Chief Strategy Officer — Institutional Platform

The mandate

A privately held institutional platform completes disciplined strategy cycles, but their conclusions rarely alter budgets, leadership attention or work already under way. Every business retains its priority, resource assumptions remain implicit and the annual plan becomes a summary of negotiated ambition. A channel migration now demands choices about client coverage, service, partnerships and platforms that cannot be added to the existing portfolio without consequences.

The new Chief Strategy Officer will steward approximately S$4,050 million in assets and investment and lead about 100 employees and material partners. The role covers enterprise strategy, portfolio choices, strategic planning, investment cases, competitive intelligence and execution governance. It reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive sponsor and works directly with the board and investment committee.

The first requirement is to make the migration thesis explicit. Which institutional interactions should move to self-service, digital relationship support, specialist hubs or partners? Which clients value high-touch coverage enough to fund it? Strategy must connect each choice to customer behaviour, service capacity, technology, risk and economics.

Priorities should be few because each carries a resource consequence. A new initiative must identify funding, leadership, capabilities and work that will stop. The CSO will expose dependencies and alternative scenarios before commitment, then track whether assumptions remain valid. Execution belongs to line leaders; strategy owns the integrity of choices and the mechanism that returns weak evidence to decision.

The role also needs to retire orphaned initiatives. Projects that no longer fit the channel model should not survive through historic sponsorship or sunk cost. Released capital and talent must be visible.

Competitive intelligence should focus on decisions rather than produce a market library. The CSO will identify which competitor moves, client behaviours, regulatory shifts or technology changes would alter the chosen channel economics, then assign observation and response thresholds. Scenario work should show what management will do, not merely describe several possible futures.

Governance will distinguish strategic review from operating review. The executive committee should not re-litigate the thesis at every delivery setback, yet it must revisit choices when agreed assumptions cross a threshold. The CSO will maintain that discipline, recording decisions and ensuring teams understand whether a variance calls for recovery, reallocation or a new strategy.

Why this seat is open

The urgent new seat replaces distributed ownership of the channel thesis. The board expects to move from qualified shortlist to offer within six to eight weeks. Interim governance protects current delivery but cannot make permanent portfolio choices.

What you will own

• Define the client, channel and service choices behind migration.
• Translate strategy into funded priorities with named owners and stop decisions.
• Steward S$4,050 million of assets, investment, risk acceptance and forecasts.
• Set investment gates, scenario ranges and evidence for revisiting choices.
• Integrate competitive, customer, financial, people and control implications.
• Retire initiatives whose thesis or fit no longer survives scrutiny.
• Lead 100 employees and partners with strong business-facing strategy capability.
• Give the board a clear portfolio view rather than separate initiative narratives.

The first 12 months

In the first 90 days, inventory strategic commitments, funding, owners, dependencies and unstated assumptions. Meet the 30 stakeholders most consequential to the channel migration, including clients, coverage leaders, operations, technology, risk and capital sponsors. Test the economics of representative client segments, assess the team and agree board gates for continued investment.

Months four to nine should narrow the portfolio, reallocate capital and establish an execution cadence around decision evidence. Fill leadership gaps and stop or combine work that lacks a coherent place in the migration thesis. The first value should appear in released cash, capacity, faster channel decisions or a funded priority reaching a defined customer milestone.

By month twelve, fewer priorities, explicit trade-offs and a funded execution path should be repeatable. The value case must finish within 10% of baseline, and forecasts should reconcile investment, customer, operating and people assumptions across three quarters. Priority risks require sustainable closure evidence; severe escalations cannot remain open beyond 30 days.

What the board will measure

• Capital and leadership capacity concentrated behind agreed priorities.
• Initiatives stopped, combined or redesigned when evidence weakens.
• Customer and economic outcomes from the selected channel model.
• Forecast quality and timely return of material trade-offs to decision.
• Critical-talent retention at 90% or better and ready-now cover for 70% of direct reports.
• Quantified improvement in resource consequences, backed by a clean baseline and owner.

The person

You are a Chief Strategy Officer, EVP Strategy or substantial portfolio leader with 22–28 years in financial services or a comparable enterprise. You have exercised authority across functions and markets and can point to capital, customers or controlled risk changed by your recommendations.

Your accountable P&L, book, budget or portfolio has been at least S$2,350 million, and you have led 85 or more people. You can show a strategy cycle that removed funded work and produced outcomes sustained for two reporting periods.

You are comfortable making strategy smaller. You challenge consensus that avoids trade-offs, respect line accountability and return to the board when evidence changes rather than defend a fixed plan.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is S$360,000–480,000 plus annual incentive. The permanent Singapore role follows a hybrid pattern, supports relocation and allows notice of up to six months.

Confidentiality

The client and channel thesis will be discussed only after fit and confidentiality are established. Composite circumstances are intentionally non-identifying.