UK
Middle Eastern banks still need to get their houses in order. Technology needs to be upgraded, operations need to be administered and risk needs to be more closely monitored. The result is that experienced back and middle office staff are the new hot property.
At the very senior end, more banks in the region are seeking to either take on new or upgrade existing chief operating officers, chief technology officers, chief financial officers, chief risk officers or chief administrative officers.
“Fundamentally, the argument is there for many financial services firms in the Gulf to upgrade people in their operational functions, and most are looking for experience in sophisticated Western markets to do this,” says Barbara van Meir, director, head of MENA practice at search firm Pemberton Partners.
“In the current climate, a lot of firms are taking a cautious approach to recruitment, but many can see the long-term value of getting the right people on board,” she adds.
Operational staff are generally viewed as a cost centre, so banks have been less willing to invest in recruiting for them than they have for revenue generating front office roles.
Even at the senior end, this has been under-represented. Research by headhunters Stanton Chase suggests that just 58% of Middle Eastern companies have COOs, although this represents an increase from 40% in 2005.
Lower down the ranks, it hasn’t been all plain sailing for people working in back office roles in the Gulf. Shuaa Capital’s decision to cull 11% of its headcount was believed to largely affect the back office, while Barclays Africa is in the process of transferring its 120-strong Dubai-based operational team to Johannesburg.
Generally, however, the appetite among regional financial services firms to bolster their operational functions is on the up, suggests James Sayer, associate director of Robert Half in Dubai.
“Ideally, most organisations want regional experience combined with a knowledge of sophisticated risk products or operational functions within large financial services firms,” he says. “Increasingly, however, due to constraints in supply locally, candidates from Western markets are being sought after.”
Article hardly has much merit. I have floated myself to several headhunters across the Gulf for the last few months for these so called operational roles. I have yet to hear from anyone of them.
If I don’t bring exceptional regional operational experience (operational, risk and MIS) from a large financial services Western firm (hint-hint ex-Citibank) than I don’t really know who does.
I agree with Azhar. Middle-East recruits only experienced person, specially Gulf experienced.
Agree with Azhar. during last 5 months, i came across with 2 geniune opening in abu dhabi. was interviewed on 1 of them twice. got a positive feedback but till date, the positions are vacant. the feedback that i got was, the requirement has been shared among available staff, therefore the higher management is not keen to take any decision until the market atmosphere gets better.
I have been involved with some of the major finance related players in the UAE market.. As the says go Well said than done.. If the articles above emphasis on the requirement in the BC oprns it is only a say I guess but practically roll down in still on and people on high pay are at stake..So this article though being very motivating is quiet surprising. If it really happens then Great !!!!
This article has a very disturbing underlying tone of discrimination. It explicitly suggests that there is a dearth of operations talent in the region and requires sourcing Western candidates. Does it mean that the existing operations professionals from Asia are incompetent? The fact is that these western many professionals may be from Western financial institutions that were instrumental to the financial. May be it could be inferred that the western talent has “been there and done that” and experienced the financial disaster and may have learnt from their mistakes. But the fact remains that the locally available operations professionals can also learn from others mistakes and not necessarily have experienced in it.
Its exactly this kind of mentality that allows people to get hired through falsification of experience. The thing is that the size of the ivy league financial institutions in the west are so large that operations professionals are only exposed to a limited part of the operations function. This compared to midsized institutions in the Middle East where operations professionals have experience in a broader array of functionalities are better equipped