Head of Operations - WBS

at  Close Brothers Group

The Head of Operations, Winterflood Business Services (WBS), is responsible for leading, directing, and managing WBS’ operational activities while ensuring regulatory compliance and maintaining the highest standards of operational resilience and client service, both internal and external.
This role oversees and manages the day-to-day operations of WBS, ensuring the delivery of high-quality services to clients while driving operational efficiency and growth. Required is a strategic thinker and strong people leader with a hands-on approach to optimise processes, improve service delivery, and lead cross functional teams.
The Head of Operations, WBS performs a certificated function and must continue to meet the required standards of fitness and propriety for their function in line with their obligations under the SMCR regime. As a manager of certificated staff, the Head of Operations, WBS is required to participate in the assessment of fitness, propriety, and competence of the certificated staff they manage.

REQUIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Proven Operations leadership experience within the Platform/Wealth Management or Custody industry
• Experience and knowledge of Corporate Actions, Transfers, Settlements, Payments within the trading cycle and how this is impacted by corporate events
• Working knowledge of the regulatory frameworks and requirements that apply to the business, including the CASS rules when managing client’s money or assets
• Detailed operational knowledge of asset classes including but not limited to Equities, Unit Trusts, Investment Trusts, ETPs and Fixed Income
• Detailed knowledge of products including SIPPs, ISAs, JISAs, GIAs and Offshore Bonds
• Experience in CREST, Clearstream & custodian platforms, bank processing and AutoRek
• CISI Certificate in Investment Operations or equivalent
• Track record of delivery and setting high performance standards; clear focus and commitment to driving great customer outcomes, profitability and shareholder value
• Proven ability to maintain a strong risk management and control framework throughout a significant market making or related department, inclusive of the ability to identify, assess, mitigate and monitor risks and the offsetting controls.
• Strong focus on the generation of ethical revenue and cost management
• Evidenced ability to build relationships and effectively represent the Company and Group externally across a range of audiences, inclusive of analysts, investors, and regulators.

THE COMPANY

Winterflood Business Services (WBS) is a business to business (B2B) platform provider whose award-winning service has seen us grow to over £15bn AUA with an expanding client list. Our highly skilled and experienced team is dedicated to providing the standards our clients rightly demand.
Our aim is to help solve client problems and ease their regulatory and administrative burden with secure, integrated, and bespoke end-to-end solutions to achieve their investment objectives. Execution quality and excellent service are at the core of our business, all set out in our service level agreements for full transparency.
The WBS service is provided through our EOS platform, which is a proprietary system developed by our in-house development team. EOS is built using the latest technologies and is based on micro-service architecture, making the platform easy to scale and deploy new functionality. We are also market innovators, capable of recognising unfilled needs and developing products to suit our customers’ needs and changing regulatory requirements.
We became a separate division of Winterflood Securities in 2010, in response to demand from clients who were looking for ‘whole of market access and ‘custody services’. Our strategy remains to continue to invest in people, process, and technology to allow us to scale for the growth in our existing business, as well as taking on new clients

Please refer the Job description for details