AVP, Head of Investment Surveillance (New York)

AVP, Head of Investment Surveillance job!

Our Client designs, distributes, issues, administers, and services annuity and related product solutions for individual consumers and institutions worldwide. Our Client is paving the way for industry-leading proprietary technology and system designs, along with third-party platform support for other institutions.

The AVP, Head of Investment Surveillance job's competitive base salary is $200k to $225k Negotiable DOE with a 25% annual bonus target. This AVP, Head of Investment Surveillance job is located in New York City, NY. Apply now for this excellent AVP, Head of Investment Surveillance job!

Summary

The AVP, Head of Investment Surveillance will build and lead our Client's post-investment monitoring function across the general account and related portfolios. In this role, you will identify emerging credit deterioration, investment limit or allocation drift, valuation concerns, and external manager underperformance. Additionally, you will establish a consistent, risk-based surveillance framework across public and private fixed income, securitized products, mortgage loans, private credit, fund finance, and alternative investments while supporting regulatory, rating agency, audit, and reinsurance reporting requirements.

Key Responsibilities

Surveillance Framework & Credit Monitoring

• Build and maintain a comprehensive investment surveillance framework across the general account and related portfolios. Specifically, establish monitoring metrics, review cadence, early-warning indicators, escalation thresholds, and supporting documentation for each asset class.
• Conduct asset-level and portfolio-level surveillance across public and private investment-grade corporates, municipals, securitized products, residential and commercial mortgage loans, private credit, direct lending, fund finance, asset-based lending, rated feeder structures, infrastructure, and alternative investments.
• Evaluate issuer and borrower fundamentals, spread and rating migration, collateral and loan performance, covenant and trigger compliance, leverage, borrowing-base adequacy, refinancing risk, and other asset-specific indicators.
• Furthermore, perform detailed reviews of positions that demonstrate signs of deterioration and clearly communicate findings.

Investment Limits & Portfolio Positioning

• Monitor compliance with regulatory, contractual, and internal investment limits, including:
• NAIC designation-based limits
• Single-name and concentration limits
• Investment policy requirements
• Investment management agreement requirements
• Reinsurance treaty guidelines
• Additionally, maintain a complete, auditable inventory of investment limits while managing exception, cure, waiver, and remediation processes.
• Track portfolio positioning against strategic asset allocation objectives, including:
• Weighted-average yield targets
• RBC constraints
• Duration ranges
• Spread over crediting rates
• Allocation targets
• Fee limitations
• Accordingly, identify breaches or emerging allocation drift and recommend timely corrective actions.

Manager Oversight, Watchlist & Valuation

• Oversee surveillance of subadvisors and external investment managers by monitoring:
• Guideline compliance
• Style drift
• Performance versus mandate
• Strategic allocation targets
• Reporting quality
• Fee monitoring
• Establish consistent reporting standards and manager review templates across the investment platform.
• Own the investment watchlist and impairment candidate processes. Additionally, chair recurring surveillance meetings and deliver concise, decision-ready analysis to the Investment Team, Investment Committee, and Board, as appropriate.
• Coordinate valuation reviews for hard-to-value and less-liquid assets, including private placements, mortgage loans, fund interests, feeder notes, and alternative investments.
• Moreover, challenge manager or pricing vendor valuations when appropriate and thoroughly document the basis for conclusions.

Reporting, Data & Technology

• Support regulatory agencies, rating agencies, auditors, and reinsurance counterparties by providing accurate, defensible asset-level surveillance data and analytical reporting.
• Prepare information supporting:
• RBC reporting
• BCAR analyses
• Statutory reporting
• Capital adequacy assessments
• Develop and maintain surveillance technology and reporting infrastructure, including Bloomberg, Intex or comparable cash-flow tools, trustee and loan-level data, manager data feeds, dashboards, and automated recurring reports.

Governance & Communication

• Establish and maintain written surveillance policies, procedures, methodologies, and governance standards.
• Document material methodology changes, conduct periodic reviews, and ensure the surveillance function remains audit-ready.
• Finally, communicate emerging risks promptly and objectively by distinguishing verified facts from professional judgment while clearly identifying unresolved data gaps and reporting limitations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Economics, Accounting, Mathematics, or a related field.
• Additionally, a CFA, FRM, MBA, or other relevant advanced credential is preferred.
• 10+ years of experience in fixed income, credit research, investing, portfolio monitoring, or investment surveillance, including at least five years of directly relevant experience in investment surveillance, credit analysis, or asset management oversight.
• Insurance general account experience is strongly preferred, including familiarity with investment management and reporting considerations for life insurance or annuity portfolios.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate investment risk across diversified public and private markets, with deep expertise in multiple asset classes and the capability to provide credible oversight across broad investment portfolios.
• Strong working knowledge of insurance regulatory and rating agency frameworks, including:
• NAIC designations
• Risk-Based Capital (RBC)
• Commercial mortgage ratings
• Schedule BA and Schedule D classifications
• Investment limit frameworks
• AM Best BCAR methodology
• Experience overseeing external investment managers or subadvisors within a multi-manager investment platform.
• Advanced proficiency with Bloomberg, Microsoft Excel, and Intex or comparable cash-flow and surveillance tools. Furthermore, experience with SQL, Python, data visualization, or reporting automation is a plus.
• Demonstrated success building and leading an investment surveillance function with limited existing infrastructure while independently designing, implementing, and continuously improving processes.
• Excellent judgment, analytical thinking, and communication skills, with the ability to present complex or adverse conclusions to senior executives through clear, well-supported analysis and documentation.