Technology, Operations & Products ? Investment Services, Allianz Global Investors Business analyst and developer of custom solutions and OTC derivatives workflows
This role was meant to cover all sorts of topics, workflows and operations existing in the front office of an international asset manager. During my consulting activity two dedicated projects became of special interest:
Lead development of program ?Fitness? Confluence microsite, in order to foster and improve employee communications
Business IT Change Team, BNY Mellon, Senior Project Manager and Developer,
Working jointly with various experts from within business teams, I was member of a development project team to establish both, MiFID II compliant processes within Xentis and respective reporting to WM Daten and a connected fund distribution system. My tasks included but were not limited to:
Development of Sec. 871 (m) and 305 (c) IRC complaint tax transactions within Xentis
Being technical project manager and developer in one person, I gathered all relevant requirements jointly with the Tax team in charge. Besides setting up the inbound transaction feed from the source system in the USA, I was also responsible for the accounting setup within Xentis. My tasks include but are not limited to:
Being technical project manager and developer in one person, I gathered all relevant requirements jointly with the Tax team in charge. Besides setting up the inbound transaction feed from the source system in the USA, I was also responsible for the accounting setup within Xentis. My tasks include but are not limited to:
Develop proper design for booking delivered transaction information into Xentis
Implement interface modifications and transaction types needed
Coordinate testing with business and developer team in the USA and Germany
Working jointly with the Marketing department, I managed a project to connect Salesforce CRM (SF) with Adobe Campaign (AC). Goal was to organise all e-Mail marketing using AC, incl. event and campaign management, SF synchronisation, etc. My tasks included but were not limited to:
Adopting AC functionality onto Salesforce custom workflows
Establishing one company wide campaign approach using AC
Procurement management incl. multiple vendors conducted
Sophisticated Business Requirements planning mastered
In order to support Product Development and Business Architecture departments I managed two important projects around index calculation. One project dealt with the launch and streamlining of a novel Fixed Income Index family framework, whereas the second one's subject was to migrate an Equity index family into a unified Equity Index framework. My tasks included but were not limited to:
Independent setting up of all relevant Index production processes and tools
Calculation configuration, data quality and saturation
Index review and rebalancing (incl. corporate actions)
Client communication (reports, factsheets, website)
Establishing of pipeline process for industrialised approach
Gathering of lessons-learnt impacting setup of revised Equity index framework
Migration of custom index calculation onto a unified configuration engine
Efficient and enterprising stakeholder management (steering committees, etc.)
In my role as Senior Project Manager I was counselling the COO area in a great disentanglement programme. The disciplined progress tracking of all relevant tasks and the reporting of it to the upper management was one of my key responsibilities here. My project coordination tasks included but are not limited to:
Physical office move with Facility Management of the absorbing company
Mobile phone process incl. SIM card management and hardware ordering
Index calculation and data processing server move
Office Automation planning
In order to mitigate operational risks within Overlay PM processes and to achieve economies of scale and scope in the Multi Asset product portfolio, Business and Investment IT were setting up an investment data warehouse. Additionally, minimum standards for accepting an Overlay mandate needed to be defined from a Business strategic perspective.
As Senior Business Consultant I coordinate all Business task jointly implemented by Investment and IT. Also I define the database specifications before the background of future processes within portfolio management:
Data flows (positions, transactions, static data, etc.) from custodians to Front Office
Benchmark constituents delivery from index vendors to Front Office
Security data accumulation, enrichment and valuation of asset universe
Definition of best-practice for Overlay Risk Management fund launches
Handover of self-developed tools and workflows into IT governance.
Development of margin and collateral preview process within the Front Office tool Bloomberg AIM
My task as dedicated specialist for Overlay Portfolio Management was primarily to uncover and cluster risks within the department's processes and data flows. The resulting recommendations had been organized into work stream packages so that a number of projects could be conducted with all involved parties within the asset manager.
