Company Description
About Octopus:
Octopus is a group of businesses investing in the people, ideas and industries that will help change the world. Founded in 2000, we’re now one of the UK’s fastest-growing companies, operating in two sectors – financial services and energy supply. In our financial services business, we’ve built market-leading positions in a number of specialist investment sectors, including smaller companies, renewable energy, healthcare and property finance. We employ more than 750 people and manage more than £10 billion on behalf of more than 50,000 retail and institutional investors. At Octopus we’re transforming the industries we operate in and improving the lives of millions of people.
We’re a group of entrepreneurially-minded businesses, each built on the belief that people and the planet deserve better. Our group includes Octopus Energy, Octopus Real Estate, Octopus Investments, Octopus Ventures, Octopus Renewables, Octopus Wealth, Octopus Giving and Seccl.
Life at Octopus is never dull. We’re an ambitious, people-first business that wants to make the world a better place. Because of this, we value energy, curiosity, resilience, and integrity. We’re different from most other companies you may have worked for. And we’re always on the look-out for smart, talented people who share our values.
The Brand:
- The team is expanding to support ambitious fund raising targets and a rapidly evolving regulatory landscape
- The candidate will work with ventures, alternative investments, real estate, and renewables teams
- Very broad range of stakeholders to interact with including fund managers and boards.
- Product governance is a core accountability of the team and this is a critical position given the importance of launching and managing funds in a robust and compliant fashion
- The role will also support OAIFM governance and oversight
Job Description
About the role
With the support of the Senior Compliance Monitoring Manager, core responsibilities will include:
- Conducting risk-based thematic reviews to assess whether effective controls are in place for Octopus to meet its regulatory obligations
- Building control test plans and evaluating compliance against regulations and internal policies
- Working closely with the business to identify improvements in processes and controls
- Drafting compliance reports, including detailed findings and remedial actions, in a timely manner for review by Compliance Senior Management
- Overseeing the implementation of remedial measures to agreed timescales, where deficiencies have been identified
Qualifications
Knowledge/Qualifications
- Sound knowledge of the key requirements of MIFID (and AIFMD would be a plus), and how these apply to a buy-side investment manager
Experience of:
- Operating within a ‘3 lines of defence’ model
- Conducting compliance monitoring and testing for an investment manager with retail and institutional clients, in at least one of the following asset classes: private equity, quoted equity, venture capital, real estate
Additional Information
Our Values and DNA
At Octopus we don't just focus on what we do but also how we do it. Everyone shares our values of being straightforward, helpful and bold. And while these are the principles that guide us as an organisation, our DNA goes even further, by revealing our inner strengths:
- We are loyal: we fully buy-in to the company's vision and believe in everything that Octopus stands for.
- We are respectful: we live and breathe the Octopus values of being helpful, straightforward and bold.
- We are resilient: we have an inner strength that means we never give in.
- We are intellectually curious: we seek to understand how the world works and were always learning, adapting and improving.
- We understand who our customers are: and because we know them really well, we always give them our very best.
What we offer
We’ve built an exciting and inclusive high-performance culture where employees feel empowered. All our employees are given the opportunity to develop new skills, aim higher and accelerate their careers. We strongly believe in supporting our employees to bring their best, authentic self to work. We’ve worked hard to ensure our benefits offering has been designed to motivate through ownership and to offer support for you, and your family, through many different services. We’re constantly reviewing and enhancing what we have on offer but here’s a brief overview, and there’s heaps more too:
A really valuable share ownership scheme, competitive salary and discretionary bonus, an openness to flexible working, Anchor (our wellness hub) which includes Headspace, one to one coaching through Sanctus, Parent Cloud, Shout & much more, a take what you need holiday policy, enhanced family leave policies, pension, life assurance and healthcare. We also focus our efforts on Octopus Giving, our charitable foundation dedicated to helping charities which are making the world a better place and on Octopus Springboard where we help our employees become fully-fledged entrepreneurs.
We recognise that over the last 18 months the way people work has changed, we’re a business whose fantastic culture has been built on face-to-face interactions with our customers and of course each other. At our heart we’re a sociable business and we’re keen to maintain this moving forward but also appreciate the benefits working from home can bring to our life and work productivity. Our teams are coming back into the office 3 days a week, however we’re allowing teams the freedom to make this work best for them and for our business. We also recently introduced a policy which allows our employees to work overseas for up to a month per year, usually in the summer months.
We’re committed to creating a diverse and inclusive employee experience for all. We’re committed to promoting equal opportunities for growth and development regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, or socio-economic background. We believe strongly that teams are at their best when every member of the team feels safe to bring their whole self to work.