Head of Operations

Role overview

This senior leadership position reports to the CEO, Board, or the relevant committee and is based in the UAE, specifically within ADGM or DIFC where applicable. It is a full-time role for an approved person or an equivalent senior governance position. The Head of Operations is responsible for shaping and running the operating model of a regulated retail investment platform so the business can grow safely, manage outsourced services effectively, deliver dependable platform operations, and show strong resilience and control.

The role carries ownership of the firm’s operational capability and requires close partnership with Compliance, Risk, Legal, Technology, and client-facing teams.

Key responsibilities

• Take end-to-end ownership of client onboarding operations, account-opening workflows, verification coordination, and operational capacity.
• Direct day-to-day platform operations, including trade support, cash movements, reconciliations, and resolution of operational exceptions.
• Manage outsourced and third-party relationships with brokers, custodians, technology suppliers, payment providers, and other support partners.
• Track service levels, incidents, backlog volumes, and operational performance indicators.
• Lead business continuity planning, disaster recovery arrangements, and resilience testing exercises.
• Coordinate the operational rollout of regulatory changes and internal transformation initiatives.
• Maintain management information and dashboards for senior leadership and board-level review.
• Drive root-cause analysis for incidents, control failures, and process breakdowns.
• Ensure every critical workflow has clear documentation, handover points, and controls, particularly where work is outsourced.

Regulatory accountability

• Maintain an operating framework that supports secure retail client servicing, onboarding, trading, payments, reconciliations, and support functions.
• Ensure all outsourced and interconnected service providers are managed through formal SLAs, oversight routines, escalation routes, and documented control measures.
• Keep the organisation operationally ready for new client phases, product introductions, or platform scaling.
• Ensure the firm can demonstrate operational resilience, incident response, and recovery capabilities to both internal governance bodies and regulators.
• Deliver board-ready updates on capacity, service quality, incidents, remediation progress, and operational risk trends.

Reserved matters and escalation rights

• No new client growth phase may begin without documented sign-off confirming operational readiness.
• No new vendor, platform integration, or outsourced critical service may launch without testing, control validation, and approval.
• Any material operational incident, repeated SLA failure, failed reconciliation, or material control gap must be escalated immediately to senior management and the relevant committees.
• The Head of Operations may advise pausing onboarding, trading, or service delivery if operational risk is not being controlled to an acceptable level.
• Any significant resilience or continuity weakness must be reported together with remediation timelines and accountable owners.
• Operational evidence used in regulator-facing submissions must be reviewed and approved through the firm’s governance process.

Working relationship with Compliance

Operations is accountable for execution, process control, resilience, and service delivery. Compliance is responsible for regulatory interpretation, compliance monitoring, policy guidance, and challenge. The Head of Operations must work closely with Compliance on onboarding controls, complaints routing, breach escalation, and implementation of regulatory change.

Candidate profile: required experience

• At least 10 years of operations leadership experience in regulated financial services, fintech, wealth management, asset management, or retail investment platforms.
• Minimum 5 years at Head of Operations or COO level within a client-facing regulated environment, with a proven record of scaling operations during growth phases.
• Strong depth of experience in outsourcing governance, broker/custodian relationships, and operational resilience.
• Excellent capability in governance, reporting, stakeholder management, and issue resolution.

Preferred experience

• Exposure to ADGM or DIFC regulated environments.
• Understanding of operational requirements linked to Islamic finance.
• Experience supporting virtual assets operational infrastructure.
• Ability to communicate in Arabic.