SVP - Product Development, Europe

About Vest

Vest Financial™ is a rapidly growing investment management firm specializing in Target Outcome Strategies®, including Target Buffer®, Target Income, Target Growth, and Target Financing™. Vest has grown from under $500 million in 2019 to over $70 billion today, in partnership with leading asset managers.

Vest is building its European product-development capability, and this role leads it. You will define what Vest should build for the European market, why each product should exist, which investors it should serve, and through which vehicle it should be delivered. The mandate is not to replicate Vest’s U.S. lineup, but to design derivatives-based products purpose-built for European investors, regulation, distribution channels, and market infrastructure.

This is an entrepreneurial, end-to-end role for someone who wants to build enduring investment product franchises rather than advise on or distribute individual transactions. You will work directly with Vest’s founders and senior leadership and alongside First Trust’s European distribution organization.

• Define and own Vest’s European product strategy and a prioritized three-year roadmap, grounded in investor needs, market structure, regulation, and distribution economics. Decide which products to pursue, defer, or decline, and which U.S. strategies to adapt versus redesign.
• Generate original, differentiated product ideas by studying how European investors buy and use products, including private banks, wealth managers, discretionary managers, insurers, pension investors, family offices, and institutional allocators.
• Design strategies using listed options, OTC derivatives, swaps, structured securities, and systematic indexes. Model product economics across volatility, rate, dividend, and correlation environments, and validate behavior with Vest’s investment, trading, risk, and quant teams.
• Select the appropriate vehicle for each strategy (UCITS ETF, UCITS fund, SICAV or OEIC, structured note, insurance or unit-linked product, custom index, model portfolio, or segregated mandate), weighing eligibility, tax, liquidity, transparency, distribution access, and operational complexity.
• Apply working knowledge of the UCITS framework and partner with legal and compliance on eligible assets, global exposure, counter party and collateral rules, diversification, leverage, and disclosure. Surface regulatory issues early enough to shape design.
• Build the European distribution understanding and relationships needed to commercialize products, in close partnership with First Trust, and lead products end-to-end from concept through launch, coordinating internal teams and external service providers against firm timelines.
• Develop clear product narratives and educational materials, present recommendations to Vest and First Trust leadership, and build a scalable, well-governed product-development function over time.

• Approximately 12+ years in equity derivatives, structured products, investment product development, or a closely related field, ideally including time at a leading global investment bank (equity-derivatives structuring, structured-products origination, or a cross-asset solutions or systematic-strategies business).
• Strong command of options, structured payoffs, volatility, hedging, funding, dividends, and correlation, plus the practical constraints of pricing, liquidity, and execution.
• Meaningful experience with European investment products and the UCITS market, and hand-on work across more than one vehicle type (funds, structured notes, insurance products, custom indexes, or mandates).
• A demonstrated understanding of the European investor and distribution landscape, and a record of influencing senior…