Middle Office Senior Associate

Job Location

Symbiotics Group is a leading market access platform for impact investing, focused on private markets in emerging and frontier economies. We provide market research, investment advisory, asset management, and capacity-building services to global investors committed to generating meaningful social and environmental impact. Headquartered in Geneva, we operate internationally with offices in Amsterdam, Cape Town, London, Mexico City, New Delhi, Paris, Singapore, Yerevan, and Zurich.

Symbiotics Asset Management, a core entity within the Symbiotics Group, delivers tailored sustainable portfolio management solutions, managing close to USD 3 billion in assets. Investments aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are central to our mission, and all our funds are classified as Article 9 under the European SFDR regulation—reflecting the highest standard of ESG transparency.

We invest in underserved communities and environmental initiatives across emerging and frontier markets, enabling investors to participate in the structural growth opportunities of these regions. Our portfolios span a wide range of impact themes, including financial inclusion, gender equality, SME finance, climate action, agriculture, health, and education.

With more than 15 years of strong and resilient performance, clients choose Symbiotics for our deep expertise—particularly in unhedged local currency investments—and for the quality and integrity of our impact-driven approach.

We are a fast-growing, market-leading organisation that offers a dynamic and purpose-driven work environment within the expanding impact investment sector. Our people are our greatest competitive advantage.

To ensure an equitable recruitment process, we assess all applications fairly and consistently. As part of this commitment, we do not require personal information such as photos, date of birth, or gender to be included in CVs.

About the Job

As a detail-oriented and process-driven Middle Office professional, you will support the day-to-day operational activities of our mandates. You will help ensure smooth middle office operations—from post-trade settlement and cash management to NAV checks and reporting—contributing to the efficient and compliant execution of our investment processes.

In this role, you will maintain high data quality and coordinate operational matters between our internal investment team and external stakeholders. You will also support our investment teams by ensuring that relevant deal information from our originators is accurately captured in our systems and that mandate appetites are kept up to date.

Based in our Cape Town office, you will report to the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) in Geneva, Switzerland, and work closely with investment teams across our international offices. Duties and Responsibilities will include but not be limited to:

Deal Monitoring & Cash Management Support

Assist in updating the deal pipeline in the PMS and internal tracking tools with basic information on deal approvals, expected dates, and status changes.

Prepare preliminary schedules of disbursements, repayments, and execution milestones for review by the Middle Office Analyst.

Flag discrepancies or missing data to the Middle Office Analyst for resolution.

Collect and organise documentation related to deal execution and store it in SharePoint.

Post disbursement trade settlement support:

Perform first-level checks to ensure trades are correctly captured in the PMS (e.g., amounts, dates, counterparties).

Retrieve and upload trade confirmations and settlement instructions to SharePoint, ensuring completeness and traceability.

Track settlement status daily and highlight delays or breaks to the Middle Office Analyst.

Cash reconciliation and forecasting support:

Review daily cash reconciliation files prepared by the external provider to identify missing statements, unallocated items, or potential breaks.

Prepare a summary of observed breaks for validation by the Middle Office Analyst.

Update short-term cash projection files with expected inflows/outflows under supervision.

Middle Office Coordinator support:

Maintain and update the central issue log, ensuring that new issues raised by internal or external stakeholders are properly recorded.

Support the monitoring of the progress of open items (e.g., pending confirmations, NAV inputs, settlement breaks).

Fee Review & Validation Support

Perform first-level checks on fund fees (management, performance, administrative) based on data from the PMS and fund administrator.

Verify calculation inputs such as NAV, AUM, fee rates, and time periods against contractual documentation.

Support to NAV validation:

Review the NAV control performed by the external middle office provider, ensuring accuracy and completeness of underlying positions, cash, and valuations.

Provide timely and constructive feedback to the external middle office provider, the investment team the originator and the fund administrator if needed in case of discrepancies or data quality concerns.

Based on the external middle office NAV report, prepare a clear and structured NAV review summary for submission to the investment team, highlighting key elements, anomalies, and justifications.

Support the investment team in their final validation process prior to NAV submission to the AIFM.

Pipeline support :

Regularly updating the tracking file with new opportunities received from Third-Party Originators (TPOs).

Ensuring that all relevant deal information is captured (maturity, yield, structure, timelines, status, etc.).

Maintaining and updating appetite volumes expressed by the investment teams, ensuring consistency and proper documentation.

Preparing extracts or summaries of the pipeline for internal meetings and weekly CIO review.

Your Qualification

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Business Administration, Economics, or a related field—or an equivalent combination of qualifications and experience.

3–5 years of solid experience in a middle office, fund operations, or investment control function within the insurance, banking, or asset management sectors.

Proficiency with portfolio management systems, fund accounting, and settlement workflows; experience with SimCorp Dimension is a strong advantage.

Demonstrated experience managing relationships with outsourced service providers and collaborating with cross-functional internal teams.

High level of reliability, accuracy, and accountability in day-to-day tasks.

A solution-oriented mindset, with enthusiasm for improving tools and processes; comfortable working with data visualization tools (e.g., Power BI).

Fluency in English (written and spoken)

Job Offer

The chance to contribute to improving the lives of people in emerging and frontier countries, to work towards supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goal.

A flexible work environment with colleagues from 41 countries.

The opportunity to become part of a growing business that pushes you to excel every day while having a positive impact on others.

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