Investment Operations and Data Manager

Job Description

Location: Church House, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3AZReports to: Head of Investment OperationsDirect Reports: NoneKey Internal Relationships: Chief Operating Officer, Commissioners Investment Team, Investments Systems Team, Operations TeamsKey External Relationships:Data platform vendor, index providers, Custodian bank, appointed Investment agents and their representatives (for operational matters), prime, clearing and execution brokers (for internally traded assets).Background:The Church Commissioners for England is a statutory corporation and a registered charity that is both a major financial institution (with responsibility for an investment fund of over £9 billion for the Church of England) as well as an administrative bodywith regulatory and quasi-judicial dutiesThe investment fund comprises a diversified portfolio of circa £9.1bn in equities, real estate, credit, and a wide range of alternative assets, including private markets funds, timberland, absolute return funds and others.The Investment Division is responsible for all aspects of the management of the Commissioners investments. To do this we combine external investment management with managing some assets, including our derivatives hedging and EPM activity in house.RoleThe successful candidate will be responsible for management of the investment and market data activities required to support the successful delivery of a robust Investment and Accounting Book of Record (IBOR, ABOR) to the investment, RI and operational teams.This includes oversight of the data flows into internal systems (exposure management platform and others), management of data vendors and service providers and ensuring good governance of and coordination of data management processes so that data issues areidentified and resolved appropriately.ROLE REQUIREMENTS:See Person Specification.PRINCIPAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:Data Governance

• Design, implementation and oversight of data governance policies and procedures.
• Implement and manage the data ownership model.
• Design and implementation of appropriate controls to ensure the integrity and accuracy of data.
• Oversight of data owners validation activity, ensuring that issues are appropriately resolved.
• Resolution of data issues where there are cross-team conflicts, escalating where appropriate.
• Point of contact and coordination of new data requirement requests.

Data Management

• Day to day oversight of the Matrix Managed Service, that manages external provider data delivery.
• Execution of the daily runbook to release the IBOR for use by investments and operations teams.
• Set up and maintenance of entities, accounts, benchmark indices and fund hierarchy within the data platform.
• Maintenance of the security master including new security setup, amendment & exception processing.
• Setup of new investment manager holdings data feeds.
• Working with the Investment Accounting function, perform reconciliations between IBOR and ABOR.

Data Vendor Management

• Working with the Vendor and Contracts Manager, monitor the performance of key data suppliers versus key service level KPIs.
• Act as the key liaison / 1st line support between Matrix & CCfE for issue management as per the SLA
• Manage relationships, where appropriate, with external data providers, e.g. benchmark index providers.

Market Data Budget Management

• Support of annual budgeting processes relating to market data.
• Maintenance of records of market data providers, service/data usage information and costs.
• Coordinate new market data requests, including working with the Vendor and Contracts Manager and Head of Investment Legal on key contractual terms and matters of due diligence.

Industry Best Practice

• Provide a culture of continuous improvement, actively seeking out industry best practice and adopting, where appropriate, improvements for the Commissioners data management capabilities.

Investment Operations

• Cash management activities, including reconciliations, projections and payments.
• Providing support for Money Market, Treasury and FX trading.
• Providing support to the TAA derivatives portfolio as required.
• Assist with changes to the Commissioners securities portfolio, including account and market set up at the custodian.

PERSON SPECIFICATION:Knowledge and Experience

• Proven experience of data management using enterprise data solutions, for example, Matrix, Cadis, Eagle, including the design and implementation of effective processes and data quality controls.
• At least 5 years experience of working in a multi-asset asset owner or investment fund, including managing the data and operational requirements of a broad range of asset classes such as listed assets, exchange traded and OTC derivatives and private markets.
• Experience of working with and overseeing multiple service providers, including data platform vendors and source data providers.
• Proven experience of managing market data budgets and vendors, with awareness of legal and commercial terms.

Skills and Aptitudes

• Numerate with a high degree of accuracy and attention to detail.
• Strong administrative and organisational skills.
• For data interrogation, familiarity with modern database and information system technologies such as SQL would be advantageous.
• Experience of working with business intelligence tools, such as Power BI, to enhance the visualisation of data for all users.
• Able to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines driven by the need to provide quality assured data to the investment and operations teams.
• Ability to communicate and build and maintain relationships at all levels within the Investment Division.
• Organised and efficient with ability to manage priorities effectively and meet tight deadlines.
• Risk-minded individual with a controls-focussed mindset and an understanding of the impacts of poor data quality on business processes and investment decision making.
• Ability to work independently whilst recognising boundaries of responsibility and accountability.

Desirable

• Relevant industry qualification preferable.

Circumstances: