Chief Product Owner, Clearing & Margining

Job Summary

• We are seeking a talented and passionate, individual to join Standard Chartered as the Chief Product Owner of Margining & Clearing in the Markets COO Transformation Post Trade team.
• Our Product Owners have a deep understanding of the target market/industry and build close relationships with key stakeholders to ensure the teams effort is aligned with overall strategy and client / customer needs.
• The Chief Product Owner works under the guidance of Alexandre Nguyen Chief Product Owner Post Trade.
• If tackling complex challenges excites you, then join our Markets COO Transformation Post Trade team where you will get to collaborate and work on solutions across business and functions. You will have the opportunity to build and maintain the best-in-class products / services for our clients and customers, whilst continuously striving to reduce time-to-market and streamline our processes.

What will you do?

• The Chief Product Owner for Margining and Clearing is an empowered senior decision maker accountable for maximising the business value of two critical post-trade capabilities: margining and clearing.
• They oversee the full lifecycle of these capabilities, ensuring that margin processes (collateral management, margin calls, dispute handling, optimisation and settlement) and clearing processes (trade execution, validation, lifecycle management, reconciliation, reporting and settlement) are delivered in a scalable, standardised and risk-controlled manner.
• The role acts as the single point of accountability for end-to-end outcomes across both capabilities, addressing fragmentation, multiple governance forums, and lack of visibility across initiatives, and driving a unified and efficient operating model.
• The Chief Product Owner leads multiple Product Owners and collaborates closely with operations, front office, technology and control functions to ensure alignment across the entire trade lifecycle.

Accountable for

• Maximising business value by delivering efficient, scalable and controlled margining and clearing processes across products and regions
• Establishing a single, unified view of all margining and clearing initiatives, improving visibility, prioritisation and governance across the organisation
• Driving simplification by reducing fragmentation, handoffs and duplication across processes and delivery teams
• Overseeing the margining capability, including:
• • Collateral management and optimisation
• Margin calls and dispute resolution
• Margin matching, settlement and lifecycle management
• Owning the clearing capability, including:
• Trade execution, validation and lifecycle processing
• Allocation and confirmation of cleared trades
• Clearing obligations and regulatory requirements
• Broker connectivity and account management
• Reconciliation, controls and exception management
• Risk and credit management related to cleared trades
• Settlement, accounting and fee processing
• Static data, reporting and client information
• Operational controls, audit and management reporting
• Owning and prioritising a single consolidated backlog across margining and clearing, covering transformation, operational improvements, risk remediation and regulatory changes
• Ensuring consistent prioritisation across competing initiatives based on value, risk and operational impact
• Driving cross-capability synergies between margining, clearing, trade lifecycle processing and reporting
• Establishing strong governance and efficient decision-making, including:
• Streamlined engagement with control functions such as legal and compliance
• Clear ownership across product, process and technology teams
• Improved resource utilisation and cross-functional flexibility
• Managing operational risk, process changes and delivery risks across both capabilities
• Actively removing blockers and resolving dependencies across complex delivery streams

Key Responsibilities

Strategy

• Drive convergence of processes and platforms across clearing and margining to enable a simplified and scalable operating model
• Establish a single governance and prioritisation structure across all initiatives to improve transparency and execution efficiency
• Promote standardisation across markets, products and regions to reduce complexity and operational risk
• Drive automation and digitisation of manual processes, particularly in margin handling, reconciliation and trade lifecycle events
• Enable reuse of capabilities across asset classes to avoid bespoke implementations
• Ensure alignment between pre-trade, trade execution and post-trade processes to support end-to-end consistency
• Use data, performance metrics and stakeholder feedback to continuously refine strategic priorities

Business

• Maximising business value by delivering efficient, scalable and controlled margining and clearing processes across products and regions
• Establishing a single, unified view of all margining and clearing initiatives, improving visibility, prioritisation and governance across the organisation
• Driving simplification by reducing fragmentation, handoffs and duplication across processes and delivery teams
• Overseeing the margining capability, including:
• Collateral management and optimisation
• Margin calls and dispute resolution
• Margin matching, settlement and lifecycle management
• Owning the clearing capability, including:
• Trade execution, validation and lifecycle processing
• Allocation and confirmation of cleared trades
• Clearing obligations and regulatory requirements
• Broker connectivity and account management
• Reconciliation, controls and exception management
• Risk and credit management related to cleared trades
• Settlement, accounting and fee processing
• Static data, reporting and client information
• Operational controls, audit and management reporting
• Owning and prioritising a single consolidated backlog across margining and clearing, covering transformation, operational improvements, risk remediation and regulatory changes
• Ensuring consistent prioritisation across competing initiatives based on value, risk and operational impact
• Driving cross-capability synergies between margining, clearing, trade lifecycle processing and reporting