The following risks could be removed or at least reduced significantly:
Establishment of a liquidity monitor to high quality economic view on a fund's cash positions. On basis of all derivatives transactions (ETD and OTC) and all relevant initial margin requirements given by the respective exchanges, I developed a margin and collateral engine. This engine is now used by numerous PM to watch their funds for potential overdrafts on their foreign exchange accounts and the bing additional quality the their FX hedges.
Significant deficits within the CDS and OTC index options workflows, which have been described in my business gap analysis, could be fixed and optimized (esp. valuation topics).
For the unit ?Structured Products? I implemented the following processes:
Establishment of a trading connection outside Bloomberg to RFQ Hub for OTC index options, incl. return flow of executions.
Technical workflow for an automated straight-through-processing into a. Middle Office and b. respective management cockpit sheet.
For the unit ?Liability Driven Investment? the successfully conducted projects include:
Novel process set up for a daily calculation of the Ultimate Forward Rate (UFR).
Functional enhancement of the above described liquidity monitor, which is now able to include so-called cash sweeps.
Business analysis and project coordination of an automated reconciliation.
For the units ?Risk Management Overlay?, ?Protection?, and ?Fund of Funds Management?, I implemented a monitoring tool for credit events within the held CDS exposure. After the respective auction, payments are calculated and provided into the operational units.
In order to allow the trading with OTC products to be much faster and more reliable, a new coordinator role had been created. This role accompanies the set up process for OTC from the very beginning (i.e. definition of OTC product list for a particular client, as well as potential counterpart list, plus initial request of credit lines by the identified counterparts, i.e. OTC brokers). Until the coordinator opens a fund for trading OTC and collateral management can start, quite some coordination work needs to be done beforehand (i.e. ISDA agreement, CSA, cash SSI, etc.).
As Senior Business Consultant in charge, I defined the described role as such and could motivate a number of process improvements:
Owing to the fact that I contacted brokers directly and explained buy side needs in particular to them, counter parties started to be able to react on asset managers needs with improved quality and increased responsiveness.
I educated PM and other investment professionals as well as operational officers in relevant subjects (i.e. legal framing, collateralization, and so on). By doing so, I could bring existing risks to a much higher attention level, which allowed a cross-functional optimization of the process.
For the set-up of segregated mandates (DAX listed), I worked as a strategic business consultant for business developers. Therewith I was contributing to a customized but stable process for OTC business in this segment.
Coordination and, if needed, direct communication with external investment companies, regarding legal documentation like Power of Attorney (PoA) or broker restrictions.
Covered products: CDS (single name, and CDX / ITRAXX), Interest Rate Swaps (Payer-Receiver), Overnight Swaps (OIS), FX Forwards (Forex, also NDF), Commodity Swaps and Total Return Swaps, Inflation Swaps, OTC FX Options, OTC Equity and Index Options, Equity Forwards
Besides one the major tasks, namely to thin out the naturally grown, highly customized, but hardly standardized Front Office investment tool landscape, the main driver for this team leading role was to strategically design and implement a new, operating European custom solution infrastructure, introducing new processes that allow continuity along established workflows, but under a much more straight-line governance with a reduced number of existing stable standards. I was responsible for numerous projects in Frankfurt/Main, Paris, London, Zurich and Milan, directing a big team (12 as a peak) of business analysts, supporters, and developers in Paris and Frankfurt/Main.
In charge of approx. 100 custom solution tools dedicated to portfolio management, trading, risk, compliance, research, and Middle Office
Responsibility for additional, proprietary applications such as Barclays Point, Factset, and UBS Credit Delta
Strategic business partner for Investment IT to harmonize local European processes
Key requirement for this task was the whole overview regarding Investment processes front to back. Especially the front office application Bloomberg AIM used to be of deeper interest regarding process engineering. Thereby, the anticipation of operational risk that might come with setting up a novel process within the given operational environment, needed to be addressed and discussed in cross-functional project teams.
Following projects or work streams, I accompanied during this role:
Straight-Through-Process design for OTC products such as CDS and IRS.
