Executive Director – Change Management & Strategy, Markets Operations

About the organisation

OCBC is Singapore’s longest-established bank, serving individuals and businesses since 1932. The organisation focuses on understanding people’s needs and delivering support, services, solutions, and career opportunities that are aligned to those needs.

The bank is currently undergoing a transformation journey, using technology and creativity to become a learning organisation that is ready for the future. Its long-term goal is to be Asia’s leading financial services partner for a sustainable future.

This is an opportunity to contribute to building the bank of the future, shaping how financial services are delivered, and working in collaborative teams that create value for customers and communities.

Role summary

The Executive Director for Change Management & Strategy within Markets Operations will lead the planning, governance, and delivery of strategic change initiatives. The position sits between strategy and operational execution, ensuring transformation efforts are well-sequenced, sustainable, and focused on people as well as business outcomes.

The role requires close partnership with senior business leaders, operations, technology, and other stakeholders to make sure change is carried out with structure, clarity, and empathy. It is intended to build change capability as a core part of the organisation rather than treating it as a one-time project.

Key responsibilities

• Design and implement end-to-end change approaches for complex, multi-year transformation programmes.
• Create a structured change roadmap that prioritises initiatives, sequences them appropriately, and aligns delivery with capacity and readiness.
• Make sure transformation work produces real operational, financial, and customer impact, not only milestone completion.
• Work with senior leaders to convert business strategy into actionable transformation themes, initiatives, and operating model changes.
• Provide strategic analysis on cost-to-serve, operating leverage, scalability, and productivity to support investment and prioritisation decisions.
• Prepare executive forums with clear insights, decision papers, and transparent progress updates.
• Set up and lead change governance forums that clarify ownership, accountability, and impact assessment across people, risk, financial, and operational areas.
• Ensure new initiatives are introduced in a controlled way and prevent unmanaged scope expansion.
• Require every manual or interim workaround to have a clear route toward a sustainable long-term solution.
• Influence senior stakeholders using data, insights, and structured trade-off discussions rather than relying on hierarchy.
• Encourage a culture where Operations brings ideas and priorities to the Business to support collaboration and synergy.
• Keep the people journey central by addressing capability changes, role evolution, and change fatigue.
• Lead communication plans that are clear, timely, honest, and designed to reduce anxiety and build trust during transformation.
• Promote upskilling, role clarity, and future-ready capability development across teams.
• Define measures of success that include sustainability, behavioural adoption, reduction of manual work, and lower operational risk.
• Base decisions and progress reporting on data so senior leaders have clear visibility of both achievements and risks.

Requirements

• 15 to 20 years of relevant experience in change management, strategy, operations, consulting, or large-scale transformation roles within a regulated or complex environment.
• Strong history of leading enterprise-wide transformation involving multiple stakeholders, systems, and locations.
• Prior experience in establishing securities lending and physical gold operations is preferred.
• Comfort working at senior management level and influencing without direct authority.
• Strong strategic thinking paired with disciplined execution.
• Deep knowledge of change management methods and governance.
• Excellent stakeholder management and executive communication abilities.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to make complex matters easier to understand.
• Ability to remain calm, steady, and authoritative in uncertain situations.
• High ownership and accountability.
• Practical, outcome-oriented, and people-focused mindset.
• Role model for collaboration, transparency, and trust.

Working arrangement

This is a fully office-based position located in Tampines, Singapore.

What’s offered

The role comes with a competitive base salary, a broad set of flexible benefits, community initiatives, and strong learning and professional development support. The organisation also places importance on employee wellbeing, growth, and aspirations.