IT Manager, Gas Trading, US

RecruiterPal; United States; On-site; SGD 200,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

JERA Global Markets in Singapore seeks a seasoned IT leader to head the Core Platform and delivery for its North American gas trading initiative as part of a global IT function. You will manage a ~3 FTE team, coordinate with vendors, and drive change across ETRM, market data, and interfacing systems.

Reporting to the SVP, IT, you will shape architecture, governance, and release strategies while maintaining strong stakeholder engagement across Singapore, London, Tokyo and the US.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional qualification.
• 10+ years leading IT in trading or financial services.
• Strong understanding of trade lifecycle for commodities including gas, LNG, coal.
• Experience with vendor ETRM systems such as Allegro, Endur, Aspect, Eka.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage IT function within a global trading environment.
• Oversee architecture, design decisions and deliver change programmes.
• Monitor vendor relationships and project delivery across locations (Singapore, London).
• Ensure delivery on time within budget and align with business goals.
• Foster a proactive, collaborative global IT team culture.

Skills

Leadership

Trading IT knowledge

Vendor management

Stakeholder communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional qualification

Tools

EKA

Endur

Aspect

Allegro

Job description

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

About the Company

The JERA Global Markets Group (JERAGM) is a leading utility-backed energy trader specialising in LNG, power,coaland freight.

As JERA’s exclusive trading and optimisation platform for majority shareholder, JERAGM operates one of the most exciting energy portfolios in the world, which gives it an in-depth understanding of the way local,regionaland international energy markets behave. Thisexpertiseenables us to capture trading opportunities, optimise portfolios, createvalueand enhance security of supply for our customers.

Headquartered in Singapore, JERAGM has a global talent pool of about 400 people across officeslocatedin five strategic locations: Singapore, the UK (London), Japan (Tokyo), the US (Houston)and Australia (Brisbane).

RESPONSIBILITIES

Position Description

This role forms part of JERA's growing North American Gas Trading business, which is expected to transition onto JERAGM’s trading platform. This business is wholly owned by JERA Co., Inc. and will focus on US natural gas trading,optimisationand market development across North America. Successful candidates will join during the build-out phase ahead of the business's planned operational launch.

The Core Platform Manager will be focussed on leadingandmanaging a team tosupport anddeliver change toGMA’s trading applications estate.

This estate currently includes the following applications (collectively termed “core platform”):

• Energy Trading and Risk Management (ETRM) system –Eka

• Market data platform – ZEMA

• Credit management system –CubeLogic

• And all associated interfaces between these applications, into these applications (from, for example, trading platforms such as Trayport,WebICEetc.) and from these applications to bespoke inhouse systems.

The Manager,Core PlatformUSrole is a leadership role within the IT department and will manage a team of approximately3FTEs. They will work with their team members, vendor partners, businessusersand the wider IT team to agree the change programme across the core platform systemlandscape, andthenbe responsible foroverseeing the execution and delivery of the agreed portfolio of work. This work will cover:

• Ongoing change to the existing systems (BAU and small to medium sized projects)

• Maintenance of the existing systems (e.g. major upgrades to vendor systems)

• New systems & interfaces (e.g.changes to IT architecture)

• Introduction of technological/process improvements (e.g.deployment orchestration, test automation, support process optimisations)

Youwill be part of a global team and will work with users in Singapore, London,Tokyoand the US.Youmust be comfortable and adaptyourstyle as needed to managedifferent typesof IT delivery team including:

• Small agile teams e.g. light-touch project management or facilitation of semi-autonomous Agile or DevOps teams made up of JERAGM staff including BAs and Developers.

• Large IT/vendor teams e.g. project management of hybrid JERAGM / vendor teams following a controlled process to plan, build, test and releaselarge changes.

Key Role Responsibilities

Management & leadership of the team

• The role requires day-to-day management of the team as well providing leadership and direction with regards to the future development of the function (in line with the vision set by theSVP, IT andHead of ITDelivery).

