Associate Director - Regional Ops Governance and Analytics

Eastspring is a global asset manager with Asia at its core. We create a culture in which diversity is celebrated and inclusion assured, for our colleagues, customers, and partners. We provide a platform for our people to do their best work and make an impact to the business, and in exchange, we support our people's career ambitions. We pledge to make Eastspring a place where you can Connect, Grow and Succeed.

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KEY ACCOUNTABILITIES

Vendor Governance and Oversight

• Ensure vendor arrangements remain commercially sound, contractually robust, operationally effective, and aligned with the ESI Vendor Governance framework.
• Partner with Procurement, functional heads, and country teams on vendor selection, negotiations, rate cards, renewals, service scope, and contractual terms.
• Ensure appropriate SLAs, service measures, governance routines, due diligence, and documentation standards are defined and aligned across markets and reviewed regularly in line with leading standards.
• Manage regular service reviews and vendor due diligence activities, and track performance trends, incidents, costs, and escalation themes to hold vendors accountable and drive timely remediation.
• Act as regional escalation and advisory point for material vendor matters across markets, including leveraging regional strategic vendor relationships to improve business outcomes.

Operational Analytics

• Develop regional Operations analytics through meaningful MIS, dashboards, scorecards, KPIs, and KRIs that convert operational data into management insight for Ops functional leaders. 
• Analyse volumes, capacity, productivity, timeliness, quality, exceptions, workflow trends, vendor service levels, costs, and risk indicators across markets
• Support business cases, operating model reviews, benefit tracking, process redesign, automation opportunities, and post-implementation reviews.
• Work with Operations functional heads and country teams to assess and drive opportunities for process simplification, standardisation, automation, and control enhancement.
• Translate complex information into concise insights, decision papers, dashboards, and recommendations.

Risk and Control

• Strengthen regional Operations risk and control discipline across incidents, control issues, audits, compliance attestations, assurance activities, and remediation progress.
• Support SOX, ISAE3402, audit readiness, control testing, issue transparency, and timely closure of remediation actions.
• Improve consistency in governance standards, MI definitions, reporting quality, escalation discipline, issue management, and control documentation.
• Work with Risk to use risk analytics to identify emerging themes, control gaps, recurring weaknesses, aged issues, overdue actions, and matters requiring management attention across markets.
• Work with Operations functional heads and country teams to maintain clear ownership and follow-through on risks, issues, blockers, dependencies, decisions, and commitments.

Management Support

• Support the Regional Head of Operations by ensuring governance forums, management committees, risk reviews, vendor forums, and steering discussions are well-prepared and outcome-focused.
• Prepare executive-ready updates, governance papers, risk summaries, decision papers, performance packs, issue logs, action trackers, and presentation materials.
• Coordinate agendas, materials, minutes, decisions, actions, follow-ups, and escalation items across regional Operations priorities.
• Oversee vendor billing and invoice management, including validation, query resolution, cost monitoring, and financial discipline.
• Promote operational excellence, continuous improvement, data-driven insight, accountability, collaboration, and disciplined execution.

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KEY COMPETENCIES

• Strong analytical judgement, with the ability to interpret operational data, identify patterns, assess root causes, and convert findings into practical recommendations.

• Excellent governance discipline, with strong attention to action tracking, decision records, risk escalation, documentation quality, and follow-through.

• Strong executive communication skills, including the ability to produce clear, concise, well-structured materials for senior stakeholders.

• Ability to influence across markets and functions without direct authority, balancing regional consistency with local market context.

• High level of ownership, resilience, curiosity, and problem-solving orientation, with a commitment to operational excellence and continuous improvement.

EXPERIENCE / QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Accounting, Economics, Data Analytics, Information Systems, or a related discipline.

• At least 10–15 years of relevant experience in investment operations, asset management operations, operational governance, operational risk, business management, transformation, vendor oversight, or operational analytics, ideally within a regional or cross-market environment.

• Strong understanding of investment operations, outsourcing oversight, vendor governance, service provider management, operational risk, controls, incident management, issue tracking, and remediation within asset management or financial services.

• Proven experience developing management information, dashboards, scorecards, KPIs, KRIs, and executive reporting to support operational oversight, risk management, service performance, and decision-making.

• Strong analytical capability, including the ability to interpret operational data, identify trends and root causes, and translate findings into practical insights, recommendations, and management actions.

• Good understanding of operational risk, controls, incident management, issue tracking, audit remediation, and regulatory expectations within an asset management or financial services environment.

• Strong stakeholder management experience, with the ability to engage country operations teams, senior management, control functions, technology teams, data teams, finance, and external vendors.

• Experience supporting regional or cross-market governance routines, including management forums, risk reviews, vendor reviews, escalation processes, action tracking, and executive reporting.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce concise, executive-ready reporting, insights, and recommendations.

• Prior exposure to transformation, operating model change, outsourcing, process improvement, automation, or data-led operational improvement initiatives would be highly valuable.

• Proficiency in reporting and analytics tools such as Excel, Power BI, Tableau, SQL, Alteryx, or similar platforms; practical experience in dashboard design and data visualisation is preferred.

• Professional qualifications or certifications such as CFA, FRM, CPA, ACCA, CA, PMP, Lean Six Sigma, data analytics, or risk management certifications would be advantageous but not mandatory.

Eastspring is an equal opportunity employer.  We provide equality of opportunity of benefits for all who apply and who perform work for our organisation irrespective of sex, race, age, ethnic origin, educational, social and cultural background, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, disability or part-time / fixed-term work, or any other status protected by applicable law. We encourage the same standards from our recruitment and third-party suppliers taking into account the context of grade, job and location. We also allow for reasonable adjustments to support people with individual physical or mental health requirements.