Portfolio migration from Bloomberg POMS to Bloomberg AIM
Portfolio migration from Decalog to Bloomberg AIM
Improvement of the cash adjustment process back-to-front
During my tasks within the IT Investment department, I was able to gather great understanding of investment products and workflows. I also span a quite heterogeneous network of asset management professionals and related industry branches. One particular focus I could make on Multi Asset and systematic products.
For the department “Master KVG”, I developed a half-automated execution import tool, which is able to read standard BVI format and upload trades and executed transactions into Bloomberg.
Technical migration within front office sphere after a change within accounting for public funds following Luxembourg law (i.e. SICAV, SICAF).
Technical portfolio migration and training of new PM who used to work with Decalog in the past (i.e. integration of ComInvest)
Complete technical migration and extension of multi asset derivative functionality when migrating from Bloomberg POMS to Bloomberg AIM
Set-up of an incident management workflow (SOX compliant, derived from ITIL standards) within the Test Director tool of HP Quality Center toolbox. Here, I derived analytics from the daily business within Front Office Services, which I reported frequently to management, in order to discuss strategic changes within the department.
2001 - 2006
University of Siegen
Magister Artium (M.A.) (1,7)
Focus:
1997 - 2000
Berufkolleg Technik Siegen
High School Degree (1,6)
1991 - 1997
Gymnasium Netphen
?Mittlere Reife?
Main Competences
Project Management, Strategy Consultancy, Scrum, agile and hybrid project management styles, Transition Planning, Workshop organisation and hosting, Business Analysis, Team lead (also locally distributed), Security Lending, Collateral Management (bilateral and trilateral), MiFID II, Sec. 871 (m) IRC, Sec. 305 (c) IRC, Fixed Income and Multi Asset Portfolio and Risk Management, Liability Driven Investments (LDI), Bloomberg AIM, Xentis, Fixed Income Indices, Multi-Asset Indices, Equity Indices, Over-the-counter Products (OTC), esp. CDS and swaps, Vanilla OTC Index Options, Flex Options, FX Forwards, Workflow Coordination and Process Engineering, Index Business Architecture, e-Mail Campaign Management.
Career Structure
2014 - 2015
Role: Business Consultant, Project Lead and Specialist Overlay
Customer: Portfolio and Risk Management, Frankfurt am Main, reporting line incl. Global CIO Office
2010 - 2015
Role: Assistant Vice President
Customer: Allianz Global Investors GmbH, Frankfurt/Main
2012 - 2014
Role: Business Consultant, Project- and Team Lead of Front Office
Customer: Custom Solutions unit, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, London, Milan (12 internal and external employees)
2010 - 2012
Role: Coordination, Project work and strategic support within Front Office Services department, Frankfurt/Main
2008 - 2010
Role: IT and Business Consultant
Customer: DIErektBERATUNG AG, Frankfurt/Main
2007-07 - 2007-09
Role: Trainee
Customer: SAP Labs, Palo Alto, CA, USA
Capabilities
Processes
Know-how (Cross functional)
Meine fachlichen Schwerpunkte umfassen alle Front und Middle Office Prozesse im Asset Management Bereich, sowie Back Office Prozesse rund um Depotbank und Fund Accounting, (global) Custody (inklusive TOM Readiness und Fonds- / Prozessmigration). Im Speziellen betrachte ich operative Risiken bei der Umsetzung von Investment Workflows, erfasse fachliche Anforderungen und koordiniere und implementiere technische wie auch organisatorische Veränderungen in der zu unterstützenden operativen Peripherie. Hierbei gelte ich als Experte in der ganzheitlichen Betrachtung neuartiger Geschäftsprozesse und Produkte sowie deren strategische Planung und Umsetzung. Auch die Kommunikaton und Kollaboration mit anzubindenden Triparty-Partnern zählt zu meinen herausragenden Assets im Projekt Management. Darüber hinaus bin ich ebenfalls in der Lage kleinere bis mittelgroße Entwicklungsaufgaben selbstständig zu übernehmen.
