Head of Securities

About the role

Unlimit, a global financial infrastructure provider, is hiring a Head of Securities. The role owns the securities business end to end: trading, custody, clearing and settlement, and the controls around them. It reports to the CEO of the investment firm entity (or COO), leads the securities operations team and is the senior point of contact for brokers, custodians, exchanges and the regulator.

Key responsibilities

• Set and deliver the securities business strategy, product scope and annual budget, and build relationships with brokers, custodians, CSDs, exchanges and liquidity providers.
• Evaluate new instruments, markets and venues and lead their onboarding.
• Oversee the full trade lifecycle: order handling, execution, confirmation, clearing and settlement.
• Run daily reconciliations of positions, cash and securities across custodians and internal books, and manage corporate actions, settlement fails and exceptions.
• Ensure safeguarding of client financial instruments and funds.
• Ensure compliance with MiFID II/MiFIR, CySEC rules, MAR, CSDR and EMIR, own best-execution policy and RTS 22 reporting, and work with Compliance, Risk and AML on market abuse surveillance and suitability.
• Define operational controls, KPIs, procedures and the securities risk register, and act as key contact for audits and regulatory inspections.
• Own requirements for OMS, back-office and reconciliation systems, drive automation and STP, and lead integration projects with new counterparties and venues.
• Lead, hire and develop the securities team, set objectives and run performance reviews.

Required profile

• 10+ years in securities operations, brokerage or custody, with 4+ years leading a team.
• Degree in finance, economics, accounting or a related field.
• Fluent English; Greek or Russian an advantage.
• Able to meet CySEC fit-and-proper requirements; holder of the CySEC Advanced Certificate, or willing to obtain it.

Required skills

• Hands-on knowledge of the trade lifecycle across equities, fixed income and ETFs; derivatives a plus.
• Strong working knowledge of MiFID II/MiFIR, CySEC regulation, CSDR and client asset safeguarding.
• Experience with custodians, prime brokers and settlement systems (Euroclear, Clearstream, DTC, SWIFT ISO 15022/20022).
• Track record of building controls, reconciliations and procedures that pass audit and regulatory review.
• Experience with tokenized securities.