Director, Head of Product Governance EMEA

MUFG Americas; City Of London; On-site; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial group seeks a Head of Product Governance for EMEA, responsible for establishing a robust governance framework. The role involves collaboration across various teams to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. Extensive experience in product governance and strong leadership skills are essential for this position.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in product governance within corporate or investment banking.
• Strong understanding of financial products including derivatives and structured finance.
• Proven track record of building governance functions.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain a robust governance framework across all financial products.
• Design and implement product governance frameworks and policies.
• Collaborate with Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Operations teams.

Skills

Product governance

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Financial products understanding

Communication skills

Education

Degree in business, accounting, economics, or mathematics

Job description

Overview

Do you want your voice heard and your actions to count?

Discover your opportunity with Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), one of the world’s leading financial groups. Across the globe, we’re 150,000 colleagues, striving to make a difference for every client, organization, and community we serve. We stand for our values, building long-term relationships, serving society, and fostering shared and sustainable growth for a better world.

With a vision to be the world’s most trusted financial group, it’s part of our culture to put people first, listen to new and diverse ideas and collaborate toward greater innovation, speed and agility. This means investing in talent, technologies, and tools that empower you to own your career.

Join MUFG, where being inspired is expected and making a meaningful impact is rewarded.

Main Purpose of the Role

Working with key stakeholders, this role will initially be accountable and responsible for leading the design, launch and embedding of the Product Governance Office within MUFG, EMEA. The role will support the below divisions and cover our London, Paris, Milan and Dubai branches. The purpose of this role is to ensure that the products offered by MUFG Bank within EMEA are developed, managed and maintained in line with strategic business initiatives, internal policies and regulatory requirements. The Head of Product Governance is responsible for establishing and maintaining a robust governance framework across all financial products offered by the Bank with EMEA. This includes ensuring regulatory compliance, managing product lifecycle events, aligning product strategy and maintenance and governance of the Bank’s product catalogue across business lines.

Global Corporate & Investment Banking (GCIB) is the division responsible for managing the Bank's key international client relationships and main financing products (Syndication, Structured & Project Finance, Securitisation, Working Capital Solutions, ECA financing, etc.).

Japanese Corporate & Investment Banking (JCIB) supports Japanese corporate activities in the EMEA Region. Product offerings include Lending, Money Market instruments, Foreign Exchange, Current accounts and Payment services.

Transaction Banking (TB) supports both GCIB and JCIB clients and consists of two main groups, Cash & Liquidity Management (C&LM) and Trade Finance & Working Capital (TF&WC).

EMEA Global Markets Division (EGMD) is the division responsible for delivering tailored financial solutions to GCIB and JCIB clients supporting trading in FX, interest rates, credit and other financial instruments.

Roles, Scope and Reporting Structure

This Head of Product Governance, EMEA, Bank position will report into:

• The Head of Business Management GCIB EMEA
• Matrix reporting to the Heads of JCIB, TB and EGMD

The Head of Product Governance will initially have 1 direct report. This will be reviewed periodically to ensure the team has adequate resources.

Key Responsibilities

Specifically, this strategic leadership role will be responsible and accountable for establishing and maintaining a robust governance framework across all financial products offered by MUFG Bank, EMEA including:

• The design, development and implementation of product governance frameworks, policies and procedures for product approval, review and lifecycle management in line with MUFG’s global standards and local regulatory requirements (e.g., FCA, PRA, MiFID II).
• Development of product taxonomies to simplify the new product approval process, enhance efficiency and support strategic decision making.
• Managing appropriate committees/oversight for New Products and Complex Transactions.
• Maintaining accurate records of product approvals, reviews and governance decisions.
• Support audits and any regulatory reviews as required.
• Collaborate with Legal, Compliance, Risk, Operations and Front Office teams to assess product suitability and associated risks.
• Maintaining a central and regularly reviewed register of all product-specific restrictions and conditions to ensure ongoing compliance, operational accuracy, and timely follow-up on required actions.
• Accountable for the centralised management, maintenance and governance of MUFG’s products catalogue including responsibility for maintaining a comprehensive and up-to-date repository of all financial products across MUFG Bank EMEA ensuring consistent and appropriate risk classification across all products.
• Act as key advisor to Front Office stakeholders on product related governance matters.
• Promote a culture of accountability, transparency and client-centricity.
• Developing and maintain strong internal networks and build trusted relationships to enable change and influence behaviour across MUFG both in the EU, EMEA and globally.
• Responsible for a high performing team through quality of performance and talent management, motivation and inspiration of staff, promoting a positive workforce culture and taking accountability for actioning employee survey results.

Professional Experience & Personal Requirements

Skills and experience:

• Degree level education (ideally in business, accounting, economics or mathematics) and/or equivalent experience.
• Extensive experience in product governance within corporate or investment banking.
• Strong understanding of financial products including derivatives, structured finance, and capital markets instruments.
• Proven track record of building governance functions or leading transformation initiatives.
• Excellent leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience working in a global, matrixed organisation.
• Proven experience of the overall financial management and control of a front office business function, ensuring compliance with corporate governance, legal and regulatory requirements.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills in English are required.
• Sound business and market awareness.
• Proactive, ability to multi-task and manage ever changing and often conflicting priorities;
• Detail conscious, ensuring reliability at all times, and committed to producing high quality and professional work in a team environment;
• Strong presentation skills and ability to be persuasive in order to guide and influence resources over which the role has no direct control.
• An appetite for information and an ability to prioritise and present valuable conclusions and summaries.
• Experience in delivering change in a large multinational organisation
• Experience of leading and managing a team.

Personal requirements:

• Integrity and Responsibility
• Balance Risk with Opportunity
• Customer Focus
• Demonstrate Global Perspective
• Strong commitment and ownership
• Professionalism and Teamwork
• Drive For Results
• Collaborate and Build Partnerships
• Communicate Effectively and Professionally
• Challenge Ourselves To Grow
• Influence and Inspire Others
• Lead Change & Seek Continuous Improvement
• Think Strategically
• Manage and Develop Talent

We are open to considering flexible working requests in line with organisational requirements.

MUFG is committed to embracing diversity and building an inclusive culture where all employees are valued, respected and their opinions count. We support the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion in recruitment and employment, and oppose all forms of discrimination on the grounds of age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy and maternity, race, gender reassignment, religion or belief and marriage or civil partnership.

We make our recruitment decisions in a non-discriminatory manner in accordance with our commitment to identifying the right skills for the right role and our obligations under the law.