Senior Capital Markets Manager in City of London

Waterhouse-Kern Associates is proud to be partnering with a growing Challenger Bank in London to build out their growing Capital Markets team.

The Senior Capital Markets Manager is responsible for originating, structuring, and executing structured funding and capital markets transactions for the bank, with a primary focus on securitisations, forward-flow programmes, warehouse facilities, and significant risk transfer (SRT) transactions. The role supports the development of a scalable capital markets platform to diversify funding, optimise regulatory capital, and enhance return on equity across the bank’s asset portfolios (e.g., SME, specialist mortgages, bridging, BTL, consumer).

Key Responsibilities:

• Origination & Funding Strategy: Originate new funding opportunities across securitisation, warehouses, private placements, structured credit and other wholesale funding channels. Build and maintain a forward-looking funding pipeline aligned to business growth plans and liquidity requirements. Develop and execute the Bank’s capital markets strategy, ensuring funding is diversified by counterparty, product, tenor and currency where appropriate. Drive commercial engagement from first contact through to term sheet negotiation and internal approvals.
• Structuring & Transaction Design: Lead transaction structuring to optimise economics, scalability, operational feasibility and regulatory capital treatment. Design robust deal mechanics including advance rates, credit enhancement, waterfalls, triggers, reserves, eligibility criteria and covenants. Work closely with Treasury/ALM to ensure structures align to liquidity profile, refinancing risk, and interest-rate risk management. Ensure transaction design supports repeat issuance and platform-style execution over time.
• Execution & Delivery: Execute transactions end-to-end, including mandate selection, due diligence, documentation, pricing, closing and post-close operational readiness. Lead coordination across internal stakeholders (Treasury, Finance, Risk, Legal, Compliance, Operations, Credit, Data) to deliver on time and with strong control standards. Manage external parties including arrangers, investors, law firms, trustees, corporate service providers, auditors, rating agencies and reporting agents. Ensure all deliverables are completed to a high standard including legal execution, closing mechanics, and funding settlement processes.
• Investor & Counterparty Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with banks, institutional investors, alternative credit providers and capital markets counterparties. Run investor engagement processes including teasers, data rooms, management presentations and Q&A. Negotiate commercial terms to ensure competitive outcomes and maintain optionality across funding sources. Provide ongoing investor updates and performance reporting, ensuring a strong reputation for transparency and delivery.
• Balance Sheet Optimisation & Capital Efficiency: Partner with Treasury and Finance to optimise funding costs, liquidity buffers, leverage metrics and balance sheet composition. Support capital efficiency initiatives including RWA optimisation, securitisation capital treatment analysis, and large exposure management. Contribute to liquidity stress testing, funding contingency planning and refinancing strategy. Ensure new funding supports sustainable growth and prudent risk-adjusted returns.
• Governance, Risk & Regulatory Compliance: Ensure all capital markets activity is executed in line with the Bank’s policies, risk appetite, delegated authorities and governance framework. Prepare high-quality approval papers for ALCo / ExCo / Board covering structure, economics, key risks, mitigants and recommendations. Ensure compliance with relevant regulatory requirements (e.g., UK CRR securitisation framework, PRA expectations, disclosure and reporting obligations). Maintain strong controls over execution risk, documentation risk, operational risk and post-close monitoring.

Key Deliverables:

• A consistent pipeline of new capital markets funding opportunities originated and converted into executed transactions.
• Successful delivery of securitisations and warehouse facilities supporting balance sheet growth and strategic lending priorities.
• Improved cost of funds, diversification of funding sources and enhanced tenor/liquidity profile.
• Strong governance and control standards with clear, board-ready decision materials.
• Trusted investor relationships and a scalable funding platform capable of repeat issuance.

Skills & Experience

Required Experience: 8–15+ years’ experience in capital markets, structured finance, securitisation and/or wholesale funding. Proven track record originating, structuring and executing transactions (warehouse and/or term securitisation). Strong experience negotiating commercial terms and managing complex legal documentation processes. Strong stakeholder management skills with ability to drive delivery across multiple functions. Experience operating within a regulated environment and presenting to senior governance forums.

Skills & Competencies: Deep structuring expertise (waterfalls, triggers, reserves, eligibility criteria, credit enhancement, hedging considerations). Strong commercial judgement, negotiation skills and investor credibility. Excellent communication skills, including board-level papers and presentations. Highly organised with strong execution discipline and attention to detail. Proactive, resilient and comfortable operating in a fast-paced environment.

Preferred / Advantageous: Experience in UK specialist lending assets (BTL, bridging, SME, receivables). Familiarity with UK CRR securitisation capital treatment and reporting frameworks. Experience building new funding platforms / repeat issuance programmes. Knowledge of liquidity, ALM and interest-rate risk considerations (IRRBB, caps/swaps, stress testing).