Chief Operating Officer, Investment Operations & Automation
About the Firm
Firm Mission
“Achieving Client Success through Research and Technology”
Los Angeles Capital, the “Firm”, is a global equity manager of assets for leading institutions around the world. The Firm is recognized as a pioneer in dynamic equity management, utilizing proprietary technology to engineer equity portfolios that adapt to today’s equity market. The Firm’s senior investment professionals have worked together for three decades developing models for measuring and forecasting return and risk of global equity securities. The Firm manages approximately $40.1 billion as of December 31, 2025, across a wide variety of public equity strategies designed to meet institutional client return and risk objectives. The Firm has been ranked for seven years in a row by Pensions and Investments as one of the “Best Places to Work in Money Management.” The Firm’s working environment places a strong focus on teamwork and values work-life balance. The Firm offers a competitive compensation package that includes health care plans, 401(k), and top-tier benefits. The Firm is 100% employee-owned through a holding company structure and seeks to retain and motivate employees’ long term. Los Angeles Capital firmly believes the quality and commitment of the individuals are vital to the success of the Firm, ensuring that client expectations are exceeded.
POSITION OVERVIEW
Los Angeles Capital Management is seeking a senior investment operations leader to modernize and scale the Firm’s front-to-back investment operating model, with a primary mandate to automate the trading workflow from trade-list generation through execution, allocation, settlement, collateral management, accounting, and operational control. The role will oversee Trading, Operations, and a newly formed Derivatives Group, working closely with the CEO, Chief Trading Officer, investment leadership, technology resources, and external vendors to build a scalable infrastructure that supports higher portfolio turnover, more frequent rebalancing, increased portfolio capacity, and stronger client confidence in trade fairness and operational discipline.
The immediate priority is to design, staff, and implement an automated trading process within six months, with a target of approximately 95% automation. This includes aggregating trades across portfolios, incorporating transaction-cost analytics and short-term trading signals, executing trades efficiently, and allocating executed trades to clients at a consistent price where appropriate. The automation build will follow a parallel path: the new process is developed and proven on proprietary accounts alongside the existing desk, and client portfolios migrate to it as it demonstrates reliability. The successful candidate will also lead broader automation across Operations, oversee derivatives infrastructure and counterparty relationships, evaluate, select, and implement the Firm’s EMS, OMS, TMS, accounting, collateral management, and SWIFT-enabled workflows, and spearhead practical AI adoption across the Firm.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND GOALS
1. Overall Responsibility
- Lead the modernization and scaling of the Firm’s front-to-back investment operations platform across Trading, Derivatives, Operations, systems, and AI-enabled workflow automation, with accountability for building an operating model that supports higher turnover, more frequent portfolio rebalancing, greater portfolio capacity, stronger controls, and improved client confidence.
2. Five Key Areas of Oversight and Associated Goals
- Trading automation and market implementation. Design and implement an automated trading process within six months, targeting approximately 95% automation (measured as the percentage of order flow executed no-touch, by order count and by notional, reported monthly); aggregate trades across portfolios; working with Portfolio Implementation, define the trade-list handoff — formats, timing, and rebalancing triggers — that the automated process consumes; incorporate transaction-cost analytics (independently validated), liquidity considerations, and short-term trading signals; and establish execution and allocation protocols that improve scalability, fairness, and client confidence. Automation advances behind its controls at every stage: kill-switches on any process that touches an order; staged promotion gated on automation rate, error trends, and validated implementation cost; and model-risk governance for anything self-learning.
- Trading leadership, staffing, and succession. Work with the Chief Trading Officer, Stuart Matsuda, to recruit and onboard a senior Director of Automated Trading, a role within the Trading department, who can implement the new process, lead technical execution, work with the existing team of traders, and develop into a credible long-term successor for Trading leadership. Responsibilities of the Director of Automated Trading should include translating the automation strategy into day-to-day execution workflows; managing trade aggregation, routing, execution, and allocation design; coordinating with traders, quantitative investment platform resources, and technology vendors; and monitoring execution quality, automation rates, exceptions, and implementation costs.
