Assistant Vice President, GC Tax Services

HSBC Holdings plc; Kuala Lumpur; On-site; MYR 220,000 - 420,000; Full time

Job summary

HSBC Holdings plc in Kuala Lumpur is seeking a senior leader to oversee Custody Tax Operations in Malaysia. The role entails managing the KL tax operations team, coordinating with Group Tax, IT, and Change teams, and driving efficiency improvements while ensuring regulatory compliance.

The ideal candidate has significant leadership experience in operations, strong analytical capabilities, and fluency in English to communicate with global stakeholders.

Qualifications

• University degree level and equivalent practical experience.
• 3-5 years’ experience in a management position.
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to develop individuals and manage capacity.
• Evidence of strong analytical, statistical and data mining skills.
• Ability to speak and understand English fluently.

Responsibilities

• Lead Custody KL Tax Operations team and manage senior stakeholders with effective communication.
• Drive change initiatives, process reengineering, and efficiency improvements in operations.
• Coordinate with Group Tax, Tax Product, IT, Change and NFR controls to implement system changes.
• Ensure adherence to internal controls and regulatory requirements across operations.

Job description

Why join us?

Tax Operations provides operational tax services to MSS Operations covering the Markets, Custody and Funds businesses globally, supported by multiple Global Capability Networks. This role covers Custody Tax Operations within Kuala Lumpur.

What you’ll do:

The role holder will provide leadership and operations management expertise to the Custody Kuala Lumpur Tax operations Team adhering to all policies, risk and controls, regulatory and compliance requirements in Kuala Lumpur and drive the Strategic Projects and efficiency initiatives. The role holder will also be required to manage senior level escalation & communication with stakeholders and clients, inclusive of people management as appropriate.

They will also act as a key point of coordination and interface between the Kuala Lumpur Custody Tax Operations Teams, Group Tax, Tax Product in the business, IT, Change and NFR controls team as well as leading a team focusing on supporting key Change initiatives in Custody Tax, including implementation of new systems.

Impact on the Business:

• Ensure Custody Tax Operations service catalogue, for those performed within Kuala Lumpur, is delivered, defined and articulates all key processes in the function.
• Establishing senior relationships across key stakeholders as interface between these and the function.
• Lead on process improvement opportunities within the department and beyond.
• Contribute to strategic decision making for operational processes and help to drive business enhancement and growth.
• Continued adherence and governance with internal control framework in operations to ensure the strength of our internal control environment within operations

Customers / Stakeholders:

• Develops close and effective working relationships with all key stakeholders/clients, globally, and with our active and potential client base.
• Builds close links to key stakeholders in other parts of the MSS Business and related functions.

Leadership & Teamwork:

• Lead and manage the Custody KL Tax Operations team.
• Ability to communicate concisely and effectively, providing insight and summaries, using formal structured channels and other less formal mechanisms.
• Sufficiently senior to have a ‘viewpoint’ and opinion as well as working with clients, operational and business teams to reach consensus.
• Work closely and collaboratively with business partner’s including Non-Financial Risk, Product etc to provide solutions to clients.
• Identify, implement and drive process reengineering and change initiatives to improve efficiency, reduce operational risks and reduce errors.
• Cultivate a client focus culture, grow productive teams and build leadership within the teams.
• Implement projects assigned by Senior Management from time to time.
• Ensure that the most appropriate organizational structures, systems, work flows, procedures and controls are utilized in support of the department activities.
• Contribute to the implementation of market driven changes as necessary to realize efficiency and cost benefits, reduce risk and to reflect product development.
• Review and improve the operational processes in partnership with the Change team in order to produce maximum process efficiencies.
• Ensure staff are adequately trained to support all of the departments activities within area of responsibility.
• Ensure that Custody Tax Operations develops and consistently maintains a premier quality reputation, internally and externally.
• Contribute/propose amendments to the business model, as appropriate, to meet changing market and business circumstances.
• Apply in-depth knowledge of the securities market and associated market infrastructure.

