Associate Vice President, Operations

About Us

As a leading Canadian wealth management organization, Richardson Wealth offers the personal touch of a boutique firm while delivering big results. With offices across the country, we are home to some of Canada’s best investment advisors. We’ve embarked on an exciting growth phase – a multi-year transformational journey to enhance our entrepreneurial, high-performing, advisor-centric culture.

About Us

As a leading Canadian wealth management organization, Richardson Wealth offers the personal touch of a boutique firm while delivering big results. With offices across the country, we are home to some of Canada’s best investment advisors. We’ve embarked on an exciting growth phase – a multi-year transformational journey to enhance our entrepreneurial, high-performing, advisor-centric culture.

Job Purpose

This role is responsible for leading and modernizing Richardson Wealth’s core operational ecosystem, with primary oversight of the end-to-end operations activities. The role ensures operational excellence, regulatory compliance, and service consistency across advisor and client touchpoints, while steering the organization toward a digitally enabled, data-driven, and scalable operating model. As a Senior Leader Operations, the role is critical in the ongoing transformation of Richardson Wealth’s platform simplifying processes, reducing operational friction, elevating the advisor experience, and aligning all operational capabilities to the future-state integrated RW + iA Private Wealth environment. This is an existing vacancy.

Duties & Responsibilities

• Back Office Operations Leadership
• Lead day-to-day oversight of core wealth dealer operations including account opening, transfers, trade corrections, settlements, reconciliations, corporate actions, tax reporting, and estate processing.
• Drive operational accuracy, efficiency, and risk mitigation through modernization, automation, and process redesign.
• Oversee relationships with key custodians and vendors, ensuring adherence to service level agreements and enhancing service delivery.
• Ensure readiness and stability through system changes, platform enhancements, and new product launches (e.g., fee-based platforms, credit products, new asset classes).
• Oversee application environments, testing cycles, UAT and production validation—adapted from practices outlined in the reference document.
• Account Opening and Updates
• Oversee end‑to‑end account opening activities, including account opening, account updates and coordination with internal and external partners to ensure timely setup of client accounts.
• Provide operational support for the digital onboarding process, guiding users through digital tools and workflows, resolving exceptions.
• Contributes to the continuous improvement of the digital onboarding experience by identifying process gaps, recurring issues, and inefficiencies, and by collaborating with partners to streamline workflows, reduce rework, and improve turnaround times.
• Account Transfers
• Oversee the initiation and process of account ensuring documentation completeness, accuracy of transfer details, and compliance with internal and external requirements.
• Oversee end‑to‑end follow‑up on transfer requests, including monitoring status, resolving issues, communicating progress to advisors or stakeholders, and ensuring timely completion within established service standards.
• Serve as an escalation point for transfer‑related issues, handling complex or time-sensitive cases, resolving barriers to completion.
• Fee Administration
• Own end-to‑end fee administration processes including advisory fee generation, fee-based billing integrity, fee recalculations, manual adjustments, and exception handling.
• Ensure timely and accurate monthly, quarterly, and annual billing across platforms.
• Establish governance and quality controls over advisory fee structures, discounting, and compensation-related workflows.
• Partner with Finance, Compensation, and Advisor Practices to maintain transparency and accuracy in how fees are assessed and paid.
• Money Movement Operations
• Oversee payments operations processes including registered and non-registered accounts, recurrent and ad‑hoc requests and third‑party payments.
• Implement strong payments operations controls, ensuring alignment with regulatory requirements and internal risk frameworks.
• Lead operational support for payments questions, documentation and exception handling.
• Estate & Complex Account
• Oversee processes supporting estates, survivorship changes, executor guidance, and multi‑step account transitions.
• Ensure operational accuracy, regulatory compliance, documentation quality, and empathetic advisor/client handling during estate settlements.
• Develop and standardize workflows for complex structures (trusts, corporations, joint mandates, powers of attorney, etc.).
• Year End Activities
• Oversee year‑end operational activities, ensuring all critical processing, time‑sensitive requests, and outstanding items are prioritized and completed in alignment with year‑end deadlines, service standards, and business objectives.
• Accountable for the accuracy, completeness, and timely delivery of year‑end tax reporting, including oversight of tax slip production, reconciliation of underlying data, resolution of exceptions, and compliance with regulatory, reporting, and audit requirements.
• Act as a senior point of coordination and escalation for year‑end activities, partnering with internal teams and stakeholders to resolve complex issues, manage exceptions, and ensure an effective and timely year‑end close.
• Operational Transformation & Modernization
• Drive the transformation of RW’s operational ecosystem into a streamlined, digitally enabled model that supports growth and efficiency.
• Champion automation, workflow digitization, AI‑enabled processing, and reduction of manual touchpoints, drawing inspiration from the transformation themes in the source document
• Lead cross‑functional initiatives to simplify advisor and client processes, harmonize workflows, and reduce end‑to‑end operational cycle times.
• Governance, Risk & Controls
• Ensure operational compliance with CIRO rules, securities legislation, tax requirements, privacy standards, and internal policies.
• Oversee operational controls, incident management, business continuity practices, SLAs, and audit readiness—aligned with governance principles from the reference content.
• Partner with Risk, Compliance, Legal, and Internal Audit to strengthen oversight and enhance operational resilience.
• Reporting & Analytics
• Direct operational reporting including daily dashboards, monthly regulatory submissions, fee and credit reporting, and business KPI packages.
• Strengthen data quality, operational metrics, and evidence‑based decision‑making.
• Develop standardized documentation, playbooks, and operating procedures.
• Leadership & People Management
• Lead, mentor, and develop a diverse team across operations, fee administration, and payments.
• Build a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.
• Ensure team structure and resource allocation align with current and future needs, reflecting the leadership expectations outlined in the source JD.

