Senior Manager – Service Governance

Role Overview

This position owns the service governance agenda for Custody Operations, acting as the single point of accountability for how custody services are measured, reported and improved. Day to day, the role holder runs the service review cycle, tracks delivery against agreed standards, investigates where performance falls short, and works alongside Operations, Business, Technology, Risk and Compliance colleagues to close the gaps. It matters because custody clients judge the bank on the consistency and transparency of its service — this role converts that expectation into measurable operating discipline across the end-to-end custody model.

Key Responsibilities

• Direct settlement and processing activity across equities, fixed income, offshore, real estate, private equity and money market instruments, ensuring transactions complete accurately and in line with documented procedures.
• Authorise and verify settlement and payment entries in CPlus and T24, and sign custodial instructions issued to banks, CBK, CDSC, registrars and other issuers.
• Keep manual controls operating as designed so that processing fallouts and overdraft exposure are contained, and escalate unresolved operational problems together with recommended solutions.
• Define, monitor and report on service standards, SLAs, KPIs and KRIs, and lead the governance forums where performance is reviewed and service breaches are accounted for.
• Drive investigation of operational incidents and client issues through to root cause, then implement corrective actions and track them to closure.
• Coordinate internal and external audits, regulatory inspections and risk reviews, owning the resulting action plans and supporting control effectiveness, business continuity and operational resilience work.
• Benchmark service quality against local, regional and global custody practice and push through continuous improvement and digital transformation initiatives that lift productivity.
• Supervise, coach and develop the operations team — setting individual and team objectives, keeping department meetings and action logs current, and handling financial account queries and client audit confirmations with administrators.

Requirements & Qualifications

• A business-related degree or equivalent professional qualification, with a basic grounding in IT and accounting; an MBA is an added advantage.
• Professional qualification such as CISI or CMA.
• At least 8 years of securities services experience in custodial operations, including a minimum of 3 years in a management role.
• Demonstrated experience in service governance, operational excellence, client service management and business transformation.
• Strong working knowledge of capital markets, custody services, operational risk and regulatory frameworks.
• Proven ability to lead service reviews, conduct root cause analysis and manage audit, risk and regulatory action plans through to completion.
• Confident stakeholder management across Custody Business, Operations, Technology, Risk, Compliance and external market participants.
• People leadership capability, including objective setting, coaching, and building a culture of knowledge sharing and continuous learning.