SophyMerrick@hotmail.com

I help Ops Teams and Service Delivery Centres at Tier 1 Investment Banks reduce processing losses by up to 100% (measured by cost reduction and team retention), by streamlining processes and embedding a Kaizen mindset.

=============

A COO / Senior Operations Leader / Risk Officer with exposure to both the buy and sell side, focusing on non-front-office risk oversight, regulatory compliance, new business/product launches, settlement activities, process change (blue and green $), and client onboarding. Believer in human-centred design focusing on ‘Purpose over Process’.

Roles in Asia, America and the UK ensure cultural awareness coupled with a passion for managing risk, creating transparency, driving change, and ensuring a continuous improvement culture – all with appropriate governance.

Shortlisted for the 2022 British LGBT Awards: ‘Future Leader’.

Highlights:

Risk Management: measure, manage, reduce

• Worked with Risk function to write line-appropriate KPIs and KRIs for dramatically improved control and assurance

• Improved incident reporting quality/ accuracy/ escalation and thematic reviews of high-volume ‘non-trigger’ events.

Transparency: complete/accurate, visible, readily understood

• Improved MIS reports/data collation for validaton of actual vs perceived performance across multiple lenses.

• Amended Commodities PnL reporting process for greater transparency and completeness

Change Delivery: mobilise, deliver, embed

• MiFID II Programme reporting and delivery of the Trade and Transaction Reporting workstream.

• Delivery of new Custody Operations TTF process and requirements definition for Asia onboarding to TCS BaNCS.

Continuous Improvement: kaizen culture (DMAIC, Gemba Walks, 5 ‘Why?’s, etc)

• Created a digital reporting deck that reduced delivery times by 95% and lost/ misplaced packs to zero.

• Reduced Euroclear/Clearstream fees ($120k+/mth to £0); refreshed Account opening process for 80% timesaving.

Governance: ownership, oversight, escalation.

• ASX Rule 1A calculations on Capital Adequacy in partnership with the regulator.

• Created governance and templates for various ‘green field’ PMO setups.