Technology, Operations & Products ? Investment Services, Allianz Global Investors Business analyst and developer of custom solutions and OTC derivatives workflows
This role was meant to cover all sorts of topics, workflows and operations existing in the front office of an international asset manager. During my consulting activity two dedicated projects became of special interest:
Lead development of program ?Fitness? Confluence microsite, in order to foster and improve employee communications
Business IT Change Team, BNY Mellon, Senior Project Manager and Developer,
Working jointly with various experts from within business teams, I was member of a development project team to establish both, MiFID II compliant processes within Xentis and respective reporting to WM Daten and a connected fund distribution system. My tasks included but were not limited to:
Development of Sec. 871 (m) and 305 (c) IRC complaint tax transactions within Xentis
Being technical project manager and developer in one person, I gathered all relevant requirements jointly with the Tax team in charge. Besides setting up the inbound transaction feed from the source system in the USA, I was also responsible for the accounting setup within Xentis. My tasks include but are not limited to:
Being technical project manager and developer in one person, I gathered all relevant requirements jointly with the Tax team in charge. Besides setting up the inbound transaction feed from the source system in the USA, I was also responsible for the accounting setup within Xentis. My tasks include but are not limited to:
Develop proper design for booking delivered transaction information into Xentis
Implement interface modifications and transaction types needed
Coordinate testing with business and developer team in the USA and Germany
Working jointly with the Marketing department, I managed a project to connect Salesforce CRM (SF) with Adobe Campaign (AC). Goal was to organise all e-Mail marketing using AC, incl. event and campaign management, SF synchronisation, etc. My tasks included but were not limited to:
Adopting AC functionality onto Salesforce custom workflows
Establishing one company wide campaign approach using AC
Procurement management incl. multiple vendors conducted
Sophisticated Business Requirements planning mastered
In order to support Product Development and Business Architecture departments I managed two important projects around index calculation. One project dealt with the launch and streamlining of a novel Fixed Income Index family framework, whereas the second one's subject was to migrate an Equity index family into a unified Equity Index framework. My tasks included but were not limited to:
Independent setting up of all relevant Index production processes and tools
Calculation configuration, data quality and saturation
Index review and rebalancing (incl. corporate actions)
Client communication (reports, factsheets, website)
Establishing of pipeline process for industrialised approach
Gathering of lessons-learnt impacting setup of revised Equity index framework
Migration of custom index calculation onto a unified configuration engine
Efficient and enterprising stakeholder management (steering committees, etc.)
In my role as Senior Project Manager I was counselling the COO area in a great disentanglement programme. The disciplined progress tracking of all relevant tasks and the reporting of it to the upper management was one of my key responsibilities here. My project coordination tasks included but are not limited to:
Physical office move with Facility Management of the absorbing company
Mobile phone process incl. SIM card management and hardware ordering
Index calculation and data processing server move
Office Automation planning
In order to mitigate operational risks within Overlay PM processes and to achieve economies of scale and scope in the Multi Asset product portfolio, Business and Investment IT were setting up an investment data warehouse. Additionally, minimum standards for accepting an Overlay mandate needed to be defined from a Business strategic perspective.
As Senior Business Consultant I coordinate all Business task jointly implemented by Investment and IT. Also I define the database specifications before the background of future processes within portfolio management:
Data flows (positions, transactions, static data, etc.) from custodians to Front Office
Benchmark constituents delivery from index vendors to Front Office
Security data accumulation, enrichment and valuation of asset universe
Definition of best-practice for Overlay Risk Management fund launches
Handover of self-developed tools and workflows into IT governance.
Development of margin and collateral preview process within the Front Office tool Bloomberg AIM
My task as dedicated specialist for Overlay Portfolio Management was primarily to uncover and cluster risks within the department's processes and data flows. The resulting recommendations had been organized into work stream packages so that a number of projects could be conducted with all involved parties within the asset manager.
