Job Description

We have an incredible opportunity to join us here at Phoenix Group as an Investment Operations Senior Project Business Lead to join our Asset Management Investment Operations team. This is a great opportunity, taking responsibility for directing and implementing the operational outcomes and delivery of change initiatives in Investment Operations.

Job Type: Fixed Term Contract – 2 years

Location: This role will be based in our Edinburgh office, offering flexible and hybrid working with time spent between the office and home. There may be some travel between our Phoenix offices. We will discuss what is important to you and balancing this with business requirements during the recruitment process. You can read more about Phoenix Flex here.

Salary and Benefits: £65,000 - £110,000 (subject to experience) + Asset Management bonus, excellent pension scheme, private medical insurance, electric vehicle scheme, 38 days holiday incl. Bank Holidays (pro-rated), plus 12x salary life assurance, career breaks, income protection, 3x volunteering days and much more!

Who are we? 

We want to be the best place that any of our 6,600 colleagues have ever worked.

We’re the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business. We offer a range of products across our market-leading brands, Standard Life, SunLife, Phoenix Life and ReAssure. Around 1 in 5 people in the UK has a pension with us. We’re a FTSE 100 organisation that is tackling key issues such as transitioning our portfolio to net zero by 2050, and we’re not done yet.

The role

Our Investment Operations team are responsible for the administration of around 5,000 unit-linked and with-profits funds with over 17,000 pricing series linked to them. On a daily basis Investment Operations is responsible for oversight of fund accounting and unit pricing, maintenance of customer facing data for our funds, and unit matching and box management.

Alongside those core responsibilities we work with other teams from across Phoenix to implement change initiatives that support the Group’s strategic goals. We’re looking for someone with relevant experience and qualifications to join our team to help us achieve change targets in 2025 and beyond.

This role will be focussed on directing and leading the operational implementation of our fund rationalisation project, working with core stakeholders, business SME’s and multiple 3rd parties to deliver this strategic imitative.

You’ll need to be able to build on your existing investment operations expertise to quickly become a technical expert on how we administer our funds – we’ll make sure you’re fully supported on this. It’s important that you’re comfortable taking the lead and challenging how things are done, finding solutions to problems, and guiding others around you to do the same.

As you develop your knowledge of our processes, you’ll also need to start building an understanding of how we link up with teams across Phoenix Group including Product & Proposition, Asset Management, and Investment Reporting, as well as working with our outsourced service providers.

The nature of this role means that you’ll need to be comfortable working with other areas of the business and challenging proposals/decisions to ensure we deliver the right outcomes for customers and align to long-term strategic objectives of the business. You’ll also need to be comfortable working with large volumes of data about our funds.

Key responsibilities

Demonstrate leadership as a subject matter expert in Investment Operations when supporting or leading change programs and business development for products and services.
Design and deliver quality assurance mechanisms and monitor activity for Investment Operations Fund rationalisation activity ensuring regulatory and legislative obligations are met and that outcomes are understood by all team members
Own the oversight and delivery of Technical Investment Operations processes or projects, ensuring all controls and governance principles are applied resulting in high quality and accurate outcomes for the Investment Operations functions
Manage Interaction with Internal and External Stakeholders – Own Investment Operations relationships with internal and external stakeholders for the management & implementation of Fund Rationalisation activities.
Manage relationships with colleagues at all levels, providing support and technical guidance to ensure successful delivery of objectives and the ability to tackle work across own and other business areas with confidence
Assimilating complex and detailed technical information to present in a clear, understandable and persuasive way, to a variety of audiences including senior staff and cross-divisional/external stakeholders
Establish credibility with internal and external colleagues to be seen as a function leader and decision maker, whilst also gaining support for Investment Operations perspective, especially where there is resistance or priorities differ
The job holder will represent Phoenix externally with clients, advisers and consultants and will work across senior levels within the group.

What we're looking for

Experience / Knowledge

Demonstrates in-depth knowledge of unit-linked/with-profits fund administration processes (including unit pricing, unit matching & box management and trading).
Demonstrable experience of delivering change at a life and pension company, or a service provider
Autonomous, and able to lead a team through delivery stages
Experienced in designing and implementing new processes
Experience of working with outsourced service providers to deliver projects.
proactive and inquisitive and are willing to challenge the status quo
Ability to translate complicated technical content to a variety of stakeholders at all levels.

Personal Attributes

Acts on own initiative, with strong sense of ownership, contributes new ideas, able to make logical decisions and formulate judgements
Communication and technical skills to interact with internal and external stakeholders, with influential, story-telling capability
Strong professional network with other technical experts in the field, both internally and externally and proactively keeps abreast with market trends to develop holistic financial thinking
Comfortable managing and prioritising complex and detailed projects and managing (senior) stakeholders effectively

Skills

Proficient use of MS Excel (Intermediate-Advanced), Word, PowerPoint

Qualifications

Degree in Accounting and Investment Operations-related qualifications is preferred

We want to hire the whole version of you.

We are committed to ensuring that everyone feels accepted and welcome applicants from all backgrounds. If your experience looks different from what we’ve advertised and you believe that you can bring value to the role, we’d love to hear from you.

If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, please let us know so we can help you to be at your best.

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