Product Director - Private Markets

Ninety One; Wes-Kaap; On-site; ZAR 800,000 - 1,200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading investment management firm in South Africa seeks an experienced professional to develop Private Credit products. The role involves end-to-end product design, project management, and collaboration with various departments. Candidates should have over 5 years of experience in private credit or alternatives, strong analytical skills, and be proficient in AI tools. This position offers a dynamic and collaborative work environment, focusing on innovative solutions and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

• Over 5 years' experience ideally in private credit or alternatives product development.
• Self-starter with a solution mindset, comfortable working independently.
• Excellent drafting, analysis, and coordination skills.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end development of Private Credit strategies.
• Integrate intelligent workflows and automation into processes.
• Lead fund launches and manage cross-functional coordination.

Skills

Product Development

Project Management

Legal Compliance

Analytical Skills

Stakeholder Management

Education

Relevant degree

Tools

AI Tools

Job description

About Ninety One:

Ninety One is South Africa’s largest investment manager and the only one with a global presence. The firm has 22 offices across 15 countries on five continents and manages R3.4 trillion of assets on behalf of clients (as at 30 June 2025).

Established in Cape Town in 1991 as part of the Investec Group, Ninety One demerged and rebranded in 2020, becoming an independent firm dual-listed in London and Johannesburg

.Always an active manager, Ninety One today offers strategies across equities, fixed income, multi-asset and private markets to institutions, advisors and individual investors around the world.

About the team

We are building Private Markets capabilities that will define the next decade of active asset management, not only incrementally improving what exists, but rearchitecting how Private Credit operates in an AI-native, automation-enabled environment.

This role sits at the core of Ninety One’s alternatives transformation. You’ll help define our next-generation Private Credit product suite, while embedding technology and intelligence into how these products are built, launched, governed, and scaled.

You’ll join a cross-functional team tasked with building the future-state operating model for Private Markets. This is not a “support function”—it is a design-and-build opportunity for those ready to reimagine. This high-impact role is ideal for a self-starter with a solutions mindset and strong analytical, legal, or structuring expertise. The individual will help shape investment strategies into executable vehicles, driving documentation, governance, and cross-functional execution. The role is dynamic, global, and collaborative—perfect for someone eager to shape the next generation of private markets.

Our team operates as a global business unit with members based in both London and Cape Town. It is small, focused, and highly effective—delivering high-quality client and product solutions across a growing suite of Private Markets capabilities.

We work closely with other teams across Ninety One’s global platform, including Investments, Technology, Operations, Legal, Compliance, and Distribution. While this role is based in Cape Town, its scope spans Ninety One’s full global private product range and related activities.

Our culture insists on results, commitment, excellence, and ambition but not at the expense of decency or humanity. We believe in being both high-performing and grounded, and we hold each other to these values. For creative problem solvers and keen innovators, the opportunity for challenge and growth here is significant.

In this role you will:

Product Design & Launch

• Own the end-to-end development of Private Credit strategies such as direct lending, asset-based finance, infrastructure debt—from concept to implementation.
• Partner with investment, legal, compliance, operations and distribution teams to develop business and investment strategies into executable structures aligned with portfolio characteristics, regulatory considerations, tax, and investor expectations
• Present and seek approval for product-related proposals to senior management, fund board directors and other internal committees

Data-Enabled Product Innovation

• Integrate intelligent workflows and automation capabilities into everything we do from fund onboarding, investor servicing, and reporting processes.
• Shape the technical architecture around capital call automation, investor dashboards, and structured data capture from day one.
• Contribute to a culture of continuous improvement and innovation, including applying AI or automation where relevant

Project Management & Execution

• Lead fund launches and closings, managing timelines, cross-functional dependencies, and coordination with internal teams and external providers across jurisdictions
• Assist with LP due diligence and responses to investor requests on product mechanics
• Ensure products evolve to meet client demands, regulatory changes, product governance responsibilities and commercial requirements.

You should consider applying if you have:

• Relevant degree
• Over 5 years' experience ideally in private credit, alternatives product development, fund legal, structuring or private capital operations.
• Self-starter with a solution mindset, comfortable working independently, prioritising initiatives, and proactively identifying inefficiencies or risks.
• Excellent drafting, analysis and coordination skills; comfort managing complexity across jurisdictions.
• Experience and comfort working with a variety of stakeholder including investment teams, legal counsel, and service providers
• Proficient in leveraging AI tools

Some of the attributes we look for in a person are:

• A client focused and collaborative approach
• Intellectual curiosity
• The ability to ‘approach and own’ and continuously look for opportunities to develop
• Driven by results