Project Management, Business Analysis and System Implementation

Sample Projects

• Business analysis for one of the world’s largest asset managers on a large OTC programme involving the successful launch and middle office outsourcing of multi-asset funds onto a leading OTC middle office outsource provider
• Deep involvement in the Initial go-live of a new multi asset fund in the UK followed by the roll out of several new funds in North America and across the globe
• Rolled out solutions from original POC through to production across many new instruments, funds and geographies 
• Automated front and middle office OTC processes to alleviate risk from trade and event failures
• Launching new instruments on trading platforms, covering workflow from the front office via the outsourced platform to downstream including:
  • Investment accounting 
  • Performance measurement
  • Risk management
  • Compliance 
  • Internal and external fund accounting
• Designed and implemented the automation and STP flows for around 30 OTC products including credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, caps and floors, OTC equity options, IRS and CDS swaptions, volatility and variance swaps, total return swaps, excess return swaps, cross currency swaps, FX barrier options and FX digital options
• Designed a complex interface from the middle office operations outsourced platform into three investment accounting systems
• Designed and implemented a trade and event “blotter” for instructions to internal teams an external fund accountants
• Ran multiple rounds of end-to-end testing, designing test scripts and co ordinating all areas of the business
• Worked on the analysis and implementation of many small to medium change requests across front, middle and back office including the design of STP option expiry, credit event processing, creation of bespoke reports crucial to winning new client mandates, the implementation of global holiday calendars and most recently adapting the flows for many instruments linked to LIBOR to allow the ability to trade them with risk free rates (RFR)
• Consolidating multiple third-party OTC trade instructions into one core version for around 100 consumers

 

Project Management of an Investment Accounting System Implementation for a Leading Vendor

• Managed the implementation the largest client the vendor had ever had in Asia and one of the three largest globally
• The client had a project team of around 50 people working on the analysis, implementation and external development and also had two third party companies involved
• Thus the project had many moving parts and political aspects which needed to be closely managed
• The client also had a very complex use of the investment accounting system and had developed their own customised applications off the back of it, many with bespoke Japanese front ends
• Had full P & L, budgetary and personnel responsibilities for implementing the client
• Hired several mostly bi-lingual staff locally to work on the project as most meetings were conducted in Japanese
• Also flew in several product experts from the UK and the US to bolster resources
• Led all client meetings from day to day implementations tasks to weekly status updates and monthly steering committees with senior management
• Had to manage all stakeholders in Tokyo whilst also managing bug fixing and new releases of functionality with the American vendor
• When the client went live it became a flagship for the vendors’ success in Asia where they went on to win further large clients

 

Business Analysis and Project Management Engagement for a Complex Data Management Solution 

• Hired by a leading global data management vendor to assist with the roll out of a new and revolutionary data management product
• Commenced the product’s first on-site proof of concept for the asset management arm of one of the world’s largest pension funds based in the Netherlands
• Reviewed and enhanced the client’s business requirements 
• Analysed the data requirements which resulted in the need to feed pricing, security and analytics data from 12 market data vendors
• Developed rules for cleansing data and producing a golden copy of data

 

Business Analysis to Assist a World Leading Fund Manager to Build a Services-enabled Global Aggregation Layer

• The project objective was to consolidate data across multiple IBOR platforms for equity, fixed income and derivatives
• The solution had to provide an abstracted view of all positions and transactions in real time using a for it’s time revolutionary services architecture 
• Successfully completed the aggregation layer analysis, including business requirements, functional specifications, use cases and design considerations
• Completed requirement gathering spanning over 40 business areas across global geographies
• Specific areas requiring a more complex solutions included the world’s largest ETF business, benchmarks, data management and strategy management
• Led the project for all data modelling of highly complex OTC instruments and structured products 
• Implemented a test function from scratch training the testing team on the solution and designing test scripts

 

Data Management System Implementation

• This project was instrumental for Markit EDM as a vendor as they were able to modularise the solution designed and developed for this client
• Led the analysis to implement CADIS (now Markit EDM), primarily for pricing, as part of a large programme to change investment accounting systems globally
• The project required the definition of a matrix for over 150 validation rules across 15 source vendors
• Designed user interfaces for various functions with the pricing team
• Successfully implemented the solution across the firm for pricing, analytics and income data across all asset types.

 

Project Management of Front Office Development for a Blue- Chip Private Bank

• Whilst already project managing the roll out of the Charles River (CRIMS) system, a requirement to develop out of the box private banking functionality became apparent
• Led the requirements gathering for the fund management, portfolio modelling and trading requirements
• Designed the linkage between front and back office
• Ran workshops with all interested parties
• Managed the functional specification and development specification process
• Managed the phased release of the new solution to all users 

 

Treasury Function Review

• Detailed analysis of a large UK insurance and asset management company’s treasury operations
• Documented the current state including detailed Visio diagrams pf all workflows
• Designed a future state operating model eliminating duplication of processes and gaining efficiencies
• Made recommendations on moving from current to future state

 

Data Management System Implementation

• Implementation of the Golden Source data management solution at a large Japanese bank in Tokyo
• Responsible for the design and implementation of an innovative structured product involving interest rate and FX derivatives
• Reviewed the proposed solution with over 50 areas of the bank
• Ran the phased roll out of the solution meeting highly aggressive timelines
• Project managing a large customer / counterparty solution using leading edge technology