Sr. GIPS Performance Analyst

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.

Role Summary

Northern Trust Asset Management is a trillion dollar investment management firm entrusted by investors around the globe to help them navigate changing market environments, so they can confidently realize their long-term objectives. 

The Senior GIPS® Analyst role will be responsible for the calculation of performance of the firm’s composites across a wide range of investment products and asset classes, with focus on accuracy and timeliness of the returns.  The candidate shall have at least 5 years of GIPS experience and will be responsible for the creation and maintenance of GIPS composites to support the firm’s reporting, marketing and product development efforts. The candidate shall have strong analytical and problem-solving skills, and demonstrate excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.

The scope of responsibilities include strong understanding how composites are constructed and what the technical and qualitative requirements for a GIPS compliant firm are. This high visibility role shall strive to provide the highest level of client service by engaging with stakeholders from Portfolio Management, Product Management, Sales and Marketing, Investment Operations, Compliance, Verifiers and others from the Performance & Attribution team.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Serve as a GIPS Standards subject matter expert and drives best practice to support compliance efforts across the firm. Collaborate with the Product and Investment teams to ensure alignment between strategy offerings and GIPS composites.

• Work with core-competency teams to develop, maintain and execute the highest standards to produce consistent composite performance records that meet all regulatory and audit standards. 

• Ensure accuracy and timeliness for delivery of monthly composite data.    

• Assist with improving the firm’s GIPS policies and procedures to create a robust governance and BAU control framework. Support ongoing development of manuals and SOP documents.

• Participate in the development of reporting and composite data governance standards that are agreed and leveraged across global teams to ensure data quality.

• Stay informed of regulatory and industry requirements and FAQ’s issued by the CFA Institute that may impact data elements required for annual GIPS presentations to clients and prospects (RFPs).

• Assist with key testing and remediation efforts related to the firm’s annual GIPS verification engagement.

• Proactively identify and implement process and workflow improvements to gain efficiency and productivity.

• Be a culture leader to foster a collaborative and respectful environment.

Necessary Knowledge and Skills

• Detailed understanding of the CFA’s GIPS Standars and guidelines and methodologies, asset management business, with expertise in fixed income, equity and multi-asset strategies. Familiarity of Alternative investment process, performance and attribution analysis are complimentary to the role.

• Robust knowledge of and experience with managing large scale production of GIPS composites and supporting marketing is ideal.  Knowledge of SYLVAN, BlackRock Solutions’ Aladdin analytics, EAGLE PACE, FactSet or other composite tools such as Statpro are preferrable.

• Exemplary working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications (Excel proficiency using pivot tables, Match Index, H & V& X-lookups, etc., Outlook, Word, PowerPoint)

• Familiarity of Power BI, SQL, VBA desired.

• Strong analytical, organizational, and problem-solving skills.

• Ability to work independently, strong situational awareness, communication skills and decision making capabilities.

Necessary Experience and Education

• Bachelor degree; CFA and/or CIPM designation strongly preferred.

• At least 5 years of work experience in hands-on maintenance of large scale GIPS framework, working with product and sales functions to support the p