Head of Client Platforms Architecture

Ares is seeking a Principal to serve as Client Platforms Head of Application Architecture, the engineering team  responsible for all Client facing systems within Ares, including Sales, Marketing, Client Reporting, and Digital/Web platforms. This leader will play a central role in enabling Ares’ continued global growth by defining, socializing and getting consensus on the Client Platforms Technology strategy for the Institutional and Wealth/Retail businesses

Reporting to the Managing Director, Head of Client Platforms, the successful candidate will partner with the Head of Institutional and Wealth Client Platforms, other senior engineering leads, and business leaders across Wealth Management, Institutional, and Corporate verticals to define technology platforms, requirements, and priorities necessary to allow those leaders to meet multi-year business objectives.

This leader will be responsible for outlining a multi-year technology strategy as well as an incremental delivery plan that will deliver business value throughout the journey. The role requires understanding the Client Lifecycle within Asset Management, familiarity with relevant technology platforms and vendor offerings, experience in build-versus-buy decisions, and collaboration with both other application development and core platform teams.

The successful candidate brings a proven track record of translating business objectives into a technology platform vision and sequencing deliverables over an extended period to deliver value incrementally while remaining aligned to a strategic vision.  The candidate should have outstanding written and verbal communication skills and the leadership presence to influence senior stakeholders across engineering and the business.  This role demands both strategic thinking and a pragmatic focus.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop a target state application architecture for client platforms spanning Wealth, Institutional, Digital, and Client Reporting, including opportunities for platform consolidation and modernization
• Align client architecture with firm engineering strategy
• Lead technical design leveraging best in class solutions from vendors, other application verticals within the firm, and our platform teams
• Partner with business leadership to transform business outcomes into a technology platform and suite of capabilities suitable to support those outcomes
• Maintain a strong focus on platform stability, performance, observability, reliability, and client experience and ensure those features are a critical component of the technology strategy
• Collaborate with engineering leads and product managers to federate responsibility for delivering the platform and capabilities
• Review solution designs and participate in architecture governance

EXPERIENCE

• 12+ years of engineering and architecture leadership.
• Deep experience designing distributed, integrated platforms
• Familiarity with the client lifecycle within asset management including the sales, marketing, onboarding, reporting, and digital experience functions
• Strong track record partnering with senior business and technology leaders

• Deep experience designing distributed, integrated platforms.
• Strong grasp of cloud development (Azure or comparable).
• Understanding of CRM (Salesforce) and client-facing systems

• Bachelor’s degree required, advanced degree preferred.
• Engineering or Computer Science background preferred.