Business Manager, Direct Private Investments
THE OPPORTUNITY:
Business Manager role will direct ongoing required business activities to support budgeting, and other financial reporting for MassMutual’s Direct Private Investments (“DPI”) program’s lending activities and its ongoing operational interactions with internal partners and external service providers. This position will support all aspects of the Direct Private Investments platform, including in particular, directing financial and business operations of the DPI business.
THE TEAM:
The Direct Private Investments team is a newly created team within MassMutual Investment Management (“IM”)’s Alternative Investments group. IM manages the asset allocation and asset liability management for MassMutual’s $200 billion General Investment Account (“GIA”). DPI focuses upon customized proprietary secured loans to major investment organizations backed by a range of assets and has originated approximately $12.0 billion in private direct investments over the last three years. These loans are highly negotiated with the borrowers and may be retained solely for MassMutual’s own portfolio or participated to similar institutional investors. The team is small and highly collaborative and this role will become a critical full-time member of the team.
THE IMPACT:
The Business Manager will oversee the maintenance of program procedures, financial and performance metrics and other reporting for the DPI program as a whole, as well as for specific facilities that make up the program’s investment portfolio, and ongoing maintenance of complex transactions. These facilities represent attractive investments for MassMutual’s GIA while addressing the unique financing needs of our strategic business partners, who are typically world-class alternative investment managers. The [Business Manager] will leverage financial and accounting acumen to represent the investment and operations teams with relevant corporate functions, such as finance and risk, as well as external service providers in understanding complex fund and lending structures while assuring that DPI facilities minimize risk and maximize operational flexibility and efficiency within these structures.
RESPONSIBILITIES:
The Business Manager will:
- Be expected to serve as the key financial operations resource for the DPI business as a whole, but also understanding each transaction’s unique structural and implementation issues as well as MassMutual’s expectations with borrowers and outside service providers. The Business Manager should have deep experience with financial management and financial services operations’ processes and systems to assure that business operations of the Direct Private Investments strategy are optimized.
- The Business Manager will be expected to bring her/his strong industry knowledge and connections to build relationships with MassMutual’s borrowers, co-lenders and service providers as well as to leverage their network within the alternative investments market to improve the operational efficiency, risk management and positioning of the program in the market.
- Create and oversee ongoing calendar of scheduled and ad hoc deliverables for each facility and for the group as a whole, including tracking of MassMutual, borrower and service provider KPIs. Assure that these are implemented by the operations and investment teams and coordinate periodic reviews with borrowers and external partners for each loan facility
- Oversee ongoing development of the DPI financial reporting and operating infrastructure, particularly the interaction of third-party provider relationships and technology systems utilization, including development of business requirements, user acceptance testing and ongoing system monitoring, maintenance and enhancements, as well as optimizing information flow, management reporting and analytical insights through better data strategy and use of business intelligence tools.
- Coordinate ongoing interactions with internal MassMutual operations, treasury and accounting teams as well as external service providers and operations teams of current and prospective managers.
- Oversee reporting and data policy for Direct Private Investments, considering inputs from MassMutual, borrower and servicer/provider systems to prepare pipeline and management reporting for DPI team and senior management, automating where possible and assuring quality of data and reporting.
- Maintain line-of-business “LOB” financial information including revenue and expense records.
- Will serve as director of administration for the DPI business, assuring that all business functions integrate with borrowers, internal partners, and third-party vendors.
- Consult with other MassMutual departments on the transaction-specific investment issues and due diligence findings that impact their areas of concern.
THE MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:
- Bachelor’s degree with 10-15 years of relevant investment accounting, finance/budgeting, investment, investment operations/support experience required
- Prior experience investing or servicing private equity, private real estate, or private credit and/or negotiating fund or lending documents
- Strong knowledge of complex private fund, SPV/SPE and lending structures and familiarity with their particular legal and operational nuances and with systems supporting complex lending, alternative investments and other investment operational procedures and systems, particularly complex workflow monitoring and management, portfolio compliance monitoring and investment accounting.
- Experience with budgeting & forecasting, valuation of private assets and fund NAV calculation, management reporting and operational KPIs/metrics across complex, global financial services businesses
- Experience overseeing external service providers, negotiating and monitoring service level agreements and KPIs, as well as integrating external provider services into enterprise operating solution
- Candidate should have strong foundation in concepts of leverage in a corporate debt context (e.g., Debt/EBITDA and FCC) and of leverage in a real estate debt context (e.g., LTV, DSC, Property Debt Yield)
- Candidate should have a deep understanding of the roles, responsibilities and motivations of the primary participants in the investment management business
- Professional experience working on complex negotiated transactions such as private asset or fund investing, fund structurings, secured lending or CLOs
- Strong communication skills, both written and oral; ability to distill and explain complex technical topics
- Strong computer skills including experience with financial applications
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skill set, comfortable making decisions distilled from limited available information often in real-time during negotiations
- Ability to work closely with portfolio managers, senior management, operations teams, legal professionals and service providers supporting program
- Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to work in a fast paced, team environment and with outside constituents with tight deadlines and high expectations for our program
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel, Power Point and Word; BI (Tableau, etc.) VBA and Visio experience a plus) as well as various private asset operations and accounting systems (Black Mountain, AdventGeneva, Investran, iLevel, Wall Street Office, Loan IQ, etc.)
