Vice President, Operational Strategy

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Job Description

Ares is seeking a versatile Vice President to work within our Corporate Strategy – Operational Strategy Group (“OSG”).  Our OSG leads cross-functional projects and programs to: integrate new business acquisitions; enhance corporate efficiency and also identify impact opportunities; advance the business through operating model development; and provide governance and executive support for senior leadership forums.

Our team works closely with business stakeholders in our five lines of business (Credit, Private Equity, Real Estate, Secondary Markets and Strategic Initiatives) and across our business operations functions (Compliance, Finance and Accounting, Investment Operations, Investor Relations, Legal, Portfolio Management, Relationship Management, Tax, and Technology). We seek a candidate who can analyze business processes and technology, lead discussions with senior stakeholders, provide process improvement suggestions, and execute using their specific industry knowledge and problem-solving capabilities. 

This role requires a dynamic, adaptive, and experienced professional who can build and maintain strong business partner relationships. This position will require flexibility and rapid learning to become an expert in multiple functional areas and asset classes. The ideal candidate should have demonstrated an ability to manage large scale change programs.  Successful collaboration across all business functions, strategies, and external vendors will be crucial. 

Given the broad nature of projects in our queue, knowledge of investor, fund, and deal lifecycles in alternative investment classes, will allow the candidate to make an immediate impact upon joining the firm.  Knowledge of alternative investment asset classes is required.

Reporting relationships

Principal, Corporate Strategy – Operational Strategy Group

Primary functions & responsibilities

• Develop, execute, and manage certain processes and solution design strategies on behalf of the Executive Team

• Partner across all areas of the firm to deliver actionable analysis, high quality reporting, and operational excellence.

• Serve as an advisor to business stakeholders and third-party service providers to drive our overall Firm-level strategy and be go-to point for details and status updates on initiatives.

• Create and deliver presentations to business partners at multiple levels, including process owners, senior managers, and executives, focusing on takeaways, answering questions clearly and at the appropriate level of detail.

• Ability to create consensus and drive change adoption across the organization

• Drive projects with the ability to “connect the dots” between upstream/downstream/cross program dependencies, while multitasking across multiple deliverables.

• Identify and work with business stakeholders to implement best practices for operational processes and system optimizations.

• Assist with integration activities associated with new business acquisitions

• Ability and willingness to be hands-on in all aspects of program management, including:

  • Requirements gathering, documentation, business use case development

  • Process workflow documentation and diagrams

  • Training/acceptance plan development and execution

  • Cross platform project communications

• Provide oversight and guidance to junior team members when assigned to the same projects

Qualifications

Education:

• A Bachelor’s degree is required, preferably with a major in Accounting, Economics, Political Science, Finance, General Business or Management, and outstanding academic achievement.

Experience Required:  

• 10-12 years of experience in business process re-engineering, process design, business integrations or consulting

• Experience in the analysis and design of new business processes and systems, requirements definition, and implementation

• Familiarity with marketing and regulatory requirements

• Strong ability to prioritize and multi-task under pressure and drive processes and results with remarkable attention to det