Manager, Fund & Investment Operations

Job Description

About Vanguard

Vanguard Australia has been helping investors achieve their long-term financial goals for over 20 years. Serving institutional and individual clients, and financial advisers, we offer investment solutions that are low-cost, diversified, and robust through time.

With over AUD $11 trillion in assets under management globally as of 31 October 2021, including more than AUD $2.8 trillion in ETFs, Vanguard is one of the world’s largest global investment management companies. In Australia, Vanguard has been serving financial advisers, retail clients and institutional investors for 25 years.

Our Team and Opportunity

Vanguard’s Enterprise Investment Services team has an exciting opportunity for a Manager in our Melbourne, Australia office. This position is a leadership role focusing on Operations and supporting Vanguard’s investment groups and their portfolio management and trading processes.

In this role, you will oversee and manage complex tasks, priorities, team responsibilities and work allocation to meet fund and investment operational objectives. The role covers Derivatives & Collateral Management, with an opportunity to move into other functions including but not limited to Trade Management and Settlements, Corporate Actions, and Investment Book of Records (IBOR).

To be best positioned for success in this role, you should bring strong leadership experience, ability to achieve set business objectives, navigate local and global stakeholder groups and a strong ability to manage teams with proven experience. This also includes providing development and stretch opportunities, structure whilst demonstrating resilience and accountability. You should also be comfortable working independently, within a leadership team that drives outcomes, and in a highly matrixed environment. Preference to have investment product and lifecycle understanding. Strong communications skills will also be needed to draft and deliver clear messaging for various levels of management.

The Derivatives & Collateral Mgmt. team sit within Operations in the Enterprise Investments division, which aims to drive investor success through world class investment services.

Core Responsibilities

• Hires, evaluates, and supervises crew. Provides guidance and training as necessary to develop crew. Sets performance standards, reviews performance, and makes informed compensation decisions in accordance with all applicable Human Resources policies and procedures.
• Oversees process implementation for operations to ensure global consistency.
• Consults and advises key stakeholders, acts as subject matter and technical expert, identifies, and resolves complex operational issues.
• Leads internal control framework improvements and formulates strategic recommendations.
• Proactively identifies and mitigates internal and external events and regulatory changes that impact team. Oversees various control standards to ensure compliance.
• Oversees performance of the service model for the team and drives improvements of financial and performance management and forecast reports.
• Proactively anticipates portfolio events and leads process enhancement initiatives. Performs root cause analysis and applies findings to global process improvement efforts.
• Collaborates with internal and external partners to support global operations. Leverages strong industry knowledge to support relationship management
• Assists the global process owner in the creation of workflow procedures and maintains comprehensive documentation of current policies and procedures. Ensures the team operates according to established procedures.
• Participates in special projects and performs other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Minimum of five years related work experience.
• Undergraduate degree or equivalent combination of training and experience. Accounting or Finance degree preferred.
• CFA or other financial designation preferred.

Inclusion Statement

Vanguard’s continued commitment to diversity and inclusion is firmly rooted in our culture. Every decision we make to best serve our clients, crew (internally employees are referred to as crew), and communities is guided by one simple statement: “Do the right thing.”

We believe that a critical aspect of doing the right thing requires building diverse, inclusive, and highly effective teams of individuals who are as unique as the clients they serve. We empower our crew to contribute their distinct strengths to achieving Vanguard’s core purpose through our values.

When all crew members feel valued and included, our ability to collaborate and innovate is amplified, and we are united in delivering on Vanguard’s core purpose.

Our core purpose: To take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success.

Future of Work

During the pandemic, we transitioned to a work from home model for the majority of our crew and we continue to interview, hire, and on-board future crew remotely.

As we have developed the path forward, we have taken a thoughtful approach that both maximizes the advantages of working remotely and the many benefits of coming together and collaborating in a shared workspace. We believe that in-person interactions among our crew are important for preserving our unique culture and advantageous for the personal development of our crew.

When our Crew return to the office, many will work in our hybrid model. A smaller proportion of our crew will operate in the Work from Home work model (for example, field sales crew); or in the Work from Office model (for example, portfolio managers).

The working model that your role falls into will be communicated to you in the interview process – please do ask if you are unsure. We encourage you to make the decision regarding your job interview and offer knowing which model your role will fall into. We will test and learn as our ways of working evolve and will continue to evaluate working models along the way.