Head of Retail Operations & Servicing

PPS

Job Description,

Who we are

PPS Investments is part of the PPS Group, which for over 8 decades has been the trusted financial partner for graduate professionals in South Africa. Unlike a company that is listed on a stock exchange, PPS belongs to its members and operates under the ethos of mutuality. This means that qualifying members can exclusively share the profits of the Group, through the unique PPS Profit-Share Account.

PPS Investments exists to create and grow the wealth of graduate professionals and their families to live the lives they want in a world worth living in. We offer diversified and flexible investment solutions that are mutually beneficial to our clients in the long run because we believe that success is better shared.

Purpose Of The Job

The Head of Retail Operations & Servicing is accountable for the safe, compliant and effective delivery of PPS Investments’ retail investment administration and servicing operation.

The role leads the experience journey pods and omnichannel servicing model, ensuring that member and adviser requests are managed from initial contact through validation, processing, execution, communication and final resolution. The role is accountable for service performance, quality, backlog and exception management, operational risk, control effectiveness, regulatory compliance, service recovery, productivity and people performance across Retail Operations and Servicing.

The role also carries operational implementation responsibility for transformation initiatives to modernise the operation environment. This means translating new platform, workflow, data, automation and servicing capabilities into sustainable BAU ways of working; ensuring operational readiness and adoption; leading workforce and capability transition; and demonstrating that implemented changes improve service, control, scalability and member and adviser outcomes.

The role works in close partnership with the Enablement & Controls centre of excellence, and programme leadership, Technology and Operational compliance teams. These specialist teams provide standards, design, governance, delivery and enablement support, while the Head remains accountable for operational requirements, readiness, adoption and realised operational outcomes.

Requirements,

Ideal Experience

8 – 10 years in a similar role within the investment and asset management industry

Ideal Qualifications

Relevant bachelor’s degree in commerce, Business, Finance, Investments, Operations, Industrial Engineering or a related discipline.
Postgraduate qualification in business, operations, risk or financial services would be advantageous.
Relevant regulatory examinations or recognised financial services qualifications where applicable to the role.
Lean, Six Sigma, process-improvement, operational-risk or change-management certification would be advantageous.

Competencies And Ideal Personality Attributes

Operational leadership
End-to-end ownership
Risk and control judgement
Data-led decision making
Systems thinking
Change leadership
Cross-functional influence
People leadership
Decisiveness and composure
Continuous- improvement mindset
Client and adviser orientation

Systems Knowledge

MS Office Suite

Please Note

You acknowledge that any information supplied to PPS is provided voluntarily and therefore constitutes unconditional, specific and voluntary consent to the processing of such information by PPS. Your personal information will be processed for facilitating your employment application with PPS including any statutory or regulatory compliance with which PPS must comply (where applicable) and for the legitimate interests of PPS and yourself, both during the recruitment process and thereafter. You may instruct PPS by written notice to cease the processing of your personal information at any time and, subject to the requirements of applicable South African law, request that PPS delete and/or de-identify such personal information.
Based on the nature of our business, honesty and integrity are inherent requirements for our roles.
All appointments are made in line with the Company's Employment Equity targets.

Duties and Responsibilities,

BAU Retail Operations & Servicing
Hold overall accountability for the day-to-day performance, stability & effectiveness of Retail Operations & Servicing
Ensure retail investment instructions & servicing cases are processed accurately, timeously & in accordance with agreed service, quality, regulatory & control standards
Balance service delivery, risk, quality & productivity rather than optimising one measure at the expense of the end-to-end outcome
End-to-end journey & pod performance
Lead experience journey-led operating model across agreed priority journeys, including onboarding & funding, servicing & maintenance, transactions & portfolio changes, retention & outflows, & adviser & client engagement
Set clear performance expectations & decision rights for each journey pod
Resolve cross-pod constraints & prevent internal functional boundaries from fragmenting ownership of the member or adviser outcome
Omnichannel servicing & client/adviser experience
Provide management oversight of the omnichannel servicing function, ensuring effective delivery across telephone, email, secure portal, messaging & other approved channels
Hold Servicing Manager accountable for service performance, workforce & queue management, channel effectiveness, case routing, escalation management & consistent application of servicing standards
Ensure the client & adviser service experience is an outcome of operational effectiveness, with reliable turnaround times, accurate execution, clear ownership, proactive communication & effective resolution underpinning the quality of the experience
Monitor servicing & operational performance together, using service levels, backlog & ageing, repeat contacts, complaints, escalations, first-time resolution & client/adviser experience measures to identify where operational friction is affecting the experience
Ensure effective integration between the omnichannel servicing function & the journey pods, so that client & adviser interactions provide visibility into operational issues & translate into clear ownership, timely resolution & appropriate service recovery
SLA, quality, backlog & exception management
Define & maintain appropriate service & quality starts by journey & channel
Ensure visible management of backlog, case ageing, incomplete requirements, outstanding third-party actions & service breaches
Establish clear exception categories, ownership, prioritisation & escalation pathways
Strengthen first-time-right performance & reduce recurrence through disciplined quality management, coaching & root-cause closure
Operational risk, controls & regulatory compliance
Act as senior first-line owner of operational risk across Retail Operations & Servicing
Maintain management accountability for the effectiveness of controls across critical journeys, working in partnership with Operational Compliance to ensure controls are appropriately designed, documented, implemented, evidenced & monitored
Promote preventative controls, validation, business rules & structured exception gating ahead of avoidable downstream detection & remediation
Work with Risk, Compliance, Legal, Internal Audit & Quality specialists while retaining first-line ownership for operational compliance & control execution
Third-party administrator & supplier performance
Own the operational relationship with outsourced administrators & material servicing partners
Establish clear operational service levels, responsibilities, escalation routes, controls & management information
Oversee operational resilience across key internal & third-party dependencies, including incident response, recovery & recurring issue elimination
Data, MI & performance management
Ensure management information provides a reliable, actionable view of service, quality, risk, backlog, capacity, productivity & client/adviser outcomes
Provide concise & decision-useful reporting to the Executive: Operations, ExCo, governance committees & Boards where required
Exception expertise, service recovery & adviser/member value
Transformation initiatives implementation responsibility
The Head is the operational implementation owner, working alongside the primary enterprise transformation-programme owner to deliver a modern, future fit operations environment