Assistant Vice President, Crisis Management

CLS is the trusted party at the centre of the global FX ecosystem. Utilized by thousands of counterparties, CLS makes FX safer, smoother and more cost effective. Trillions of dollars’ worth of currency flows through our systems each day. Created by the market for the market, our unrivalled global settlement infrastructure reduces systemic risk and provides standardization for participants in many of the world’s most actively traded currencies. We deliver huge efficiencies and savings for our clients: in fact, our approach to multilateral netting shrinks funding requirements by over 96% on average, so clients can put their capital and resources to better use.

CLS products are designed to enable clients to manage risk most effectively across the full FX lifecycle – whether through more efficient processing tools or market intelligence derived from the largest single source of FX executed data available to the market. Our ambition to make a positive difference starts with our people. Our values – Protect, Improve, Grow – underpin everything that we do at CLS and define and shape a supportive and inclusive working environment in which everyone is encouraged to be open and forward-thinking.

The role exists within the crisis management team to support the Director – Crisis Management in maintaining and strengthening CLS’s crisis management capability. The position plays a key role in ensuring the organization remains prepared to respond effectively to a wide range of FMI-relevant disruption scenarios by embedding crisis readiness across the organization through planning, exercising, and alignment with regulatory expectations applicable to FMIs.

The candidate will be required to interact with a broad range of internal and external stakeholders. Internally, this includes colleagues at all levels of the organization, up to and including Executive management. Externally, interaction with CLS’s Settlement Members, industry bodies, service providers, and other relevant stakeholders during preparedness activities and live crisis events. This will require strong communication, stakeholder management, and influencing skills, as well as the ability to operate with credibility, discretion, and composure in high-pressure and time-critical situations.

A proactive, change mindset always thinking how to balance service, risk and investment in the service of the corporate strategy.

The candidate will:

• Support the development and execution of the governance, strategy, performance measure and levels of risk mitigation (in line with the CLS Risk Appetite Statement) that should be adopted to support the successful delivery and maintenance of the Crisis Management framework.
• Engage with Compliance and Regulatory Relations teams to assess any impact to the Crisis Management framework post communicated changes to regulations.
• Assist with the preparation and delivery of any ad-hoc session requested by the Board and/or OC relating to the Crisis Management framework or Crisis events.
• Co-ordinate the Crisis Steering Committee ensuring that meetings are scheduled, and materials are provided on time and of the expected quality.
• Co-ordinate the Crisis Management Accreditation Programme ensuring that all accreditation activities are completed as per requirements.
• Responsible for the maintenance of all Crisis related documentation (Crisis Playbooks, Crisis Manuals, Committee ToR, Training Schedules) ensuring these are regularly reviewed in accordance with the documentation governance standards and updated efficiently as and when required.
• Design Crisis War Games, run and delivered as discussion-based tabletop exercises, capturing and covering the extensive range of scenarios that could materialise both internally and externally to CLS, that may impact the CLS ecosystem.
• Design Crisis Simulation exercises, run and delivered in the Test environment, ensuring that scenarios are created and manipulated, considering the limitations of the Test environment, to mirror a real-time based event.
• Identify and engage with the respective teams and co-ordinate and interlock with other activity taking place in the environment.
• Collaborate with other colleagues in Enterprise Resilience, Info Security, Product and Operations teams to design, develop, create and deliver discussion-based table-top exercises covering extreme but plausible scenarios.
• Assist with the co-ordination and delivery of the Crisis Management training schedule ensuring that sessions are delivered within the required timeframes and cover current topics including new services, new products, emerging risks, market issues and existing crisis processes and tools.
• Represent Crisis Management in relevant projects to analyse the risks and potential changes to the Crisis Management framework, crisis tools and any crisis documentation.
• Identify and/or contribute to the design and creation of any new crisis tools and crisis processes delivered to enhance Crisis Management capabilities. Collaborate in the integration and user acceptance testing ahead of them going live.
• Over time perform the Crisis Support role as per requirements during Crisis events. The Crisis Support role provides the Crisis Lead with the deep, highly specialised knowledge and expert insight to support informed decision-making during complex and high-impact crisis events.
• Support the wider Enterprise Resilience exercising programme, covering areas such as business continuity, third party and operational resilience testing.

What we’re looking for:

• Typically, 5+ years’ experience in crisis management, operational resilience, business continuity, incident management, or a closely related discipline within complex, regulated environments.
• Demonstrated experience supporting or operating within formal crisis management frameworks, including preparedness, response, and post-incident review activities.
• Strong analytical capability with the ability to rapidly assess, produce, and communicate complex information to Senior Management.
• Experience designing or facilitating crisis simulations, testing, or scenario-based exercises.
• Experience designing and facilitating business continuity and third-party exercises would be an advantage.
• Experience designing severe but plausible scenarios for the testing of resilience critical services would be an advantage.
• Proven ability to operate effectively under pressure, manage ambiguity, and exercise sound judgement during high-impact and/or prolonged disruption events.
• Stakeholder management and communication skills, with experience engaging with regulators, market participants, and critical service providers.
• Be prepared to support any crisis which may impact CLS 24x7x365 as and when they occur.
• Proficient research and analysis skills around risks and threats which may impact any of our locations, ranging from environmental, health, terrorist etc.
• Ability to problem solve and aim to develop effective and efficient procedures and process.
• Understanding of FX products and services with knowledge of the required infrastructure and dependencies.
• Experience working within or supporting a financial market infrastructure, payments, clearing or settlement environment would be beneficial.
• Familiarity with CPMI-IOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures (PFMI), and Regulation HH, under the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System would be an advantage.

Recognized qualifications or specialized training in the following areas will be beneficial:

• Crisis Management
• Business Continuity Management
• Operational Resilience
• Financial market infrastructure, payments and settlements
• Regulatory compliance

Our commitment to employees:

We are a small company with a big mandate, so every person is essential to our success. We are also committed to employing and retaining the most talented and dedicated people. What makes us interesting goes beyond our competitive salaries and great benefits. Our work environment is designed around quality outcomes, not output. The FX market would cease to function without our services, and we take pride in being responsible for keeping it running smoothly.

We are different from other financial institutions in that we have a flatter and more transparent structure with accessible leadership. You will be seen, heard and empowered to develop your career. We are a purpose-driven organization, with an inclusive culture that focuses on doing what is right. The well-being of our people is as important to us as the resilience of our systems. In addition to encouraging our people to ‘locate for their day,’ we run a range of initiatives that support employees’ sense of belonging and physical, emotional and mental well-being.

Our extensive benefits for employees typically include:

• Vacation/annual leave: 25 days in UK/Asia + 3 life days, 23 in US + 3 life days.
• Private medical and dental cover and life insurance.
• Generous pension contributions in the UK and Asia; matching 401(k) in the US.
• ‘Locate for your day’ hybrid working – 2 days a week in office.
• Access to Discover – our learning platform with 1000+ courses from LinkedIn Learning.
• Paid parental leave / Coaching and support services.
• ‘Heads down days’ with no meetings on the last Friday of every month.
• Diversity Council / Affinity groups (Women’s Forum, Black Employee Network, Pride Network, Parents & Caregivers Network, Sustainability Network).
• Social events.

Awards:

• The Sunday Times Best Places to Work 2023 & 2024 / Big Company / The Sunday Times Awards.
• Third place in Britain’s Healthiest Workplace 2022 / Medium Company / Vitality Awards.