Manager, Corporate Services

About the Opportunity

 

A global, well-established asset and wealth services firm is building out its APAC corporate services platform — and this is the founding Singapore seat. The firm is publicly listed, has a global footprint across the UK, US, and India, and is investing in a dedicated, separately licensed corporate services entity to support its institutional and fund clients across the region.

You would walk into a clean slate. The Singapore presence is being stood up from zero, with a long-range plan to grow into a multi-jurisdictional APAC platform. Reporting line is global — the Corporate Services head sits in the UK — and you will work in close coordination with teams in the US and India.

This is not a maintenance seat. The first 12 months are about getting the entity live, licensed, and operating. Day-1 mandate is to drive the MAS licensing application end-to-end, set up bank accounts and operational infrastructure, define the operating model, and put in place the AML and maker-checker control frameworks the regulator and the firm expect.

The Role

Once the entity is live, the scope settles into a real Corporate Services manager remit — but at the level of someone who has built the practice, not just inherited it.

• Lead end-to-end MAS licensing for the Singapore corporate services entity
• Drive entity formation, statutory filings, and corporate governance across a multi-entity portfolio (operating entities, fund SPVs, GP vehicles)
• Own bank account opening, cash management, payments, and consolidation workflows
• Provide board support — drafting resolutions, preparing board packs, maintaining statutory registers and minutes
• Stand up the AML governance framework, maker-checker controls, and CDD / EDD processes in line with regulatory expectations
• Coordinate with external legal, tax, and banking advisors in Singapore and across APAC jurisdictions
• Partner with the firm's wider global network — including the offshore back-office in India — to deliver work to fund and institutional clients
• Travel across APAC as the platform expands (Singapore primary, Hong Kong secondary, India a plus)

What Makes You a Fit

You are an experienced Corporate Services operator who has spent the past five-plus years inside Asia Pacific — at a corporate services provider, a fund administrator, an asset manager with an in-house corp services function, or a large legal firm's corp services practice. You have worked with fund SPVs and private markets structures — PE, VC, hedge, or GP-LP — and understand how a fund vehicle differs from an operating company.

You have personally driven a MAS licensing application through to approval, or owned a substantial part of one. You can describe the AML framework you put in place, the maker-checker controls you designed, and the regulator interactions you managed. You are not learning licensing on this job; you have done it.

You have a builder's instinct. Somewhere in your career, you have stood up a function or an entity from zero — not just kept a running machine running. You are equally comfortable writing the first SOP, hiring the first vendor, and explaining the operating model to a regulator.

You are comfortable across cultures. The reporting line is UK-based, the offshore back-office is in India, the parent is US. You can move between a direct, structured British-style conversation and a relationship-led Indian one without losing your footing.

You are a self-starter who is comfortable working without local infrastructure or a ready-made playbook. You escalate intelligently, you do not freeze when things are ambiguous, and you build as you go.

Helpful, not essential: ICSA / CGI / ACIS qualification; Hong Kong corporate services exposure; experience coordinating with India entity / GCC operations; prior background spanning both CSP / fund admin AND large legal firm corp services; track record scaling a small team.

What is on Offer

• Open compensation band — calibrated to the right person rather than a fixed grade. Title flexes from Manager to Senior Manager to Associate Director depending on background and the build credentials you bring.
• Founding seat with real ownership — you are the first corporate services hire on the ground in Singapore. The operating model is yours to define.
• Genuine path to APAC Corporate Services Lead for someone who delivers on the build phase. Not a guarantee, but a real trajectory.
• Global stage — daily exposure to a UK reporting line, US parent, and India operations. The kind of cross-border platform exposure that is hard to find inside a domestic CSP role.
• Stability of a publicly listed global asset and wealth services firm combined with the entrepreneurial scope of a greenfield build.