The following risks could be removed or at least reduced significantly:
Establishment of a liquidity monitor to high quality economic view on a fund's cash positions. On basis of all derivatives transactions (ETD and OTC) and all relevant initial margin requirements given by the respective exchanges, I developed a margin and collateral engine. This engine is now used by numerous PM to watch their funds for potential overdrafts on their foreign exchange accounts and the bing additional quality the their FX hedges.
Significant deficits within the CDS and OTC index options workflows, which have been described in my business gap analysis, could be fixed and optimized (esp. valuation topics).
For the unit ?Structured Products? I implemented the following processes:
Establishment of a trading connection outside Bloomberg to RFQ Hub for OTC index options, incl. return flow of executions.
Technical workflow for an automated straight-through-processing into a. Middle Office and b. respective management cockpit sheet.
For the unit ?Liability Driven Investment? the successfully conducted projects include:
Novel process set up for a daily calculation of the Ultimate Forward Rate (UFR).
Functional enhancement of the above described liquidity monitor, which is now able to include so-called cash sweeps.
Business analysis and project coordination of an automated reconciliation.
For the units ?Risk Management Overlay?, ?Protection?, and ?Fund of Funds Management?, I implemented a monitoring tool for credit events within the held CDS exposure. After the respective auction, payments are calculated and provided into the operational units.
In order to allow the trading with OTC products to be much faster and more reliable, a new coordinator role had been created. This role accompanies the set up process for OTC from the very beginning (i.e. definition of OTC product list for a particular client, as well as potential counterpart list, plus initial request of credit lines by the identified counterparts, i.e. OTC brokers). Until the coordinator opens a fund for trading OTC and collateral management can start, quite some coordination work needs to be done beforehand (i.e. ISDA agreement, CSA, cash SSI, etc.).
As Senior Business Consultant in charge, I defined the described role as such and could motivate a number of process improvements:
Owing to the fact that I contacted brokers directly and explained buy side needs in particular to them, counter parties started to be able to react on asset managers needs with improved quality and increased responsiveness.
I educated PM and other investment professionals as well as operational officers in relevant subjects (i.e. legal framing, collateralization, and so on). By doing so, I could bring existing risks to a much higher attention level, which allowed a cross-functional optimization of the process.
For the set-up of segregated mandates (DAX listed), I worked as a strategic business consultant for business developers. Therewith I was contributing to a customized but stable process for OTC business in this segment.
Coordination and, if needed, direct communication with external investment companies, regarding legal documentation like Power of Attorney (PoA) or broker restrictions.
Covered products: CDS (single name, and CDX / ITRAXX), Interest Rate Swaps (Payer-Receiver), Overnight Swaps (OIS), FX Forwards (Forex, also NDF), Commodity Swaps and Total Return Swaps, Inflation Swaps, OTC FX Options, OTC Equity and Index Options, Equity Forwards
Besides one the major tasks, namely to thin out the naturally grown, highly customized, but hardly standardized Front Office investment tool landscape, the main driver for this team leading role was to strategically design and implement a new, operating European custom solution infrastructure, introducing new processes that allow continuity along established workflows, but under a much more straight-line governance with a reduced number of existing stable standards. I was responsible for numerous projects in Frankfurt/Main, Paris, London, Zurich and Milan, directing a big team (12 as a peak) of business analysts, supporters, and developers in Paris and Frankfurt/Main.
In charge of approx. 100 custom solution tools dedicated to portfolio management, trading, risk, compliance, research, and Middle Office
Responsibility for additional, proprietary applications such as Barclays Point, Factset, and UBS Credit Delta
Strategic business partner for Investment IT to harmonize local European processes
Key requirement for this task was the whole overview regarding Investment processes front to back. Especially the front office application Bloomberg AIM used to be of deeper interest regarding process engineering. Thereby, the anticipation of operational risk that might come with setting up a novel process within the given operational environment, needed to be addressed and discussed in cross-functional project teams.
Following projects or work streams, I accompanied during this role:
Straight-Through-Process design for OTC products such as CDS and IRS.
