VP – Group Strategy

• The Group Strategy department is responsible for managing the overall formulation, direction and delivery of the Bank’s long term business plans, overseeing group-wide strategic initiatives and managing the strategy execution process and balanced scorecards at the Group and Executive level. The Group Strategy team works with all businesses, functions and geographic areas across the group to inform, guide, create and execute strategic plans for the Group and all its businesses including subsidiaries.
• The VP Group Strategy will be the strategy lead on assigned areas and will be responsible for developing strategic plans, managing execution of strategy and leading assigned projects.  This role will drive action across multiple business lines and support functions and have shared accountability to implement the ideas and agreed projects.  The role holder is expected to have depth and breadth of knowledge on market trends, regulatory developments, competitor moves to provide analysis, insight and guidance to the senior levels of the bank (including the Business Line leaders and EXCO). The role holder will track the progress on Key Performance Indicators and support SVPs in Group Strategy in delivering key strategic projects.

Key accountabilities and impact

• The job holder will be required to lead the development and have accountability for execution of strategic plans across businesses, functions and geographies of FAB.

• The job holder will be required to own and have primary responsibility to execute strategic projects. These projects will be varied in nature and could involve diverse topics such as, inter alia, feasibility studies, business model creation and implementation through to business closures and divestments.  These projects must be delivered taking into account the cross-business and function nature of the teams involved, and delivered to demanding time, budget and quality requirements. Obtaining buy-in from senior management is also expected.

• The role holder will be responsible for providing high quality, professional advice and action recommendations and having successful interactions with senior leadership of FAB across all strategy-related areas e.g. market trends, financial indicators, innovation, business model transformation, international expansion and possible investments and alliances for FAB.

• As part of external ‘market focused’ projects, the job holder will analyse, make recommendations and obtain buy in on different markets, business areas, product lines and customer groupings the bank should participate in.  The job holder will also be responsible to carry out deep dive on-going analysis on the internal state of the bank (e.g. to summaries financial performance of each area on a monthly basis to inform of strengths and weaknesses in performance or to analyze long term internal / external business trends).

• The job holder will have primary responsibility to develop quarterly market insights presentations analyzing key developments e.g. economic updates, banking sector updates, assessment of financial results of peer banks etc. for consolidating insights for the consumption of the leadership team at FAB

• The job holder will have shared responsibility to support the translation of the Group and Business level strategic direction into the Balanced Scorecard framework adopted by the bank. The jobholder will need to track the progress on Key Performance Indicators on a quarterly basis and prepare progress reports.  The jobholder while working on Strategy development at both the Bank and Functional levels will also need to promote a focus on execution and delivery by translating the strategies into execution frameworks and monitoring progress.  The role holder is expected to resolve conflicts, follow up on the progress of strategic initiatives and assess impact in achieving strategic Goals

• The job holder will be responsible to drive automation initiatives in the team including reporting of performance indicators, KPIs, peer / competitor financials etc.

• The job holder will lead and conduct / actively participate in business planning and strategy discussions with the senior leadership of the bank. This will include the planning and execution of strategic offsites with senior leaders in FAB (incl. EXCO members) and relevant external parties.

• Mergers and Acquisitions will also be a key role for the job holder. For less complex M&As, the job holder will take ownership and be responsible for driving the initiative. This would entail managing the full M&A process from target identification and screening, investment banking partnering, due diligence, deal structuring, regulatory requirements etc.  The job holder may also be involved in post deal integration, program management and long-term restructuring as required.  For significant M&A the job holder will contribute as part of a team working closely with SVPs in Group Strategy

• The job holder will be required to work closely with Global top-tier strategy consulting firms (e.g. BCG, McKinsey, Bain, Oliver Wyman, Accenture etc…)  and have contributory accountability in leading / coordinating / overseeing the delivery of strategy projects with large fees budgets (exceeding USD 3mn of pure consulting spend per project).

• The job holder will also add value and support in Group Funding exercises, Group Risk processes, Ratings exercises and Investor Relations exercises (such as, inter alia, EMTN / Bond program prospectuses, the UAE Central bank ICAAP review, Risk Appetite Framework content, Analyst and Investor Days and Investor Relations performance updates for the public).

• The job holder will be required to drive key process for the team including risk and control assessments, business continuity planning etc.

• The job holder will manage the selection, onboarding, oversight of external suppliers of data for the department (eg. Refinitiv, McKinsey, Moody’s BankFocus, eValueServe etc.) to gain value for money and leading-edge intelligence.

Level of know-how required

• The job holder is required to develop a deep understanding of the external environment across geographies where FAB has business interests and where FAB should be interested, as well as the internal environment of the Group for relevant business areas and functions.

• The job holder will need to utilize strong Influencing and Leadership skills needed to gain the buy-in of senior management (including EXCO) on the recommendations that are put forward based on the strategic analyses conducted.

• The job holder must have deep financial expertise (possibly a MBA – Finance, qualified accountant, CFA charter holder etc.) and be adept in developing / conducting complex financial analysis.  Must be able to create financial statements to the highest standards to be shared with external bodies such as regulators and/or other banks/financial institutions/consultants and other external bodies.

• The job holder must have deep knowledge of economics and modelling to be able to analyze macroeconomic conditions and make decisions on the appropriate actions that should be taken by the bank to respond to economic challenges and future economic trends across multiple countries.

• The job holder must have strong and specialized knowledge of best practices in strategy execution with a deep understanding of balanced scorecards and Key Performance Indicators etc.

• The job holder must have deep and specialized knowledge of banking from an operational and a managerial perspective gained though practical experience.  They must be able to connect prior detailed experience through to driving the correct actions to resolve issues facing FAB.  This knowledge must be gained across multiple business lines as the role is across all lines and geographies of the bank.  This includes the knowledge and experience to be able to predict future problems and drive proactive actions to resolve those issues before they arise.

Problem solving responsibilities

• The job holder is required to have an extremely high degree of problem-solving abilities to make recommendations, resolve conflicts, obtain buy in and drive decision making regarding which businesses / markets we should be in and how the center helps to make the businesses successful (e.g. corporate structure, funding strategy, risk appetite, transformation plans etc.).

• Once these questions are answered, the job holder will work with senior business leaders to answer the questions of target sectors, target customers, CVPs, and to align to the capabilities at the business level. The job holder will also be responsible to cascade FAB level strategy to Groups and Departments while ensuring the vertical and horizontal alignment of the strategy.

• The job holder must also be able to deeply analyze financial and other information on competitors to derive business actions they are taking and to formulate appropriate actions that FAB should take to counter those competitive pressures.

• The problems to be solved are highly complex and wide ranging in nature – across all business lines, products and geographies.  These problems also range from the ’big picture conceptual ideas’ through to practical execution challenges at the operational level.

• The job holder must also be able to solve these problems in an innovative way that leads to competitive advantage for FAB. The role holder should possess a combination of skills including ability to deal with ambiguous problem statements and detecting unstated assumptions, as well as influencing skills for conflict resolution.

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Threshold Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Economics, or any related discipline from a Top Tier University

• Master’s degree, CFA Charter Holder, MBA or Professional Qualification in Finance, Economics, or related discipline from a Top Tier University

• Wide breadth of banking knowledge across businesses (Wholesale / Retail / Treasury) and functions e.g. Risk, Credit, Finance, Operations etc.

• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence strategic decision making with the highest level of management in large organizations
• Emirati with family book.

Experience: –

• Minimum of 12 years of experience in banking with at least 5 years in a similar role, or 5 years of experience in senior level strategy consulting at a top tier consulting firm