• The team is a global team and is a mix of JERAGM andconsultancystaff covering the following functions:

• Business analysis

• Development

• Testing

• Project management

• Technical architecture

Promotinga clear visionand positive team culture

• This role requiresworking withindividuals from a variety ofdifferent backgroundsacross multiple global locations and time zones.

• The Manager,Core PlatformUSmust ensure the direction and priorities of the team are well understood by the team, as well as creating a positive culture within the team to achieve these stated aims.

Defining and assuring architecture and design

• Provide oversight of architectural and design decisions with the Core Platform systems estate and with other systems in the IT systems landscape.

• Developcapabilities inkey individuals todecentralise and federate architecture and design activities whilstmaintainingthe required standards.

Process improvements/efficient running of the team

• Evaluate and implement improvements to the overall processes in the team. These include:

• Test automation

• CI/CD

• DevOps

• Project management methodologies & governance

• Evaluate and implement improvements to the structure of the team to ensure that the business has the right level of support across JERAGM’s global offices.

• Oversee and own the Application Lifecycle Management approach and tools used byGMA.

• Oversee and drive delivery of the workstream teams ensuring users’ needs are accurately understood, they see their highest priorities actioned and are given realistic assessments of effort and release dates.

• Motivate the team and encourage a sense of ownership in outcomes as well as outputs.

• Identifyand helpinitiateinternal or external project teams where the workstream model is not effective at delivering solutions e.g. for more complex changes, orlarge changes.

Overseeing improvements to the platform:

• Monitor andmaintainkey business processes within agreed KPI targets, including EOD Batch performance, intraday real time valuations, and user interface performance.

• Define and own the portfolio of active projects andsmall changewith responsibility for aligning this portfolio of work to agreed business and IT expectations.

• Lead project mobilisation including developing the resourcing strategy for deliveringvarious typesof change.

• Ensure projects and ongoing change are delivered on time, within budget and meet the expectations of the project sponsor(s).

• Ensure that the Release & QA Manager has a roadmap of releasestaking into accountinterdependencies between changes and the need to go through a common SIT, regressiontestingand release cycle for allCore Platformchanges.

Stakeholder management

• Maintain a strong Commercial business focus.

• Establish an effective prioritisation mechanism with the business teams acrossvarious typesof change.

• Ensure clear definition, agreement, and management of project scope with business and other IT stakeholders.

• Maintain an understanding of the implications of changing business needs on the IT roadmap.

Status reporting

• Oversee the implementation of quality data to support the production of key project metrics across project milestones, effort, requirements scope change and resource utilisation.

• Provide project/departmental updates every two months to the ExCom and Heads of Department (including Heads of Trading) and other relevant IT stakeholders.

Vendor management

• This role requires managing relationships with oursoftwarevendorand consultancypartners to ensure that requirements are met in line with the defined roadmap.

• The vendor partners include:

• System vendors

• System integrators

• Contract staff suppliers

Note that in addition to these duties employeesare required to carry out such other duties as may be reasonably required.

QUALIFICATIONS

Key Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional qualification.

• Minimum 10 years’ experience leading and managing an IT function within a trading house, investment bank, or through a tier-1 vendor/consultancy.

• Good understanding of the trade lifecycle for financial and physical commodities (including gas, coal,LNGor physical oil).

• Experience on a vendor ETRM implementation, e.g. Allegro,Endur, Aspect, Eka.

PersonSpecification

• Be proactive in engaging with users and working with them in a collaborative and open manner.

• Be able toandproactivelycommunicate(written and spoken)and present effectively.

• Be comfortable running meetings to get consensus across large groups, dealing effectively with conflicting views.

• Good presentation skills (written and spoken), and the ability to get key messages across to seniorstakeholdersin order forthem to make decisions.

• Methodical approach and attention to detail.

• Adaptable with ability to work independently and as part of a team.

• Confident and effective communicator with professional and approachable manner.

• Self-starter with pragmatic approach to problem solving and delivery-mindset.

• Ability to work under pressure in a trading environment.

• Be willing to travel between Singapore and London asrequired.