Lead Investment Manager

Job Type:  6 months Secondment / FTC (paternity cover)
Location: This role will be based in our London office  with some flexibility to work between the office and home. 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: from £80,000 FTE (pro-rated and subject to experience) + pro-rated 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! 

We are pleased to announce an exciting new career opportunity for a Lead Investment Manager, to join the Portfolio Implementation team, within the RS&AM (Retirement Solutions & Asset Management) team. This role will be for 6 months duration, covering paternity leave.

Who are we?  

We want to be the best place that any of our 6,600 colleagues have ever worked. 
 
We’re Phoenix Group, we’re a 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. 

Role Context

The role is part of the Portfolio Implementation team and has the purpose of ensuring that trading activity for shareholder and policyholder assets occurs within applicable targets, limits, constraints and governance. Furthermore, the role holder contributes to the development and maintenance of an effective, efficient and robust control framework to manage trading activity mitigating the risk of operational errors.

You will interact very closely and coordinate trade activities with a range of stakeholders involved in the portfolio management and implementation process, such as other teams in Phoenix Asset Management (AM), External Investment Managers (EIM), Treasury, Custodians, Risk Management, Finance and Actuarial.

Key Responsibilities 

• Trade Structuring/Planning – work alongside structuring and portfolio management teams to develop trade proposals and implementation plans considering operational requirements/limitations and the overall portfolio context. 
• Trade Coordination – develop runbooks for trade execution with clear timelines, roles and responsibilities for involved stakeholders. Ensure trade implementation is aligned/coordinated with other activities, such as e.g. the pipeline for Bulk Annuity Transactions.     
• Pre-Trade Compliance Checks – ensure appropriate checklists are implemented and maintained, capturing relevant governance, ensure investment guideline compliance and any other applicable considerations. 
• Trade Approvals/Instructions – manage approval and instruction of transactions via the appropriate governance forums and individuals with delegated authority, ensuring adequate documentation and audit trails are maintained. 
• Order Authorisation – review and authorise internal Aladdin order activity, ensuring pre-trade compliance assurance and adherence to prescribed ALM control environment.
• Post Trade Checks – together with Asset Management Middle Office validate trades are correctly executed and captured in data and systems. 
• Portfolio Steering Processes – maintain and manage databases and monitoring reports for Strategic Asset Allocation and Investment Benchmark processes.
• Investment Policies and Guidelines – support the regular review of investment guidelines and policies to ensure they are up to date and reflect applicable practice and standards.
• Investment Mandates – manage and maintain investment mandate documents, ensuring parameters are aligned with targets, limits and requirements for underlying portfolios.
• Compliance Monitoring – provide interpretation guidance to mandate monitoring in codifying investment guidelines and mandate parameters in compliance monitoring systems. 
• Portfolio Structure – collaborate with internal and external stakeholders regarding portfolio heirarchy, accounts and investment mandates 
• Management of Breaches – act as point of contact for Relationship Management and Internal / External Managers in case of mandate/guideline compliance breaches. Coordinate any resolution of breaches by involving the appropriate AM stakeholders.
• Matching Adjustment (MA) Eligibility Screening – contribute to the implementation of an efficient framework for screening eligibility of assets in line with the requirements set out in MA applications.
• Positions Reporting – provide ad-hoc analysis of asset positions held
• Collateral Management – provide ad-hoc support for collateral management
• Systems  – proficiency using Aladdin for portfolio construction / order authorisation
• Managing internal & external stakeholder relationships –
  • Internal Functions: Wider Asset Management teams (Portfolio Management, ALM, Middle Office, Manager Oversight and Selection), Senior Managers with delegated authorities, Legal, Risk Management, Actuarial, Finance, Treasury and Operations
  • External Parties: External Investment Managers, Third Party Service / Data Providers

What are we looking for? 

Experience / Knowledge - Essential (minimum criteria) 

• Practical Investment Experience at an insurance company, bank or asset management.
• Systems / Tools - proven experience and depth of knowledge in Aladdin portfolio construction
• Knowledge and experience of fixed income asset classes – good understanding of the main features and differences in the main asset classes / investment products
• Investment Process – good understanding of the main steps in the end-to-end process, from trade structuring to execution and the internal and external stakeholders in the process
• Practical knowledge of Governance and Regulation – experience with investment governance processes and awareness of applicable laws, regulations 

Personal Attributes & Skills 

• Organised and Diligent Working Style – attention to detail and high standards for quality
• Holistic Thinking – ability to appropriately contextualise proposals/issues and to formulate adequate responses in light of broader or other business objectives/initiatives 
• Problem Solving Skills – willingness/ability to identify and address areas which require improvement and to proactively shape the organisation and the way we work
• Communication Skills – ability to communicate issues in a clear and concise fashion
• Collaboration - ability to develop effective relationships and collaborate across a wide range of stakeholders. Feel comfortable working in and contribute in interdisciplinary teams.
• Data and Analytics – ability to manage and organise data using appropriate software; ability to perform ad-hoc analysis based on internal and external trade data provided

Qualifications

• Essential:  Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Business, Mathematics or similar
• Desirable:  CFA or similar investment management related qualification is an advantage

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.

Find out more about #LifeAtPhoenix

• Guide for Candidates: thephoenixgroup.pagetiger.com/guideforcandidates
• Find or get answers from our colleagues: www.thephoenixgroup.com/careers/talk-to-us      #LI-SC1