AMP - Strategic Design Lead

We're proud to have been helping our clients build better financial futures for over 50 years. We do this by combining investment expertise, disciplined governance and resilient platforms that help our teams make great decisions for our clients. Join the Asset Management Platform (AMP) team to lead the build-out of our strategic platforms supporting our businesses. About your team As a business, we are constantly evolving how we work to stay ahead of what our clients need and to deliver on our Forward 8 ambitions. FIL Platforms represents the next step in that journey - bringing together Asset Management Delivery, Enterprise Technology Services, and delivery and change teams from across the business into a single integrated structure, designed for clarity, speed, and impact. That structure is organised around Platforms, each a focused unit of capability with a single accountable owner and within each Platform, a set of Value Streams and capabilities that translate strategic priorities into funded, sequenced delivery. Your value stream/capability set sits at the heart of that model. It exists to connect our talent and expertise directly to the priorities that matter most, delivering greater impact for our clients with less duplication and fewer competing backlogs. About your role The Strategic Design Lead is responsible for defining and evolving the future-state business design for Asset Management Platforms, ensuring all strategic and incremental change contributes to a coherent, scalable and outcome-focused operating model. Working as part of the Strategy & Planning function, the role provides the architectural and capability lens across the change portfolio, translating strategic objectives into future business capabilities, operating model improvements and organisational design. The role partners closely with the AMP SLT, Strategic Change Leads, Asset Management leadership and Enterprise Architecture to ensure initiatives are designed as part of a connected capability roadmap rather than isolated projects, enabling sustainable business transformation and long-term value creation., Business Design & Capability Strategy

• Develop and support the Asset Management business capability model and future-state business architecture.
• Define and evolve the Target Operating Model in line with strategic business priorities and organisational objectives.
• Identify capability gaps, duplication and opportunities for simplification across the portfolio.
• Ensure strategic initiatives contribute towards a coherent long-term capability roadmap rather than point solutions.
Strategic Initiative Design
• Partner with Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Change and Value Stream Leads during initiative shaping to ensure proposed change aligns with the future operating model.
• Provide architectural guidance during business case development and programme / initiative mobilisation.
• Support the design of cross-functional initiatives spanning multiple Value Streams and Agile Release Trains.
• Challenge initiative scope where solutions optimise individual functions rather than end-to-end business capabilities.
Operating Model Evolution
• Lead the evolution of Asset Management operating models across asset management capabilities (including Research, Portfolio Management, Trading, Compliance, Post Trade & IBOR and Investment Risk & Attribution)
• Ensure organisational processes, roles and ways of working evolve alongside technology and platform change.
• Support the definition and evolution of business capabilities underpinning Lean Portfolio Management and value stream delivery.
• Promote simplification, standardisation and reuse across business processes and capabilities.
AI Enabled Business Design
• Embed digital, data and AI considerations into future-state capability and operating model design.
• Challenge traditional process redesign by identifying opportunities for AI-enabled decision support, automation and productivity improvement.
• Partner with Data, Technology and Architecture teams to ensure AI opportunities are considered as part of strategic portfolio planning rather than standalone initiatives.
• Support the design of operating models that maximise the value of emerging technologies while maintaining appropriate governance and business control.
Portfolio Alignment & Strategic Governance
• Ownership of new Business Design Authority for Asset Management
• Ensure the strategic change portfolio remains aligned to the Target Operating Model and long-term business strategy.
• Work with Enterprise Architecture to provide architectural oversight across major programmes to identify emerging risks, duplication and dependency.
• Support portfolio prioritisation through capability-based investment recommendations.
• Contribute to strategic planning, portfolio reviews and executive governance forums.
  
  The successful candidate will demonstrate:
• Strong business architecture and operating model design experience.
• Deep understanding of Asset Management operating models and front office processes.
• Ability to connect strategy, business capabilities and portfolio investment decisions.
• Strong systems thinking and structured problem-solving capability.
• Experience shaping large-scale business transformation across multiple domains.
• Commercial awareness with the ability to balance strategic ambition and delivery pragmatism.
• Curiosity and practical application of AI, data and digital technologies to improve business capabilities and operating models.
• Excellent stakeholder management and influencing skills across business and technology leadership.