Specialist, Client Service Lead – Front Office Solutions

Specialist, Client Service Lead – Front Office Solutions

CORPORATE PROFILE
Northern Trust provides innovative financial services and guidance to corporations, institutions and affluent families and individuals globally. With 130 years of financial experience and over 20,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.
As a Northern Trust partner, you will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture, which has a strong history of financial strength and stability. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company that is committed to strengthening the communities we serve! We recognize the value of inclusion and diversity in culture, in thought, and in experience, which is why Forbes ranked us the top employer for Diversity in 2018. 
We’d love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world’s most admired and ethical companies. Build your career with us and apply today. 

FRONT OFFICE SOLUTIONS PROFILE
Front Office Solutions is a new strategic business for Northern Trust 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.

DESCRIPTION
The Specialist, supported by a team of Client Solutions partners, will be responsible for providing a set of dedicated clients with the holistic investment data sets they need to fulfil their various stakeholder requirements as well as identifying solutions for data analysis and reporting challenges which will arise in this ever-changing, dynamic investment environment. 

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES
• Serves as daily point of contact for advanced / escalation of client service needs.
o 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:
o Validating statement-based valuations 
o Delivery of all client data analysis and reporting, inclusive of:
 Accounting
 Exposures
 Performance
o 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 
o Participates in initial client discovery sessions; assists in project planning, setting client expectations, and facilitating continuous client updates throughout the onboarding process.
o Responsible for the review of all historic data entry and reconciliations during client onboarding.
o Creates client service level descriptions (SLDs) and manages any associated client negotiations.
o Responsible for management of team members 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:
o Investment transactions (typically statement based for alternative assets; file based for public markets)
o Investment valuations (typically statement based for alternative assets; file based for public markets)
o Cost basis analysis, cash movement, pricing, gain and loss analysis, account and position reconciliation 
o Alternative investment manager estimates
o Plan income / expense items
o Plan contributions / spending withdrawals
o Underlying manager exposure data
o Benchmark data
o 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.
o 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:
o Third party vendor sourcing
o Process improvement through technical skills
o Ongoing Front Office Solutions program build (fee billing, legal contracts, training, etc.)

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.
o 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 particular 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:
o Performance Measurement & Investment Data Analytics (attribution, liquidity, and exposures)
o Alternative asset operations
o Investment Operations (analytics, reporting, fund or investment accounting)
o Fund accounting
o Financial reporting
o Accounting
o 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.