VP - Portfolio & Client Services - Morgan Stanley - Singapore

Job description

As part of the Morgan Stanley Investment Management Operations group, this role is a senior role within the portfolio & client services team based in Singapore. The team plays an integral role in servicing clients, portfolio managers, trading, sales and marketing teams as well as coordinating with other support functions (eg. legal and compliance, product development, risk management) in delivery of operational support and strategy to business in Asia Pacific ex India and Japan. The team provides coverage for a global client base investing in Asian equity products as well as distribution of global investment products to clients in Asia Pacific region.

Morgan Stanley Investment management has outsourced certain investment operations functions to State Street Bank and Trust Company globally. Hence, the team works in partnership with the outsourced Investment Manager Solutions (IMS) team at State Street to ensure seamless delivery of operations support and solutions.

Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s product range is continually evolving into new product and strategy areas, demanding ever changing infrastructure and solutions. The individual will be required to lead and make strategic contributions to these discussions ensuring that the appropriate support models are in place.

Primary Responsibilities
· Assist and support head of operations in running day to day operations and strategy to support the business in Asia Pacific ex India and Japan
• Perform supervisory responsibilities
• Serve as the single point of contact and provide proactive and effective operational support for both internal and external stakeholders, including, clients, sales, portfolio managers, traders, legal, compliance, risk, operations, custodians and other appointed client/fund service providers
• Regular reviews with portfolio managers, traders and sales teams to understand current and future support requirements and involvement in the development of tactical and strategic solutions for these
• Accountable for review and resolution of all operational exposure issues for the assigned portfolio accounts (e.g. cash balances and overdrafts, correct FX postings, settlement fails, market claims, etc.)
• Oversight of daily and periodic portfolio manager and client reporting packages and cash flow analysis
• Perform cash management, review reconciliation breaks, prepare and verify FX transactions
• Liaison with State Street to ensure timely resolution of reconciliation items relating to all cash and stock breaks
• Take leadership role in managing all aspects of the client take on, termination, transitions (T3) activities across all internal functional teams (e.g. investment team, sales, trading, infrastructure) and external parties such as custodians and transition managers
• Partner with legal and compliance to ensure all operational aspects of the Investment Management Agreement (IMA) including amendments are correctly interpreted and implemented
• Strong partnership with Sales, Client Relationship Management teams in supporting the distribution of Morgan Stanley Global Funds through institutional intermediaries and distributors
• Support day-to-day inquiries and requests for institutional, sub advised and intermediary clients (e.g. audit requests, market information such as asset characteristics, benchmarks, corporate actions, RFP data, client meeting books)
• Facilitate timely and accurate implementation of client instructions, including items such as cash flows, performance queries, reporting etc.
• Participation and representation of Operations in client due-diligence and service review meetings.
• Act as primary conduit between Investment Management and the State Street IMS teams
• Perform oversight of all internal and external deliverables and track performance of outsourced service providers against the established Service Level Agreement. Manage operations action plans to enhance service quality and address operational deficiencies
• Represent operations on local, global initiatives and projects (e.g. client confidentiality initiatives, internal audit, SSAE 16 reviews, SOX audit, cross divisional working committees, regulatory initiatives)
• Participation in and provision of appropriate documentation for audits, reviews, inspections
• Working proactively with counterparts on a global basis, in making recommendations for process improvement and consistency.
• Using strong business sense and judgment to identify potential risk areas; making appropriate recommendations and highlighting those risks via the appropriate escalation channels

Qualifications

Skills Required
• Working background in all aspects of Investment Management Operations
• Direct experience operating within client services or a similar client facing role
• Broad understanding of different investment products and instruments
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Organizational and project management skills
• Excellent attention to detail, problem solving skills and excellent judgment
• Strong risk awareness and orientation
• Good knowledge of custody and fund accounting environments and ancillary service providers
• Has proven ability to interact with multiple internal and external functions including clients, legal, compliance, fund managers, sales, and other functional operations teams.
• Comfortable dealing with senior individuals and management across these functions
• Proven leadership ability

Candidates for this position will have gained direct experience in a similar role or may come from an accounting or operational background. The individual must be a self-starter who is able to maintain a high standard of accuracy while managing various deadlines, a creative individual that can work independently or as part of a team working to exceed expectations. Be able to build and maintain relationships at all levels of the firm’s, clients’, and outsourcing agent’s organization.

Skills Desired
• Good command of written and spoken Mandarin would be an advantage
• Working knowledge of Luxembourg based SICAVs and Dublin registered liquidity products would be beneficial

Enter your email address:

Refer This Job To Your Friends And Help Them To Find Jobs!