Operational Effectiveness & Control:

• Understand, follow and demonstrate compliance with all relevant internal and external rules, regulations and procedures that apply to the conduct of the business in which you are involved, specifically internal controls and all relevant market regulatory considerations.
• Maintain HSBC internal control standards, including the timely implementation of internal and external audit points together with any issues raised by external regulators.
• To ensure control measures/checkpoints are established to scrutinize exceptions/errors to prevent any operational losses and reviews on these measures are constantly performed. Procedural changes/new initiatives are reviewed, fully communicated to and implemented.
• To ensure strong internal audit and staff feedback mechanisms are in place to prevent potential frauds/losses.
• Plan for effective cross training taking into account the Global Contingency requirements, Staff Banding progression and Operational requirements and striking a balance among them.
• Ensure ‘Knowledge retention’ in the section by reinforcing concepts through continuous staff training.
• Ongoing monitoring and review of workflow and priorities are in accordance with procedures.
• Procedural changes/new initiatives are reviewed, agreed with the business area, fully communicated to staff and implemented.
• Review Contingency requirements on a periodic basis and invoke relevant business recovery measures as necessary. Including carrying out effective Operational Risk Assessment by monitoring and implementing risk mitigating plans.
• To support Business Continuity Plan (BCP) by implementing the changes and adhering the BCP Group guidelines.

Major Challenges:

• Working with a diverse and varied set of key stakeholders, influencing key decisions in an environment where there will be differing goals and objectives.
• Deal with the specific requirements for the various markets assigned and to look into effective ways to standardize certain practices across the markets serviced.
• Keep abreast with the latest development in the rules and regulations by the regulators of the various markets and to identify the implications involved to the team.
• Drive client agenda in the team, ensuring we are delivering premium client experience.
• Ensure IT deliveries and change programme meet both client and team needs.
• Drive a culture of digitization and metrics / data adoption.
• Standardize processes in a divergent function.

Role Context:

• The candidate will be expected to be a strong communicator - need to liaise with both internal and external clients and elevate issues where required.
• The jobholder will also continually reassess the operational risks associated with the role and inherent in the business, taking account of changing economic or market conditions, legal and regulatory requirements, operating procedures and practices, management restructurings, and the impact of new technology.
• This will be achieved by ensuring all actions take account of the likelihood of operational risk occurring.
• Also by addressing any areas of concern in conjunction with line management and/or the appropriate department.

Management of Risk:

• Be aware of the operational risk scenarios associated with the role and act in a manner that takes account of operational risk considerations.
• Incumbent must proactively drive the identification, assessment, mitigation of operational risk.
• Incumbent must be aware of the operational risk impacts associated with deficient operations processes and risk impacts due to changes to operations processes and/or technology supporting operations processing.
• Incumbent must critically assess existing or proposed processes and escalate identified risks.

Observation of Internal Controls:

• Maintain HSBC internal control standards, including timely implementation of internal and external audit points together with any issues raised by external regulators.
• Refer to FIM and desk procedure document.
• The jobholder will also adhere to and be able to demonstrate adherence to internal controls. This will be achieved by adherence to all relevant procedures, keeping appropriate records and, where appropriate, by the timely implementation of internal and external audit points, including issues raised by external regulators.
• The jobholder will implement the Group compliance policy by containing compliance risk in liaison with Global Head of Compliance, Global Compliance Officer, Area Compliance Officer or Local Compliance Officer. The term ‘compliance’ embraces all relevant financial services laws, rules and codes with which the business has to comply.
• This will be achieved by adhering to all relevant processes/procedures and by liaising with Compliance department about new business initiatives at the earliest opportunity. Also, and when applicable, by ensuring adequate resources are in place and training is provided, fostering a compliance culture and optimising relations with regulators.

Role Dimensions:

• All impacted products serviced by Custody Tax Operations.

What additional skills will be good to have?

• University degree level and equivalent practical experience / maturity.
• At least 3-5 years’ experience in a management position – related.
• Strong leadership skills evidenced by achievement of objectives together with a track record of development of individuals with strong organization and planning skills along with the ability to handle capacity and MI reporting.
• Ability to build and maintain relations with business units and continuously give feedback by stringent follow up on service level agreements.
• Evidence of strong analytical, statistical and data mining skills to study trends, make projections and to interpret numeric information.
• Evidence of strong operational decision making and be able to provide analytical support to the teams.
• Experience of successfully managing and developing a team in a previous role.
• Evidence of process management skills with an ability to initiate process improvements.
• Dedicated approach to teamwork and ability to contribute to team effort.
• Ability to speak and understand English fluently. Strong communicator, both verbally and in writing.
• Attention to detail and accuracy.
• Customer focused and committed to providing a high quality service.
• Able to work in pressurized environment and manage priorities effectively.
• Effective leadership with requisite interpersonal skills necessary to direct and motivate a large team to achieve results.
• Strong collaborative management skills with the various stakeholders.
• Problem solving skills and ability to drive process improvements.
• High integrity and professionalism