Director of Operations

Join us at a pivotal moment, where investment operations expertise, data integrity, and process excellence come together to underpin effective LGPS pooling and deliver strong outcomes.

The Director of Operations is a strategic senior leadership role responsible for shaping, leading and continuously evolving the operational platform that supports LGPS Central as a large-scale institutional asset owner.

The role provides accountability for operational capability across all asset classes, ensuring Operations acts as a strategic enabler of investment success, growth, resilience and regulatory readiness.

As LGPS Central evolves towards managing increasingly complex strategies and structures, the postholder will lead the development of a scalable and resilient operating model, acting as a senior strategic partner to teams including Risk, Clients and Investment.

• Provide strategic leadership and accountability for the end-to-end investment operating model across public markets, private markets, cash management, alternatives, real estate, derivatives, currency hedging, asset servicing, custody oversight, asset transitions and operational change.
• Develop and execute a multi-year Operations strategy aligned to LGPS Central’s growth ambitions, investment strategy, client needs and regulatory obligations.
• Position Operations as a trusted strategic partner, contributing to business outcomes and investment performance rather than operating solely as a service delivery function.
• Act as a senior operational adviser to portfolio managers, investment teams and product sponsors on new product design, fund launches, asset class onboarding, investment vehicles, outsourcing and implementation strategies.
• Ensure operational considerations, risks and feasibility assessments are incorporated early in investment decision making, providing independent challenge where required.
• Design and continually evolve a scalable and resilient institutional asset owner operating model, increasing internal capability and making appropriate in sourcing and outsourcing decisions.
• Lead asset transitions, manager changes, fund launches and closures, portfolio restructures, strategic rebalancing programmes and new market entry initiatives.
• Establish transition management disciplines and governance processes capable of supporting complex multi-asset investment strategies.
• Lead operational resilience and regulatory readiness across critical business services, key dependencies, incident management, business continuity, recovery capabilities and operational governance.
• Partner with Risk, Compliance and Technology teams to ensure alignment with FCA expectations, operational resilience requirements and broader organisational maturity objectives.
• Provide leadership and sponsorship for operational risk management across Operations, ensuring well defined risks, effective controls, actionable MI, meaningful KRIs and incident learning.
• Provide executive sponsorship and oversight of the operational due diligence framework for external managers, custodians, administrators, depositaries, transition managers and key third-party service providers.
• Own strategic relationships with the global custodian, fund administrators, depositaries, transition managers, market infrastructure providers and other critical operational service providers.
• Drive automation, workflow optimisation, data quality improvement, AI-assisted operational processes, exception-based operations and predictive operational monitoring within appropriate governance frameworks.
• Prepare and present papers to Executive Committee, Board Committees and the Board of Directors, providing clear insight into operational performance, emerging risks, strategic opportunities and market developments.
• Build a high-performing Operations leadership team, developing capability, resilience, succession strength and a culture of continuous improvement

LGPS Central (LGPSC) Ltd is the FCA regulated asset manager for fourteen local authority pension funds across the Midlands. LGPSC is jointly owned on an equal shares basis by those Partner Fund, and it is responsible for managing £100bn+ of their assets. It is one of six Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) asset pools in the UK.

LGPS Central’s Partner Funds are:

• Suffolk County Council

The Company is committed to responsible investment and has made responsible investment a core part of the investment process in every asset class.

LGPS Central offers a friendly and diverse, hybrid working environment with a range of employee benefits. The Company moved to new premises at i9, Wolverhampton Interchange in January 2022, close to local transport links.

Our objective is to be a leading investment management company working with and for our Partner Funds. With a focus on value for money and performance we want to aspire to be one of the best because this is how we will deliver the superior investment returns and low costs for our Partner Funds

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