Specialist, Client Service Lead -Front Office Solutions - CEDENT

Chicago, IL

About the Job

Title: Specialist, Client Service Lead – Front Office Solutions @ Chicago, IL
Terms of Hire: Full Time.
Salary: $ 115K-135K/yr+ Benefits.
Job description
DESCRIPTION
Front Office Solutions is a new strategic business for Client that provides a holistic digital+ service offering for some of the most sophisticated institutional investors across the globe, including foundations, endowments, pension funds, corporations, insurance companies, central banks and sovereign wealth funds. As asset owners engage in more complex, data-driven investment approaches to asset allocation, their operational needs and demands for high quality data have skyrocketed. Front Office Solutions provides a holistic, full-service, multi-asset solution that aims to empower in-house investment teams and support their important mission by providing a more comprehensive set of operational services and analytics including portfolio management, investment decision support, operational risk management, CRM/document management and workflow tools.

The Specialist will be responsible for investment data administration and oversight of individuals that will provide clients with the holistic data sets they need to fulfil their various stakeholder requirements as well as researching and identifying solutions for data challenges for institutional clients.
PRIMARY DUTIES

Serves as daily point of contact for advanced / escalation of client service needs.
Responsible for interpreting, reviewing and resolving ad hoc client requests.
Works with client's operational staff on discovery, problem resolution, and workflow management.
Acts as first point of escalation for daily / monthly performance issues as raised by junior team members.
Acts as a final reviewer and approver for month-end client cycle. Includes:
- Validating statement-based valuations
- Delivery of all client data analysis and reporting, inclusive of:
- Accounting
- Exposures
- Performance
- Hosting monthly client sign off meeting to review all data and performance results with client.
Provides final review and sign off on client output including NAV, allocation and underlying client performance
Leads new client onboarding
- Participates in initial client discovery sessions, assists in project planning, setting client expectations and facilitating continuous client updates throughout the onboarding process.
- Responsible for the review of all historic data entry and reconciliations during client onboarding.
- Creates client service level descriptions (SLDs) and any associated client negotiations.
- Responsible for management of team and tasks to meet continuous client deadlines and milestones during onboarding process.
Responsible for adherence to client service level deliverables as documented in the respective SLDs.
Responsible for detailed management of client investment data:
- Investment transactions (typically statement based for alternative assets; file based for public markets)
- Investment valuations (typically statement based for alternative assets; file based for public markets)
- Cost basis analysis, cash movement, pricing, gain and loss analysis, account and position reconciliation
- Alternative investment manager estimates
- Plan income / expense items
- Plan contributions / spending withdrawals
- Underlying manager exposure data
- Benchmark data
- Alternative investment performance data
Responsible for oversight of all investment reconciliations, including reconciliation of cash, positions, performance, transactions, alternative investment metrics (unfunded commitments, etc.)
Responsible for oversight of NAV, allocation and underlying client performance for alternative investments
Analyzes and communicates output from attribution models to clients
Analyzes and communicates Public Market Equivalent (PME) output to clients
Serves as a resource for toolset’s liquidity analysis and portfolio planning capabilities supporting the institutional asset owner clients.
Creates materials and conducts ongoing training activities for clients and new FOS team members, supporting full-service clients and software-only clients
- Creates training materials and leads training sessions on daily operational activities as well as system capabilities
Participates in ongoing process improvement discussions where feasible including:
- Third party vendor sourcing
- Process improvement through technical skills
- Ongoing Front Office Solutions program build (fee billing, legal contracts, training, etc.)

Qualifications:
REQUIRED KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS

Experience working with complex asset owners including Endowments, Foundations, Family Offices, OCIOs, Pension Funds, Sovereign Wealth Funds, and institutional asset managers.
Strong understanding of institutional investment industry, including markets, instruments, funds and fund structures, trading, etc.
Deep knowledge of alternative assets and related operational processes (hedge funds, private equity). Demonstrated understanding of private equity transactional impacts on unfunded commitments, market value, cost, and other metrics typically associated with private equity (TVPI, DPI, PIC, etc.).
Experience managing an investment operations team.
Deep understanding of investment operational processes, transactional impacts, cash movement, accruals, and valuation methodologies.
Deep understanding of accounting/reporting methods, including IBOR, ABOR, TrueNav, to support complete and accurate data capture.
Knowledge of performance measurement concepts and standards including GIPS Standards.
Understanding of benchmarks and benchmark calculations across multiple asset classes as well as an understanding of the benchmark provider industry; understanding of blended benchmarks and custom benchmarks and data management nuances.
Prior experience with multi-asset class portfolio management software.
Advanced understanding of Microsoft Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio), with emphasis on Excel.
Experienced in operational process improvement.
Client servicing and relationship management experience; high level of comfort communicating directly with clients and client advocacy.
Must be able to work closely and collaborate with internal stakeholders.
Ability to prioritize, multi-task, and perform effectively under deadlines.
Ability to handle multiple concurrent projects and to reconcile any conflicting priorities.
Commitment to project success as it may require working unconventional hours during critical project phases.

PREFERRED KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS
• Experience using VBA, Python or other programming language to format large data sets

QUALIFICATIONS

A College or University degree
A minimum of 7 years of institutional investment industry experience in the following fields:
- Performance Measurement & Investment Data Analytics (attribution, liquidity, and exposures)
- Alternative asset operations
- Investment Operations (analytics, reporting, fund or investment accounting)
- Fund accounting
- Financial reporting
- Accounting
- Investment account data reconciliation – accounting and performance

Completion (or progress towards) of advanced credentials (CFA, CAIA, CPA, MBA) preferred.
A genuine desire and capability to work in a fast-paced, professional, inclusive environment which requires teamwork, well-honed problem solving skills, frequent re-prioritization, deadline management, ongoing and comprehensive communication, constant attention to detail, and a commitment to continuous improvement and best practices.