Operations Lead

Employment; Muscat; On-site; OMR 40,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

Employment in Oman is hiring an Operations Lead to design the operational function from a blank sheet and then operate it in Run. The role spans settlement, registry maintenance, and asset servicing with end-to-end ownership.

You will build team structure, procedures, runbooks, and escalation paths, manage key vendor relationships, and drive go-live readiness for a new central securities depository.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in securities or financial market infrastructure operations.
• Hands-on corporate actions operations across events.
• Proven ability to design or redesign an operational function with procedures, runbooks, and training.
• Track record of operating under regulatory expectations for an FMI or securities-services business.
• Experience managing operational relationships with custodians, settlement banks, and exchanges.
• Direct experience in a CSD/ICSD or custody bank is a plus; SWIFT familiarity.

Responsibilities

• Design the end-to-end operations function from scratch.
• Own settlement input, matching, processing, movement, finality and exception handling.
• Own registry maintenance: accounts, amendments, position management, and statements.
• Oversee asset servicing and corporate actions workflow and reconciliation.
• Design onboarding and day-to-day participant services.
• Identify and mitigate first-line operational risk; manage incident processes.
• Manage relationships with custodians, settlement banks, exchanges, SWIFT and paying agents.
• Ensure go-live readiness: trained team, runbooks, dress rehearsals.
• Line-manage Operations Analyst, Corporate Actions Specialist, and wider team.

Skills

Securities operations

Corporate actions operations

Operational design & build

Regulatory compliance for FMI

Stakeholder management

SWIFT messaging

Tools

SWIFT

Job description

A new financial markets infrastructure venture is being established in Oman, backed by prominent institutional investors and operating under an international common law framework. The platform is a greenfield central securities depository being built to go-live in 2027.

We are hiring an Operations Lead to design the operational function from a blank sheet in Build, and then operate it in Run. Issuers, primary dealers, custodians, settlement banks, and investors will depend on this platform to do what it says it will do, on time, every time, without exception. The Operations Lead is the person accountable for making that happen day after day once the platform is live.

Scope is all operational activity except controls. Reconciliations, regulatory reporting, client money compliance, and data governance sit with the Head of Operations Control. Everything else operational sits here.

What the role covers

• Designing the operational function from a blank sheet: team structure, capability profile, operating procedures, runbooks, calendars, cut-offs, and escalation paths
• Owning the operational execution of settlement: trade input, matching, instruction processing, cash and securities movement, settlement finality, and exception management
• Owning the operational execution of registry maintenance: account opening, amendments, position management, and holding statements
• Owning end-to-end operational responsibility for asset servicing and corporate actions: notification, election capture, processing, distribution, and reconciliation back to issuers and participants
• Designing and operating the participant onboarding process; owning day‑to‑day participant services including enquiry handling, instruction support, and issue resolution
• Owning first‑line operational risk identification, recording, mitigation, and escalation; operating the operational incident management process
• Owning operational relationships with custodians, settlement banks, the exchange, SWIFT, and paying agents
• Owning operational readiness for go‑live: trained team, tested procedures, signed‑off runbooks, and completed dress rehearsals
• Line managing the Operations Analyst, Corporate Actions Specialist, and the wider Operations team as it builds

Requirements

Who we are looking for

• At least 10 years in securities operations, custody operations, settlement operations, or financial market infrastructure operations. Direct, demonstrable experience operating securities settlement and registry processes at scale: this is non‑negotiable.
• Direct, hands‑on experience of corporate actions operations across a range of event types.
• Demonstrated experience designing or significantly redesigning an operational function, including procedures, runbooks, team structure, and training, rather than only operating one inherited from elsewhere.
• Track record of operating under regulatory expectations for an FMI or a securities‑services business.
• Experience managing operational relationships with custodians, settlement banks, and exchange or CSD counterparties.
• Direct experience in a CSD, ICSD, or custody bank is a strong advantage. So is experience operating SWIFT‑based settlement messaging and familiarity with Islamic‑finance instrument operations.

What this is

The operational function does not exist yet. The procedures have not been written, the runbooks have not been drafted, and the team has not been built. The person who takes this role will have done all of it. If you have the settlement and registry operations background to design this from first principles and the leadership to run it to a regulated FMI standard, this is worth a conversation.