An excellent opportunity for a Senior Operations Manager to take ownership of the financial and operational backbone of a retail LISP and asset management business. This role sits at the centre of Reconciliations, Client Service Recovery, and Operations Support, with direct accountability for financial accuracy, audit outcomes, and the resolution of high-impact client issues.
This Senior Operations Manager role is Cape Town-based.
THE COMPANY
This company is the leader in South African investment, wealth, and asset management solutions. With consistent dedication to process evolution & disruptive technology platforms, they have built a reputation of being South Africa’s most successful investment management platform.
Their investment administration capability ensures that the company offers accuracy, efficiency, and scale of transactions as their competitive edge in the investment management industry.
THE ROLE
As Senior Operations Manager, you will be accountable for the end-to-end integrity of financial operations and reconciliations across the retail LISP environment. You will lead the Finance and Reconciliations team, ensuring all daily dealing, cash movements, liabilities, and financial records are accurate, complete, and defensible for audit and regulatory purposes.
You will own reconciliation processes across cash, trades, liabilities, and financial reporting, with responsibility for sign-off, exception management, and resolution of breaks. This includes overseeing daily and monthly reconciliations, managing the financial close process, and ensuring accurate tax and regulatory reporting.
In parallel, you will lead the Service Recovery function, responsible for investigating financial and operational errors, managing client complaints, driving root cause analysis, and implementing permanent fixes to prevent repeat issues. This role requires close collaboration with Finance, Operations, Risk, and senior stakeholders to ensure issues are resolved correctly and sustainably.
REQUIREMENTS
Minimum 8+ years’ experience in financial services operations, with at least 5 years in a senior operations or finance leadership role.
Direct experience in a LISP and/or unit trust administration environment. Candidates without LISP exposure should be excluded.
End-to-end ownership of reconciliations, including daily dealing, cash, liabilities, and client balances. Oversight-only experience is not sufficient.
Hands-on experience investigating and resolving reconciliation breaks, with clear understanding of root causes and corrective actions.
Experience implementing, operating, or optimising third-party reconciliation systems. Spreadsheet-only environments are insufficient.
Accountability for audit outcomes, including direct engagement with external auditors and ownership of audit findings.
Experience managing multiple specialist operational teams simultaneously.
Exposure to financial reporting and tax processes within a regulated investment or asset management environment.
Comfortable operating in a highly regulated environment with strong control, governance, and sign-off discipline.