Processes

• Establish and enforce end-to-end process ownership across margining and clearing, ensuring clear accountability and visibility
• Align processes to enterprise standards across the full trade lifecycle, from execution to settlement and reporting
• Improve operational workflows by reducing handoffs, simplifying interactions between systems and teams, and increasing straight-through processing
• Ensure appropriate controls, auditability and regulatory compliance are embedded across all processes
• Streamline governance processes by:
• Actively contributing to a single refinement and prioritisation forum as the CPO
• Improving visibility of all initiatives and their relative importance
• Standardising review and approval workflows
• Partner closely with:
• Operations teams for margining and clearing execution
• Front office where clearing impacts trade execution and client activity
• Control functions to ensure efficient and compliant processes
• Maintain clear oversight of dependencies across upstream and downstream processes including reporting, accounting and reconciliation
• Ensure all governance, documentation and assurance requirements are met consistently across both capabilities

People & Talent

• Champion and act as a role model of the Group’s values and culture. Lead through example and build the appropriate culture and values. Sets appropriate tone and expectations for their team and work in collaboration with risk and control partners.
• Lead and support a change in mindset, building a culture of client centricity, agility, and accountability through standardised metrics and measurement, ensuring everyone in the Bank are drivers and owners of client outcomes.
• Set effective metrics and standards, transparently communicating them to team members, providing feedback and rewarding employees accordingly. Set the appropriate tone and expectations for the wider team.
• Employ, engage, and retain high quality people, with succession planning for critical roles.
• Ensure team structure/capacity is reviewed to enable delivery of client outcomes.
• Ensure the provision of on-going training & development, ensure that direct reports are suitably skilled and qualified for their roles and that they have effective supervision in place to mitigate any risk.
• Set and monitor job descriptions and objectives for direct reports and provide feedback and rewards in line with their performance against those responsibilities and objectives.
• Create a motivational and challenging environment for staff which is conducive to creativity and performance with customer centricity in mind.
• Provide feedback on transformation leaders to their people leaders, as part of performance reviews

Risk Management

• Create transparency around backlog item progress, blockers, impediments, dependencies, and product value delivery via fit for purpose business and delivery metrics.
• Engage process and risk control owners in upfront in design of process changes. Have oversight of, direct tracking and monitoring of projects.

Governance

• Adopt and embed the Ways of Working Standards throughout the lifecycle of the product / service.
• Awareness and understanding of the regulatory framework in which the Group operates, and the regulatory requirements and expectations relevant to the role.

Regulatory & Business Conduct

• Display exemplary conduct and live by the Group’s Values and Code of Conduct.
• Take personal responsibility for embedding the highest standards of ethics, including regulatory and business conduct, across Standard Chartered Bank. This includes understanding and ensuring compliance with, in letter and spirit, all applicable laws, regulations, guidelines and the Group Code of Conduct.
• Exercise authorities delegated by the Board of Directors and act in accordance with Articles of Association (or equivalent)

Key stakeholders

• T&O Markets & Post Trade Technology Leadership team
• Markets COO Leadership team
• Markets Trading and Sales
• Markets Operations Leadership team
• Operations Clearing and Margining
• Credit and Market Risk teams
• Functional Partners : CFCC, HR, Finance, Legal, GIA
• Transformation Leads across the Bank
• Group Process owners

Our Ideal Candidate

• 15 plus years of experience in Financial Markets technology and operations, with strong exposure to post-trade environments
• Deep expertise in end-to-end trade lifecycle processing, with a strong understanding of how trades flow from execution through confirmation, clearing, margining, settlement and reporting
• Proven experience and strong subject matter knowledge in both:
• Clearing processes (trade lifecycle management, reconciliation, settlement, controls and reporting)
• Margining processes (collateral management, margin calls, dispute resolution, optimisation and settlement).
• Licences and Certifications/accreditations:
• Product Owner certification from Scrum Alliance, Scrum.org or other associations will be an asset
• Practitioner certification of Scaled Agile framework like LeSS, SAFe, Scrum@Scale, Spotify, Nexus and Human Centred Design or Design Thinking are plus.
• Professional Memberships: Association or Discipline Association Membership well regarded.
• Demonstrated ability to operate at scale across complex, multi-product and multi-region environments, driving standardisation and simplification
• Strong understanding of operational processes and controls, with the ability to design solutions that are both efficient and compliant
• Proven track record as a Product Owner or senior product leader, with full accountability for backlog prioritisation, delivery outcomes and stakeholder alignment
• Solid experience working in Agile ways of working, including backlog management, prioritisation, iterative delivery and close collaboration with cross-functional teams
• Ability to balance strategic thinking and hands-on delivery, making clear trade-offs between value, risk, cost and speed
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence and align front office, operations, technology and control functions
• A forward-looking, adaptable mindset, with a strong appetite for continuous learning and innovation
• Good understanding of how to leverage automation and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, to simplify processes, reduce manual effort and improve decision-making
• Strong analytical and data-driven approach, with the ability to use metrics and insights to drive prioritisation and measure outcomes

Role Specific Technical Competencies

• Product / Service subject matter expertise
• Product delivery lifecycle experience using Agile Ways of Working (Scrum, Kanban, Lean, etc…)
• Understanding Customer Needs (research, insights & communication)
• Data driven decision making & product analytics
• Business plan – design and execution (tactical and strategic)
• Marketing Strategy and Positioning
• Stakeholder management and communication
• Regulatory Environment – Financial...