Global Head of Settlements

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.

The Global Head of Settlements will play a critical leadership role ensuring the accurate, timely, and efficient settlement of securities transactions across multiple markets, asset classes, and timezones, whilst maintaining compliance with global regulatory standards and policies. The role will also be responsible for transforming our current operating model and technology to be an industry leader in product and capability.

Key responsibilities include:

• Strategic Leadership

• Set Global Strategy: Define and lead the global vision and roadmap for settlements operations, aligned with broader enterprise and client servicing strategies.
• Technology & Innovation: Drive modernization through automation, digitization, use of DLT, and platform upgrades (e.g., straight-through processing, AI-based exception handling).
• Industry Engagement: Establish and maintain relationships with global custodians, clearinghouses, and counterparties. Take leading roles in market forums (e.g. SWIFT, AFME, SIFMA) to drive Northern Trust influence across the industry and position the firm as a thought leader.

• Daily Settlement Execution: Oversee global settlement operations covering equities, fixed income, and ultimately an expanded set of asset classes, ensuring timely and fail-free settlements.
• Harmonize processes across regions and legal entities while accounting for local market practices.
• Lean Process Design: Champion lean principles—eliminate redundant manual steps, consolidate duplicative regional processes, and pursue global shared services where feasible.
• Location Strategy: Rationalize onshore vs. offshore vs. nearshore operations to align with talent availability, cost, and control requirements.
• Straight-Through Processing (STP): Increase STP rates through enhanced matching tools, enriched data capture at trade entry, and pre-settlement exception resolution.
• Advanced Analytics: Use predictive analytics to reduce fails (e.g., counterparty behavior, market events) and to target root causes of inefficiency.
• Custody Integration: Drive seamless coordination with global custody, asset servicing, securities lending, and collateral functions, creating centres of excellence for settlement for all asset classes by unifying platforms and systems where supported by strong business cases.
• Market Connectivity: Maintain operational relationships with sub-custodians, CSDs, ICSDs, CCPs, and clearing brokers.
• Operational Risk & Resilience: Ensure robust control frameworks, exception management protocols, and business continuity/disaster recovery plans.
• Regulatory Compliance: Oversee adherence to settlement regulations across jurisdictions (e.g., CSDR, SEC Rule 15c6-2, CASS, T+1 mandates).
• Fail Management & Penalty Avoidance: Drive root cause analysis for settlement fails and ensure penalty reduction (especially under CSDR regimes).
• Oversee compliance to Application Business Ownership and Vendor Management policies that the settlements team own.

• Client Delivery & SLAs: Ensure client settlements meet or exceed SLA expectations; provide transparency into fail rates, processing times, and issue resolution.
• Cross-Functional Coordination: Collaborate with product, tech, legal, compliance, middle office, and client service teams globally.
• Issue Escalation & Crisis Management: Lead responses to major settlement incidents or systemic market issues.
• Client-Centric Efficiencies: Work with business partners toward process improvements that also improve client outcomes—such as reduced penalties, fewer inquiries, faster settlement confirmations.
• Efficiency KPIs with Risk Overlay: Track and manage cost-per-trade, STP%, fail rates, exception volumes alongside risk indicators like near misses, control breaches, or audit findings.

• Build a high-performing global team: Lead diverse regional teams; ensure talent development, career mobility, training, and succession planning.
• Culture of Excellence: Promote a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and service excellence. Foster a risk-aware empowered culture.
• Manage through change: Adopt methods and practices to prevent change fatigue and ensure teams are part of the change and are able to contribute to the change environment.
• Workforce planning: Oversee capacity forecasting to intelligently staff across time zones and peak periods. Adjust Hybrid and Shift models to balance the market move to 24x7 coverage, work-life needs and risk controls. Recognize wins and retain top talent.

The ideal candidate should have a fair amount of the following skills and qualities:

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, Business Administration, or a related field (MBA preferred).
• Prior experience in transaction processing operations within a global financial institution or similar organization.
• Proven leadership experience managing large, multi-regional teams and complex operational processes.
• Strong understanding of global financial markets, instruments, and settlement mechanisms.
• Deep knowledge of trade lifecycle management, settlement systems, and platforms (e.g., SWIFT, DTCC, Euroclear, Clearstream).
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management abilities.
• Familiarity with regulatory, risk and resiliency frameworks and reporting requirements across major jurisdictions.

As a Northern Trust partner, greater achievements await. You will be part of a flexible and collaborative work culture in an organization where financial strength and stability is an asset that emboldens us to explore new ideas. Movement within the organization is encouraged, senior leaders are accessible, and you can take pride in working for a company committed to assisting the communities we serve! Join a workplace with a greater purpose. We’d love to learn more about how your interests and experience could be a fit with one of the world’s most admired and sustainable companies! Build your career with us and apply today.

Northern Trust is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please email our HR Service Center. We hope you’re excited about the role and the opportunity to work with us. We value an inclusive workplace and understand flexibility means different things to different people. Apply today and talk to us about your flexible working requirements and together we can achieve greater.