- Derivatives oversight and infrastructure. Oversee the Derivatives Group, led by Chris Kugler, with responsibility for prime broker and swap dealer relationships, counterparty risk monitoring under a formal framework (exposure limits, a counterparty scorecard, aggregate reporting), and the smooth operational use of equity swaps, futures, and related instruments in client portfolios. Add a Derivatives Specialist, hired either internally or externally, to strengthen daily derivatives operations, collateral coordination, counterparty documentation, exposure monitoring, and communication with clients, investment teams, Operations, and external counterparties.
- Operations oversight and modernization. Lead continued modernization of Operations by eliminating spreadsheet-based manual work, reducing manual cash movement, implementing collateral management capabilities, enabling SWIFT workflows (with maker-checker control on all cash and collateral movements as a condition of go-live), and strengthening the controls, exception management, metrics, and staffing model needed to scale the department without proportional headcount growth. Recruit and develop a Deputy Director of Operations who can strengthen day-to-day leadership and serve as a potential successor to the current Head of Operations.
- AI adoption across the Firm. Serve as the executive sponsor for AI adoption across the Firm by identifying high-impact use cases in Trading, Operations, Research, Portfolio Management, client service, compliance, and administration; prioritizing practical pilots with measurable productivity, quality, or control benefits; embedding AI into repeatable department workflows; establishing governance around data security, model risk, privacy, documentation, and human review; and building the internal training and change-management program needed to make AI a core part of how the Firm operates.
3. Program Resourcing and Decision Rights
- Dedicated technology capacity: a named engineering allocation from the quantitative investment platform and technology groups, agreed at program kickoff and sufficient to meet the six-month goal, in addition to the three new roles above.
- Systems selection and budget: authority to select and implement the EMS and directly related workflow systems within an approved budget.
- Platform ownership: within the first 90 days, decide where the team that supports the OMS, accounting, and related trading systems reports, so the systems being automated have one clear owner.
QUALIFICATIONS & PROFILE
Skills & Competencies
- Deep understanding of institutional investment operations, trading workflows, derivatives infrastructure, portfolio implementation, settlement, collateral management, accounting, and operational control environments.
- Strong market-structure and trading-systems fluency, including practical familiarity with EMS, OMS, TMS, trade aggregation, execution routing, allocation methods, transaction-cost analysis, and post-trade exception management.
- Proven ability to lead automation and operating-model transformation, translating strategic goals into practical workflows, milestones, metrics, governance, and sustained adoption across teams.
- Thorough understanding of AI and workflow-automation opportunities in an investment management environment, including the ability to identify high-value use cases, prioritize pilots, manage data-security and model-risk considerations, and embed AI into repeatable departmental processes.
- Strong leadership and talent-development capability, including the ability to recruit senior technical and operational talent, develop succession candidates, and raise the management depth of Trading, Derivatives, and Operations.
- High credibility with investment professionals, traders, operations personnel, technology resources, vendors, counterparties, and clients; able to build trust while driving substantial process change.
- Executive-level communication skills, with the ability to explain complex trading, operations, systems, derivatives, and AI initiatives clearly to the CEO, Board, clients, and internal stakeholders.
- Disciplined judgment and risk orientation, with a strong appreciation for fiduciary obligations, fair allocation, operational resilience, regulatory expectations, confidentiality, and control design.
- Organized, decisive, and calm under pressure; comfortable managing multiple high-stakes workstreams with defined timelines, measurable outcomes, and visible accountability.
Education
- Bachelor’s degree required, preferably in finance, economics, engineering, computer science, mathematics, or a related quantitative or business discipline. Advanced degree such as an MBA, MS, JD, or other relevant graduate credential is preferred, particularly where it reflects a combination of investment markets, technology, operations, data, or organizational leadership experience. Professional designations such as the CFA charter, or equivalent credentials reflecting investment, legal, or risk expertise, are strongly preferred.
This is a hybrid position based in Los Angeles, CA which requires weekly attendance.
Los Angeles Capital is an SEC registered investment adviser and required to track certain political contributions under rule 206(4)-5. Therefore, you will be required to disclose your prior political contributions.
Los Angeles Capital is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employment opportunity without regard to an individual’s race, color, religion, age, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, marital status, medical condition, genetic information, veteran status or disability.
For more information about the company, please refer to our website at www.lacapm.com.
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