Director of Product Operations

About Northern Trust:

Northern Trust, a Fortune 500 company, is a globally recognized, award-winning financial institution that has been in continuous operation since 1889.

Northern Trust is proud to provide innovative financial services and guidance to the world’s most successful individuals, families, and institutions by remaining true to our enduring principles of service, expertise, and integrity. With more than 130 years of financial experience and over 22,000 partners, we serve the world’s most sophisticated clients using leading technology and exceptional service.

Northern Trust Asset Management

Director of Product Operations

As a global leader in asset management, Northern Trust Asset Management (NTAM) serves the world’s most-sophisticated investors – from sovereign wealth funds, pension plan sponsors and financial intermediaries to wealthy families and individuals and the advisors that serve them. Our asset management capabilities in index management, cash management, quantitative research, portfolio construction, tax-advantaged equity, alternatives, sustainable investing and manager selection provide a rich set of capabilities which we tailor to meet the needs of investing clients around the globe.

The mission of the Global Product organization is to translate our investment management capabilities into a comprehensive product strategy rooted in the firm’s strategic growth plans. Global Product focuses on innovation, commercialization and product lifecycle management. We work collaboratively with our partners in investment manufacturing and distribution to ensure that we meet or exceed the firm’s growth objectives, deliver innovative strategies, foster deeper client engagement through differentiated positioning and strengthen the foundation of our product capabilities.  

About Your Role 

The Director of Product Operations will focus on Excellence in Execution for the Global Product organization and serve to enhance the foundational capabilities of translating our strategic product roadmap into implementation of new product launches, enhancements and lifecycle management. This role will establish and govern a robust, systematic framework for best practices in how we evaluate new initiatives and continuously streamline the existing Global Product platform, across all asset classes, vehicles and geographies, in close partnership with stakeholders across NTAM and NT.  

The role reports into the Global Head of Product for Northern Trust Asset Management.

Key Responsibilities:

• Partner with the Global Head of Product, the Global Product organization and stakeholders across the platform to “connect the dots” and drive strategic Product initiatives to completion. This will require building strong relationships with stakeholders, gaining a thorough understanding of our business processes and challenges, and leveraging that knowledge to solve problems.    

• Develop the governance process for Product Council and New Investment Product/ Strategy Vetting Committee (NIPSV), partnering with Product, Investments and Distribution partners to drive the agenda for innovation, commercialization and lifecycle management initiatives. This will include facilitating the meetings, documenting the minutes, monitoring next steps and following up with stakeholders to drive timely execution. Drive greater consistency and standardization of fund launches and changes across the global platform.
• Communicate effectively with various stakeholders across the organization on progress of various initiatives. Develop reporting on Product initiatives and pipeline across the platform, impact measurement/ success metrics, insights gained and recommendations to senior management on areas for improvement.  
• Partner with leadership of stakeholder functions (Investments, Operations, etc.) to scale existing platform and serve as an advocate in the development of product capabilities  
• Serve as the representative of the Global Product organization in various corporate-wide forums for governance, risk and control enhancement initiatives.
• Ensuring governance of product enhancements and implementation following established framework, rules and regulations

• Skills/Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA and/or CFA strongly preferred.
• 10+ years of work experience in the investment management industry with experience in driving strategic initiatives and managing complex, cross-functional projects
• Demonstrated leadership and interpersonal skills, including the ability to build strong collaboration with key stakeholders across Northern Trust
• Strong a