Portfolio migration from Bloomberg POMS to Bloomberg AIM
Portfolio migration from Decalog to Bloomberg AIM
Improvement of the cash adjustment process back-to-front
During my tasks within the IT Investment department, I was able to gather great understanding of investment products and workflows. I also span a quite heterogeneous network of asset management professionals and related industry branches. One particular focus I could make on Multi Asset and systematic products.
For the department “Master KVG”, I developed a half-automated execution import tool, which is able to read standard BVI format and upload trades and executed transactions into Bloomberg.
Technical migration within front office sphere after a change within accounting for public funds following Luxembourg law (i.e. SICAV, SICAF).
Technical portfolio migration and training of new PM who used to work with Decalog in the past (i.e. integration of ComInvest)
Complete technical migration and extension of multi asset derivative functionality when migrating from Bloomberg POMS to Bloomberg AIM
Set-up of an incident management workflow (SOX compliant, derived from ITIL standards) within the Test Director tool of HP Quality Center toolbox. Here, I derived analytics from the daily business within Front Office Services, which I reported frequently to management, in order to discuss strategic changes within the department.
2001 - 2006
University of Siegen
Magister Artium (M.A.) (1,7)
Focus:
1997 - 2000
Berufkolleg Technik Siegen
High School Degree (1,6)
1991 - 1997
Gymnasium Netphen
?Mittlere Reife?
Main Competences
Project Management, Strategy Consultancy, Scrum, agile and hybrid project management styles, Transition Planning, Workshop organisation and hosting, Business Analysis, Team lead (also locally distributed), Security Lending, Collateral Management (bilateral and trilateral), MiFID II, Sec. 871 (m) IRC, Sec. 305 (c) IRC, Fixed Income and Multi Asset Portfolio and Risk Management, Liability Driven Investments (LDI), Bloomberg AIM, Xentis, Fixed Income Indices, Multi-Asset Indices, Equity Indices, Over-the-counter Products (OTC), esp. CDS and swaps, Vanilla OTC Index Options, Flex Options, FX Forwards, Workflow Coordination and Process Engineering, Index Business Architecture, e-Mail Campaign Management.
Career Structure
2014 - 2015
Role: Business Consultant, Project Lead and Specialist Overlay
Customer: Portfolio and Risk Management, Frankfurt am Main, reporting line incl. Global CIO Office
2010 - 2015
Role: Assistant Vice President
Customer: Allianz Global Investors GmbH, Frankfurt/Main
2012 - 2014
Role: Business Consultant, Project- and Team Lead of Front Office
Customer: Custom Solutions unit, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, London, Milan (12 internal and external employees)
2010 - 2012
Role: Coordination, Project work and strategic support within Front Office Services department, Frankfurt/Main
2008 - 2010
Role: IT and Business Consultant
Customer: DIErektBERATUNG AG, Frankfurt/Main
2007-07 - 2007-09
Role: Trainee
Customer: SAP Labs, Palo Alto, CA, USA
Capabilities
Processes
Know-how (Cross functional)
Direktester geht's nicht! Ganz einfach Freelancer finden und direkt Kontakt aufnehmen.
Meine fachlichen Schwerpunkte umfassen alle Front und Middle Office Prozesse im Asset Management Bereich, sowie Back Office Prozesse rund um Depotbank und Fund Accounting, (global) Custody (inklusive TOM Readiness und Fonds- / Prozessmigration). Im Speziellen betrachte ich operative Risiken bei der Umsetzung von Investment Workflows, erfasse fachliche Anforderungen und koordiniere und implementiere technische wie auch organisatorische Veränderungen in der zu unterstützenden operativen Peripherie. Hierbei gelte ich als Experte in der ganzheitlichen Betrachtung neuartiger Geschäftsprozesse und Produkte sowie deren strategische Planung und Umsetzung. Auch die Kommunikaton und Kollaboration mit anzubindenden Triparty-Partnern zählt zu meinen herausragenden Assets im Projekt Management. Darüber hinaus bin ich ebenfalls in der Lage kleinere bis mittelgroße Entwicklungsaufgaben selbstständig zu übernehmen.