Managing Director, Head of Relationship Management – MENA
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Key skills for this role
About the Role
State Street is seeking a Managing Director to lead Relationship Management across the MENA region. This senior leadership role involves deepening strategic client relationships with institutional investors such as sovereign wealth funds and central banks.
Key Skills for This Role
Responsibilities
- Lead the regional relationship management agenda across MENA, ensuring clear ownership of strategic client relationships
- Develop and maintain trusted senior level relationships with key institutional clients
- Partner with SVP, Head of Sales and Relationship Management to execute regional client strategy
- Act as senior client advocate, coordinating across product, client service, operations, and other teams
- Drive disciplined relationship planning including account plans and executive engagement strategies
- Oversee quality and consistency of client governance including executive business reviews
- Support new business opportunities and cross sell initiatives
- Provide market intelligence and client insights to regional and global leadership
- Represent State Street externally in senior client meetings and industry forums
- Lead, coach, and develop relationship management professionals in the region
Requirements
- Extensive experience in institutional relationship management, client coverage, or strategic account management within financial services
- Strong understanding of the MENA institutional investor landscape
- Demonstrated ability to manage complex, multi product client relationships
- Track record of building trusted senior relationships and supporting revenue growth
- Experience leading teams or influencing cross functional groups across multiple jurisdictions
- Strong commercial acumen and strategic thinking
- Excellent communication, negotiation, and presentation skills
- Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree, CFA, MBA or relevant professional qualification preferred
Full Job Posting
Role Summary
- State Street is seeking a Managing Director to lead Relationship Management across the Middle East and North Africa region, one of the firm’s strategic growth markets.
- This senior leadership role will be responsible for deepening and expanding strategic client relationships, strengthening State Street’s position as a trusted partner to institutional investors, and ensuring a consistently high quality client experience across the region.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the regional relationship management agenda across MENA, ensuring clear ownership of strategic client relationships, governance forums, service reviews and escalation management.
- Develop and maintain trusted senior level relationships with key institutional clients, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, central banks, government related entities, asset managers and other strategic investors.
- Partner with the SVP, Head of Sales and Relationship Management, to execute the regional client strategy, identify growth opportunities and support the delivery of State Street’s broader MENA business plan.
- Act as the senior client advocate within State Street, coordinating across product, client service, operations, onboarding, legal, risk, compliance and technology teams to deliver effective, timely and client tailored solutions.
- Drive disciplined relationship planning, including account plans, executive engagement strategies, pipeline coordination, wallet analysis, client feedback and relationship health monitoring.
- Oversee the quality and consistency of client governance, including executive business reviews, service review meetings, issue tracking, action plans and follow through on commitments.
- Support new business opportunities and cross sell initiatives by identifying client needs, shaping value propositions and coordinating the right internal expertise across State Street’s global platform.
- Provide market intelligence and client insights to regional and global leadership, helping inform product priorities, service enhancements and strategic investment decisions.
- Represent State Street externally in senior client meetings, industry forums and strategic engagements, reinforcing the firm’s commitment to the MENA region.
- Lead, coach and develop relationship management professionals in the region, fostering a high performance, collaborative and client centric culture.
- Promote strong risk discipline and ensure client engagement activities are conducted in line with applicable regulatory, compliance, conduct and governance standards.
Leadership Expectations
- Operate as a senior regional leader with strong commercial judgment, sound risk awareness and the ability to balance client needs with enterprise priorities.
- Build connectivity across State Street’s regional and global teams, ensuring clients experience the full strength of the firm’s investment servicing, markets, financing, data and investment management capabilities.
- Demonstrate executive presence and credibility with C suite, CIO, COO and senior investment and operations stakeholders.
- Drive accountability, collaboration and transparency across complex client relationships and internal delivery teams.
- Contribute to the development of State Street’s long term strategic positioning in MENA, with particular focus on deepening partnerships with leading institutional investors.
Experience And Qualifications
- Extensive experience in institutional relationship management, client coverage, strategic account management or a related senior client facing role within financial services.
- Strong understanding of the MENA institutional investor landscape, including sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, central banks, asset managers and government related entities.
- Demonstrated ability to manage complex, multi product client relationships across investment servicing, custody, fund administration, middle office, data, analytics, markets or investment management solutions.
- Track record of building trusted senior relationships, managing escalations, supporting revenue growth and delivering high standards of client satisfaction.
- Experience leading teams or influencing cross functional groups across multiple jurisdictions and business lines.
- Strong commercial acumen, strategic thinking and ability to translate client priorities into actionable relationship plans.
- Excellent communication, negotiation and presentation skills, with the ability to engage confidently with senior executives and technical stakeholders.
- High degree of integrity, judgement, resilience and cultural awareness, with experience operating in a regulated environment.
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree, CFA, MBA or relevant professional qualification preferred.
Key Success Measures
- Strength and depth of senior client relationships across priority MENA accounts.
- Improvement in client satisfaction, relationship health and service governance outcomes.
- Effective coordination of cross functional State Street teams to deliver client commitments.
- Contribution to revenue retention, growth opportunities and strategic account development.
- Quality of relationship planning, executive engagement and escalation management.
- Development of a strong, collaborative and high performing regional relationship management team.
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