paced working environment;
• Ability to work and negotiate within established frameworks to achieve the optimal result;
• Ability to work across operational areas, without a ‘silo’ mentality;
• Taking initiative rather than waiting to be told what to do;
• Consistently delivering excellent performance;
• Drives success through effective negotiation and engagement with others;
• Understanding importance of customer service, quality control and monitoring of business risks;
• Leading from a position of strong emphasis on controls and the ability to set the tone in a high control culture orientated environment;
• Embraces complexity and challenges to deliver simplicity and value;
• Strong communicator and collaborator that commands attention, communicates with assertiveness and leads by example, and
• Successfully communicates at senior levels and is a real team player.

Personal characteristics:

• High energy levels, fast paced, driven to succeed with a hunger to win and not be second best.
• A real ‘can do’ attitude and thrives in an environment of opportunity, confidence, and hunger for growth.
• Sets and achieves very high levels of performance and continually strives for personal improvement in all that they do.
• Has the ability to challenge decisions and frameworks, but also the ability to accept and implement decisions as instructed from a higher authority and to work within established frameworks to achieve desired results.
• Will take accountability for action.

 Reporting structure

• The Senior Manager – Offshore Fund Accounting reports to the Service Head – Fund Valuation and Accounting SA