Associate Director, Trade Operations

About Olea

Olea is a digital infrastructure platform that connects global liquidity with trade and supply chain opportunities, fueling growth and unlocking potential worldwide. Olea has diverse liquidity pools with varying appetite and focuses. Olea’s vision is to connect capital to opportunity. It has a strong conviction in the role of trade to support sustainable economic development across countries, particularly emerging markets, particularly Asia where many smaller suppliers are based. Olea supports suppliers and buyers in over 70 corridors.

Role summary

We are seeking an agile, highly disciplined Associate Director, Trade Operations to lead core operational delivery while driving digital transformation across our trade finance platforms.

In this dual-impact role, you will lead day-to-day trade processing and vendor delivery, ensuring zero-defect execution across complex trade products (including Factoring and Structured Trade). Concurrently, you will serve as an operational subject matter expert, bridging Operations, Commercial teams, Risk, Compliance, and Technology, translating operational friction into scalable automated systems, API / SFTP integrations, and streamlined digital workflows.

Responsibilities

Operational Leadership, Execution & Control

• Lead, mentor, and build capacity for the trade operations team, managing shift schedules, workload queues, and performance KPI’s.

• Oversee transaction monitoring, document review, trade account reconciliations, and commission settlements with a strict zero-tolerance approach to errors.

• Serve as the Senior Middle Office escalation point for high-value corporate portfolios, ensuring compliance with internal risk policies, KYC, and regulatory standards.

• Oversee offshore / outsourced operational vendor teams (e.g. India delivery centers), ensuring strict adherence to SLA’s, quality standards, and reporting requirements.

Digital Transformation & Process Engineering

• Act as an operational SME and Business / User Representative for platform enhancements, covering document validation, workflow automation, and payment settlements (including cross-border FX and digital wallets / fiat rails).

• Identify operational bottlenecks and lead process-reengineering efforts (e.g. Lean Six Sigma methods) to eliminate manual work, achieve measurable efficiency gains, and lower operational risks.

• Translate complex operational, client service, regulatory, and audit requirements into functional user specifications, workflows, and interim manual / system-assisted controls.

• Drive technology adoption, participate in Agile practices (Sprint planning, backlog prioritization, UAT, regression testing), and bridge communication between internal operations and software development / engineering teams.

Audit, Governance & Risk Management

• Act as the primary point of contact (POC) for both internal and external audits, maintaining full transparency and providing regular progress updates to operational executive leadership.

• Establish and monitor departmental KPI dashboards to systematically assess and mitigate operational, fraud, and settlement risks.

• Author, enforce, and regularly update Standard Operating Procedures (SOP’s) and interim manual exception-handling frameworks.

Role specific technical competencies

• Experience: 10–15 years of progressive experience within Trade Finance Middle/Back Office operations (Structured Trade, Factoring, or Digital Trade Platforms).

• Leadership: Proven experience directly managing and developing operational teams, including oversight of outsourced/offshore delivery vendors.

• Digital & Systems Acumen: Demonstrated track record of contributing to digital transformation, platform implementations, system rollouts, or operational automation (UAT, API/SFTP integration flows, RPA, or Agile environments).

• Risk & Audit Mastery: Deep familiarity with trade compliance, KYC onboarding, audit defense, and designing robust risk controls/reconciliations.

• Problem Solving & Continuous Improvement: Methodical approach to problem-solving (e.g., Six Sigma / Lean exposure) with a history of designing process improvements that deliver measurable cost or time savings.

• Communication: Exceptional cross-functional stakeholder management skills—able to speak the language of corporate clients, internal tech squads, and executive management seamlessly.

Note:

Olea is committed to diversity and inclusion. By providing equal opportunities we foster a work environment which embraces diversity and gets the best out of the broadest spectrum of people to sustain business performance and competitive advantage. We build an inclusive culture by demonstrating respect for each other’s unique strengths and perspectives to enable every employee to develop a sense of belonging and have the opportunity to maximize their potential.