Join us as an International Market Lead, Middle East
- In this high-profile role, you’ll act as the figurehead for the Coutts Middle East market, responsible for its growth, performance, and strategic presence
- You’ll have the chance to create meaningful impact by driving exceptional private banking and wealth management outcomes for international wealth-creating clients from the region
- You’ll have the opportunity to build a sustainable franchise by leading people, relationships, and strategy to drive outstanding outcomes for internationally connected clients
As an International Market Lead for the Coutts Middle East market, you’ll be responsible for delivering the regional market strategy and overall performance. This will include making strong commercial decisions, developing robust growth cases, and converting opportunities into scalable business results. You’ll also act as Coutts’ senior commercial ambassador in the region, establishing and growing Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW) and High Net Worth (HNW) client relationships, building deep networks across intermediaries and influencers, and maintaining a strong in-market presence through extensive travel and senior engagement.
Moreover, you’ll provide inspiring, culturally aware leadership to market-aligned colleagues, actively sales-managing performance and ensuring proposition alignment with regional expectations and regulatory requirements, while building capability, confidence, and disciplined execution. Alongside this, you’ll act as a prominent senior ambassador for the business in both the Middle East and the UK, developing and deepening direct client relationships, strengthening intermediary and referral networks, and maximising international connectivity and cross‑border referrals.
You’ll also be:
- Building market presence and credibility through travel, senior networking, and active engagement in regional business communities, forums, and events across priority Middle Eastern jurisdictions
- Leading the Middle East market to deliver high-quality client outcomes and achieve financial, customer, risk, and people objectives across the balanced scorecard
- Driving financial performance through revenue growth, margin discipline, client acquisition, and cost management, ensuring strong commercial decision making translates into long-term franchise value
- Shaping and evolving the Middle East client proposition to deliver culturally aligned, competitive, and relevant solutions for complex, internationally connected UHNW and HNW clients
- Building and leading a high-performing team, developing colleagues, supporting succession planning, and embedding regular performance, development, and feedback cycles
- Role modelling strong risk management across cross-border activity, complex client structures, and financial crime risk, working with Risk and Control functions to manage and mitigate market risks
- Collaborating across internal markets, functions, and international teams to drive market growth and ensure the Middle East market is fully integrated within the broader international and bank strategy
We’re looking for someone with extensive senior leadership experience in international private banking or wealth management, with a proven ability to build and scale a market or franchise from an early or under‑developed position. You’ll also bring a demonstrable track record of leading market entry or early‑stage growth, including strategy delivery, building teams, and establishing sustainable commercial and operating models.
Moreover, you’ll need to have substantial, hands‑on experience leading relationships with UHNW and HNW Middle Eastern clients, with strong origination credentials and a consistent record of new client acquisition. Alongside this, you’ll have to bring a strong understanding of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) business culture, family and ownership structures, succession dynamics, wealth sources, and regional investment behaviours, applying this effectively in client engagement and decision‑making.
You’ll also need:
- A robust working knowledge of cross‑border wealth structuring, lending solutions, and the regulatory considerations impacting Middle Eastern clients and internationally connected wealth
- A strong leadership presence, with the ability to influence senior clients, intermediaries, and internal stakeholders, underpinned by high cultural intelligence, sound judgement, and empathy
- A proven ability to lead successfully in relationship‑driven, complex, and ambiguous environments where outcomes are influenced rather than directly controlled
- Arabic language capability or significant experience working in Arabic‑speaking environments, combined with a track record of leading through periods of market entry, expansion, or transformation
Hours
35Job Posting Closing Date:
Job Posting Closing Date is not yet published.Ways of Working:HybridSkills Required
- Extensive senior leadership experience in international private banking or wealth management
- Proven ability to build and scale a market or franchise from early or under‑developed position
- Track record leading market entry or early‑stage growth, including strategy delivery and operating model establishment
- Substantial hands‑on experience managing relationships with UHNW and HNW Middle Eastern clients
- Strong origination credentials and consistent record of new client acquisition
- Deep understanding of GCC business culture, family and ownership structures, succession dynamics, and regional investment behaviours
- Robust working knowledge of cross‑border wealth structuring, lending solutions, and relevant regulatory considerations
- Strong leadership presence with ability to influence senior clients, intermediaries, and internal stakeholders; high cultural intelligence and sound judgement
- Proven ability to lead in relationship‑driven, complex, and ambiguous environments
- Arabic language capability or significant experience working in Arabic‑speaking environments
- Experience managing risk and financial crime considerations for cross‑border client activity
NatWest Group Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about NatWest Group and has not been reviewed or approved by NatWest Group.
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Flexible Benefits — A flexible ValueAccount structure with pension and benefit funding allows tailoring of health, protection, lifestyle, and savings options, with unused amounts typically paid as cash. This flexibility supports personalisation of coverage, particularly in Great Britain where the framework is most detailed.
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Retirement Support — Employer-funded pension contributions are provided on top of salary in Great Britain, alongside automatic retirement enrollment and share/save programs. This creates structured long‑term wealth support as part of total reward.
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Parental & Family Support — UK policies outline extended maternity, adoption and equal partner leave on full pay with a phased return, plus paid neonatal care leave. These provisions are positioned as market‑leading and complement broader flexibility resources.
NatWest Group Insights
What We Do
We’re a business that understands when our customers and people succeed, our communities succeed, and our economy thrives. As part of our purpose, we’re looking at how we can drive change for our communities in enterprise, learning and climate. As one of the leading supporters of UK business, we’re prioritising enterprise as a force of change. We’re focusing on the people and communities who have traditionally faced the highest barriers to entry and figuring out ways to remove these. Learning is also key to our continued growth as a company in an ever changing and increasingly digital world. By setting a dynamic and leading learning culture, our people prosper, and our customers are given the tools to continue to improve their financial capability and confidence. One of the biggest challenges we all face in our future is climate change. That’s why we’ve put it right at the core of our purpose. We want to champion climate solutions with financing and entrepreneurial support, fully embed climate into our culture and decision making, and be climate positive by 2025. We’re committed to using our purpose to break down barriers, drive change and ultimately create a great place to work.
