Middle Office Manager

Responsibilities

Within JERAGM, the Middle Office is a multi-disciplinary function with overall responsibility for P&L production, market risk and credit risk management, together with maintaining effective trade, valuation and reconciliation controls.

The Manager, Middle Office will be an experienced people manager and senior contributor within the Middle Office team. The role will have primary accountability for the timely and accurate production, review and integrity of P&L for assigned portfolios, including oversight of the underlying desks, sub-desks and trade books. The Middle Office Managers will also have collective accountability for the integrity of all P&L published by the team, providing effective cross-cover across portfolios as required. The role will oversee assigned BAU Middle Office processes, maintain effective trade, valuation and reconciliation controls, and ensure issues are appropriately understood, resolved and escalated.

The role will initially focus primarily on JERAGM's coal and freight portfolio, while also providing exposure to its LNG, Japanese power and US gas trading businesses. Portfolio responsibilities may be adjusted over time to support effective team coverage, to meet the business evolving needs and as a development opportunity for the MO Team.

The Manager, Middle Office will be responsible for:

• Being accountable for the production, review and integrity of daily P&L and related Middle Office reporting for specific assigned portfolios, including oversight of the underlying desks, sub-desks and trade books, while working collectively with the other Middle Office Manager to ensure the integrity of all P&L published by the team and provide effective cross-cover across portfolios.
• Ensuring material or unexpected P&L movements and issues are appropriately investigated, understood, explained and resolved or escalated.
• Resolving and coordinating responses to queries from traders or other departments relating to P&L, valuations, trade capture and other Middle Office matters.
• Raising and constructively challenging queries where proposed booking changes or business practices are unclear.
• Ensuring the impacts of deal changes or bookings across relevant departments and stakeholders are appropriately understood and communicated.
• Overseeing the validation of physical commodity and derivative deal entries to ensure accurate capture and valuation within our ETRM.
• Overseeing the maintenance of relevant price curves, forward curves, valuation algorithms and associated calendars.
• Understanding the different funding requirements for futures and forwards and ensuring their impacts on relevant stakeholders are appropriately considered.
• Overseeing daily reconciliations between internal systems and clearing banks for exchange-traded products and ensuring material breaks are investigated and resolved.
• Building and maintaining effective working relationships with Front Office, clearing brokers, clearing banks and Supporting Functions, ensuring queries are appropriately addressed and escalating relationship, service or control issues, as needed.
• Monitoring trading activity and supporting Market and Credit Risk monitoring, including ensuring unusual activity, limit breaches, data issues and unexpected movements are appropriately investigated and escalated.
• Understanding and reviewing the impacts of IR and FX on P&L, working with Treasury to ensure material or unexpected impacts and relevant funding or hedging requirements are appropriately understood.
• Supporting Finance in month-end financial closing processes.
• Preparing and reviewing weekly and monthly management reporting, including key P&L, position, risk and performance analytics.
• Working collaboratively with colleagues across locations to improve consistency, share knowledge and add value across Middle Office activities.
• Proposing and implementing improvements to the accuracy, efficiency and control of Middle Office processes, reporting and calculation methods, including opportunities for automation.
• Overseeing contract and confirmation management for financial trades.
• Leading and contributing to technical discussions with Front Office, Front Risk, Risk and other relevant stakeholders on trading strategy, positions, valuations, key P&L and risk drivers, and Middle Office control matters.
• Providing day-to-day leadership and management of assigned team members, including setting expectations, allocating and prioritising work, reviewing outputs and ensuring appropriate ownership and follow-through.
• Training, mentoring and coaching Middle Office team members and new joiners, supporting their technical capability, commercial awareness and professional development. Overseeing and contributing to the development of technical Middle Office capability, commercial awareness and understanding of the rationale behind processes and controls.
• Leading or supporting new business activities and related governance and control framework matters and discussions, including NBCs, OSOs, Internal Control matters and audit activities; coordinating and drafting responses to audit requests and queries, supporting related remediation actions and ensuring applicable policies and control requirements are appropriately understood and applied.
• Driving continuous improvement within the Middle Office team, including identifying, prioritising and implementing improvements to processes, controls, reporting, automation and ways of working, and working with MO Transformation and other Supporting Functions where appropriate.
• Leading or supporting assigned TLE, Middle Office transformation and other strategic-project workstreams, including taking ownership of defined Middle Office deliverables and outcomes, where appropriate.
• Working with Commercial teams and Supporting Functions to identify and mitigate operational risks arising from BAU activities, projects and business change.
  
  

Qualifications

• At least 12+ years of relevant work experience within an energy or commodity trading environment.
• Significant experience in a senior Middle Office, Product Control, P&L, Risk or related control role.
• Demonstrated experience managing and developing team members, including allocating work, reviewing outputs, providing feedback and supporting professional development.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent, preferably in economics, finance, accounting or a similar quantitative discipline.
• Strong commodities and P&L experience.
• Strong knowledge of P&L production, valuation methodologies, market data, forward curves and key drivers of trading-book performance.
• Strong understanding of the physical commodity and derivative trade lifecycle, including trade capture, valuation, settlement and reconciliation processes.
• Strong understanding of the risks, controls and governance requirements associated with physical commodity and derivative trading businesses.
• Knowledge of coal and freight products, with experience in LNG, gas, oil, emissions, power or other energy products considered advantageous.
• Professional qualifications such as GARP ERP, GARP SCR or equivalent would be an advantage.
• Experience in the following would be an advantage:
• Power BI / Tableau
• Python or equivalent
• Data analytics and visualisation
• Confident, effective and clear communication style, with the ability to lead technical discussions, explain complex Middle Office matters clearly, influence stakeholders and provide firm but constructive challenge where appropriate.
• Strong ownership and accountability, with the ability to maintain oversight of Middle Office outputs, team deliverables and issues through to resolution.
• Strong risk and control mindset, with the ability to apply sound judgement, identify ambiguity or emerging risks and escalate appropriately.
• Commercially aware and pragmatic, with an adaptive approach to problem solving.
• Comfortable with large and complex data sets and able to clearly present and explain analysis.
• Structured, organised and detail-oriented, with the ability to manage multiple priorities and demanding deadlines.
• Strong people-management capability, including the ability to set clear expectations, coach team members and support professional development.
• Calm and resilient under pressure, with the ability to provide clarity and a clear path forward.
  

Other Information

The role may require some travel.

JERAGM does not seek or accept unsolicited resumes or CVs from recruitment agencies.