- Ability and openness to understanding, explaining and documenting operational, accounting, and legal aspects of investments
- Experience working with distributed global teams highly desirable
- MBA, CPA or other advanced degree/qualification preferred
THE IDEAL QUALIFICATIONS:
This is a role that will tend to present many new and one-off problems and issues that must be addressed. The successful candidate will have natural curiosity, love of learning, and calm under pressure and in the face of multiple urgent priorities, relish the challenge of solving puzzles and intellectual challenges and be comfortable with the ambiguity presented by new situations. At the same time, the successful candidate will naturally formulate answers or solutions to those ambiguous situations based upon empirical data, while understanding that the DPI operating environment will always be evolving and incomplete. While this is not an actuarial role, a basic comfort with the meaning of probability distributions will be essential in making decisive decisions within an uncertain environment. Similarly, this is not a legal role, but the [Business Manager] should have extensive experience working with complex legal documents and must be comfortable reviewing and complex legal documentation and distilling its implications for the business. A strong understanding of illiquid private assets, complex fund and lending structures, particularly with regard to the accounting, finance and operational challenges they present, and the ability to develop strong relationships across the industry are essential for success and growth in this role. The [Business Manager] will coordinate investment, operations and legal teams to assure alignment with program objectives, and must be comfortable challenging and questioning team members outside of her/his direct control to assure that these objectives are met.
The incumbent will be traveling nationally and occasionally internationally on a regular basis
WORK LOCATION: Boston (Fan Pier). Will entertain remote work arrangement with regular travel to Boston
WHAT TO EXPECT AS PART OF MASSMUTUAL AND THE TEAM:
- Regular meetings with the Direct Private Investments Team as well as the larger Investment Management department
- Focused one-on-one meetings with your manager
- Access to mentorship opportunities
- Networking opportunities including access to Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, African American, women, LGBTQ, veteran and disability-focused Business Resource Groups
- Access to learning content on Degreed and other informational platforms
- Your ethics and integrity will be valued by a company with a strong and stable ethical nosiness with industry leading pay and benefits
COMPETENCIES:
- Agility: Manage frequently changing and sometimes conflicting priorities effectively and adapt quickly to achieve goals.
- Business Acumen: Demonstrates understanding of financial processes and their criticality to the integrity and timeliness of financial reporting
- Critical Thinking: Critically and logically evaluates performance benefits vs. academic approach in thinking of alternatives
- Execution/Results: Takes ownership of problems and stays on top of them until resolved. Makes quick decisions and is able to guide teams on effective trade-offs in decision making
- Collaborate: Conducts periodic reviews with stakeholders and partners (internal & external) and encourages feedback towards continuous improvement
- Learning: Constantly learns about industry best-practices around financial technology and adapts the strategy accordingly
- Communications: Ability to establish appropriate program governance with clear communications to stakeholders along with structured change management
CORE VALUES
Focus on the Customer: We understand our customers well and look for every opportunity to deliver an experience that is clear, easy, personal, human, empowering and trustworthy.
Act with Integrity: We deliver on our promises by being open, honest and humble and by adhering to the letter and spirit of applicable laws, rules, regulations and company policies.
Value People: We respect and learn from each other’s diverse backgrounds, experiences and ideas. We engage and develop people to their greatest potential.
Work Collaboratively: We work together to achieve results by actively listening, seeking, understanding and creating solutions as a unified team driving toward one company, one culture, one brand.
Achieve Results: We focus on winning by exceeding expectations and getting better – everyone, every day.
For more information, visit www.massmutual.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+, Instagram and Pinterest.
At MassMutual, we’re fostering an inclusive and dynamic environment where our employees are valued for who they are and can build successful careers. For us, diversity and inclusion is more than a goal, it’s the only way forward.
COMPENSATION
We pay competitive base salaries and we reward performance. Our salary structure is commensurate with experience. In addition, you will be eligible to participate in our comprehensive benefits program including medical insurance and 401(K).
CONTACT
Isabelle Zarka, Executive Recruiting
860-816-4445
100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index (2018)
National Association for Female Executives Top Company for Executive Women (2018)
Disability Equality Index® (DEI) Best Place to Work for Disability inclusion (2018)
Working Mother Media 100 Best Company (2017)
Military Friendly Employer (2018)
MassMutual Financial Group is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer Minority/Female/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity/Individual with Disability/Protected Veteran. We welcome all persons to apply
MassMutual is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer Minority/Female/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity/Individual with Disability/Protected Veteran. We welcome all persons to apply. Note: Veterans are welcome to apply, regardless of their discharge status.
