Director, Investment Operations

Department: Finance

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: 270 Madison Avenue

Reporting To: Geetanjali Gupta

Compensation: $200,000 - $225,000 / year

Description

Overview
The Investment Office is responsible for the Library’s $1.6 billion endowment investment program. Though the Library receives substantial funding from the City of New York as an independent non-profit entity, the spending generated by the endowment contributes crucial ongoing support to the Library’s annual operating budget. The endowment portfolio is invested through external managers and is currently allocated across various asset classes and strategies, including domestic and international equities, marketable alternatives, private capital, real assets, and fixed income.  
Reporting to the Chief Investment Officer, the Director, Investment Operations is responsible for developing a strategic vision for best-in-class operational infrastructure of a global, multi-asset class portfolio. They are a critical part of the institutionalization of the Investment Office, which started five years ago. The individual should have a strong understanding of best practices in investment operations in the industry. They will manage performance and risk analysis, operational due diligence, fund data management, and reporting and reconciling investment operations processes. 
We are looking for someone we can count on to:
Own:

• Performance and risk reporting
• Investment operations, such as subscriptions and capital calls
• Document and data management for the portfolio
• Coordination of the annual audit and tax process with NYPL’s internal finance teams
• Relationships with external vendors

Grow:

• Data capture and analytics on existing investments 
• Asset allocation review process
• Understanding of operational risks within our portfolio 

Learn:

• The office’s existing investment portfolio and systems
• Broader landscape of investment systems and technologies and consider applications for the team

Improve:

•  Operations and investment infrastructure and processes 

Some expectations for this role are that within:
1 month, this person will:

• Become familiar with our existing performance, risk, and document management systems
• Understand our capital call and subscription processes
• Build relationships with our external vendors

3 months, this person will:

• Have familiarity with our existing portfolio and strategy
• Make an initial assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of our current processes
• Participate in active investment processes of pipeline managers and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their operational infrastructure 

6 months and beyond, this person will:

• Make recommendations for areas of improvement, and implement those recommendations
• Take on oversight of our operational due diligence process
• Have full management and responsibility for all portfolio, risk, and document management systems

Responsibilities

• Assist internal finance team in managing the annual audit process
• Manage performance data and analysis, including preparation of the Board of Trustees Investment Committee materials
• Manage review, onboarding, implementation, and ongoing maintenance of portfolio management systems, working with the internal purchasing team
• Identify and capture relevant data pertaining to new and established funds
• Oversee operational due diligence reviews on prospective managers and ongoing operational monitoring of existing managers
• Prepare subscription documents and investment office contracts for execution
• Manage cash flows for the portfolio – capital calls, subscriptions, in-kind distributions
• Maintain a database of contacts of existing and prospective managers
• Manage other related projects as directed by the Chief Investment Officer

Required Education, Experience & Skills

Required Education & CertificationsBachelor's Degree Required Experience
5+ years of work experience in operations in a finance or investment office
Required Skills

• Detail oriented with strong analytical and quantitative capabilities
• Strong project management skills; able to manage multiple complex long and short term projects in a dynamic, demanding environment 
• Basic understanding of investment strat