Head of Trade Operations

Job description

**About Us** OpenFX is on a mission to move money as freely as data, unrestricted by time zones, banking hours, or legacy systems. We are building the infrastructure that will power the next generation of cross-border payment systems for institutions. The team's execution has been exceptional, and we're scaling at a remarkable pace. Our stellar early team comes with experience in companies like J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, FalconX, PayPal, Affirm, Polygon, Kraken, Nium and others. We're backed by Accel, Lightspeed, NfX and other top-tier investors. **Role Overview** We're hiring a Head of Trade Operations to build and lead the Trade Operations function at OpenFX. Reporting to the Head of Operations, you will own the end-to-end trade and treasury operation and lead the team that keeps OpenFX's cross-border flows settling accurately, on time, and at scale. Trade Operations is the operational backbone of OpenFX's core business. The team executes and controls the full trade lifecycle, manages multi-currency liquidity and treasury, and keeps settlement flawless across time zones and corridors as volume grows. This is a deliberately hands-on leadership role. You set the operating model, build the controls, and stay with the work until trades settle cleanly and the numbers are trustworthy, not stopping at plans or presentations. You will work closely with leaders across Product, Partnerships, Finance, Business Operations, Compliance and Engineering. Trade Operations owns the trade lifecycle, liquidity, and operational risk and controls, while each partner function continues to own its own strategy, specialist decisions and results. **Key Responsibilities** **Lead and scale the Trade Operations function** - Manage, coach and develop the Trade Operations team across geographies, with clear responsibilities, scorecards and development plans for each team member. - Build the operating model, coverage framework and capacity plan needed to run across IST, GMT and US time zones as OpenFX scales. - Set the standard for how the team executes, escalates and continuously improves. **Own the trade lifecycle end to end** - Own execution, booking, confirmation, reconciliation and settlement across all currencies and corridors. - Drive down settlement discrepancies and operational breaks through process design, controls and system improvements. - Stand up real-time visibility into settlement status and operational breaks. **Own liquidity and treasury** - Manage daily liquidity and cash across currencies, accounts and banking partners. - Build cash forecasting and rebalancing that improves working capital efficiency and reduces cost of funds. - Oversee short-term funding, investment and borrowing activity. **Own operational risk, controls and compliance** - Build the operational, market and currency risk framework: limits, monitoring, escalation and audit trails. - Ensure trade and treasury activity adheres to regulation and internal policy across the US, UK, EU, UAE and India. **Drive automation, reporting and systems** - Own the trade and treasury systems roadmap and drive automation over manual work wherever possible. - Standardize and automate reporting for leadership, partners and regulators. - Protect data integrity across trade and treasury systems. **Work clearly with other teams** - Partner with Product on operational readiness for new products, features, corridors and currencies, so nothing ships without ops sign-off. Product owns the roadmap and requirements. - Partner with Partnerships on banking and liquidity relationships, SLAs and fee structures. Partnerships owns the relationship strategy. - Partner with Finance on planning, reconciliation and controls. Finance owns the books and financial reporting. - Partner with Compliance on regulatory requirements. Compliance and Legal own licensing and regulatory strategy. **What We're Looking For** **Must-haves** - 15+ years in trade operations, treasury or related functions, including senior leadership at large-scale fintechs and/or major financial institutions. - A record of building and scaling a trade or treasury operations function and leading teams across geographies, with clear evidence of personal ownership and measurable results. - Deep, technical command of the full trade lifecycle, FX markets, cross-border payments and multi-currency liquidity and cash management. - Strong people leadership, including setting clear expectations, coaching capable operators and building an effective team structure. - Excellent judgment on risk, controls and compliance in a regulated, multi-jurisdiction environment. - Strong written communication and executive judgment, including making ownership, tradeoffs and decisions clear. - Comfort working through ambiguity. You can set a clear way of working and move important work forward without waiting for a detailed playbook. **What helps you stand out** - An MBA or a professional treasury certification (e.g., CTP). - Hands-on experience with trading and treasury management systems and platforms. - Experience building a trade or treasury operations function from the ground up (0 to 1) at a company scaling significantly. - Experience across multiple regulatory jurisdictions (US, UK, EU, UAE, India). **What We Offer** - Competitive salary and benefits package. - Equity in a rapidly growing company. - Opportunity to work in a fast-paced startup at the forefront of fintech innovation. - Opportunity to make a significant impact on global financial infrastructure. - Collaborative work culture with emphasis on personal and professional growth. *We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.*