Education & Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Finance, Operations, or related field (required)
• Industry certifications (e.g., CSC, CPH, CIM) an asset

Experience

• 10+ years of experience in Wealth Management operations, with deep knowledge of advisor-facing processes, dealer operations, fee models, and credit.
• Proven track record leading operational teams in a regulated environment (CIRO/IIROC).
• Experience driving modernization, operational transformation, or scaling operations through technology.

Skills & Abilities

• Strong understanding of wealth operations workflows including account opening, transfers, settlements, billing, and credit.
• Strategic mindset with a focus on continuous improvement and experience modernization.
• Proven track record of implementing operational excellence through processes and systems optimization in Wealth Management.
• Strong track record of inspiring and leading cross‑functional teams to successful execution, advocating and leading staff through change
• Ability to engage, influence and build strong relationships with external partners with commercial relationships
• Ability to solve problems effectively by balancing various lenses – business, operations, design and technology
• Self‑motivated and results‑oriented individual with strong leadership, decision making, analytical and problem‑solving skills
• Creative strategic thinker who is comfortable with change, ambiguity and challenges the status quo
• Possess business acumen to analyze and generate insights from OKRs as well as foundational quantitative analytical skills to size business benefits
• Ability to manage multiple priorities and tight deadlines while providing coaching and mentoring to teams.
• Expertise in operational controls, audit readiness, and risk mitigation.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Highly analytical with the ability to leverage data for decision‑making.

Specificities

• Occasional travel for business meetings
• Hybrid working model (Toronto)

The expected annualized base salary range for this role is between $150,000 - $180,000 annually.

The actual salary offered will take into consideration a wide array of factors including, but not limited to, the individual’s skill, experience, education and training, and the consideration of internal equity.

Richardson offers a competitive total rewards package in addition to the base pay, which includes a performance-based incentive plan, comprehensive health & dental benefits, a group RRSP matching plan and paid time off.

Richardson Wealth is an equal opportunity employer and committed to providing a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment. We are happy to meet your individual needs in keeping with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Candidates may request accommodation at any point during the interview process.

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