Director – Product Control

Job Description

Purpose of the role

To oversee the financial aspects of trading activities, ensuring the accuracy and integrity of the bank's trading book, maintenance of compliance with regulatory requirements, and provision of insights into trading performance.  

Accountabilities

• Reconciliation of daily profit and loss (P&L) figures for trading desks to ensure they align with the valued positions in the trading book, investigating and resolving discrepancies between P&L figures to ensure they reflect the true economic value of the trading portfolio.
• Support the identification, assessment, and mitigation of trading risks, and report on these financial risks to senior colleagues.
• Maintenance and analysis of the bank’s trading data, ensuring its accuracy, completeness and consistency, and provision of insights to traders and senior colleagues on trading performance.
• Preparation and submission of regulatory reports to authorities, and provision of support to external audits including addressing auditor queries and ensuring trading activities are appropriately reflected in financial statements.
• Effective communication of complex financial information to traders, risk professionals, senior colleagues, and external stakeholders.
• Cross functional collaboration to ensure a coordinated approach to trading activities.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.

Overall purpose of role

Run specific teams for India Product Control function covering combination of asset class / COE horizontals and manage the process performance in line with the agreed global Finance and Product Control Controls framework to ensure the integrity of the balance sheet and P&L of the Global PC business.

Drive a culture of continuous improvement and build and maintain relationships with key local and global internal and external stakeholders

Key Accountabilities

• Contribute towards developing and play important role in implementing the global Finance and Product Control strategy
• Act as an essential part of the appropriate local and global Product Control management committees that shape and drive decision-making pertaining to medium and long-term improvements, understand the big-picture and work towards resolution of firm-wide issues across business and geographical boundaries.
• Accountable for the delivery of specific team (quality, control & functional ownership) which could be a combination of asset class vertical & COE horizontal covering PC responsibilities
• Develop long term goals within own functional area to align with the Finance and Product Control objectives and strategy.
• Accountable and lead for the project management, migration of key transformation initiatives impacting the team
• Ensure excellence in process transition by establishing and monitoring controls, culture, standards and metrics
• Monitor and drive plans to achieve successful completion of processes & controls per agreed deadlines and to agreed quality and standards
• Lead the transformation & process excellence initiatives in Product Control

Stakeholder Management and Leadership

• Provide leadership to the team, including oversight for issue resolution
• Create an environment that encourages employee retention, promotes high levels of employee engagement and ensures continuous improvements in employee satisfaction
• Embed a culture of regular reviews and performance management aligned to global Finance Product Control standards
• Serve as a single point of senior management contact for Barclays senior management and local and global stakeholders as appropriate
• Act as a champion for change within Barclays
• Set and communicate common business goals and objectives
• Leverage and integrate the capabilities of resources across all levels of the firm to accomplish complex objectives
• Deliver clear and consistent communication on the Vision and Strategy for the development of the Finance and Product Control practice
• Drive through the business strategy and initiatives
• Recruit and retain top talent and ensure that the right HR framework is in place to attract staff at all levels
• Constantly review and develop organisational structures that best support Finance and Product Control locally and globally
• Establish and maintain an effective working relationship with key stakeholders locally and globally; within Finance and Product Control, local and global infrastructure, and the global CFO Business partnering teams
• Work with appropriate local and global functional owners to ensure cohesion between individual, departmental and firm-wide goals
• Establish and contribute to appropriate Governance and Relationship forums locally and globally
• Manage cross functional relationships
• Participate in the local and global Finance and greater Barclays community as required

Decision-making and Problem Solving

• Set and meet all service level agreements and embed a culture of constant improvement vs control metric measures
• Plan and forecast for business growth while driving value added operational performance, develop new strategies to generate change initiatives and promote efficiency to solve business problems.
• Contribute to building new or enhanced process capabilities strategically and operationally; oversee transitions while ensuring operating standards with governance, risk, control and compliance being maintained

Essential Skills/Basic Qualifications:

Tenured Director / equivalent professional with deep PC experience Extensive experience of leading PC teams in onshore – offshore operating model Appreciation of Global markets Ability to work with the trading desk as a “business partner” while maintaining complete independence of the control function Familiarity with a range of financial products within Investment Banking in terms of market wide conventions, typical trading strategies, and terminologies.

Desirable skills/Preferred Qualifications:

Leadership role in transformative projects within PC CA/CFA/ACCA/CPA/CIMA/MBA