Chief Operating Officer (COO) - Forex/CFD Brokerage

Overview

We are seeking a hands-on COO with deep Forex/CFD brokerage experience to scale a multi-jurisdiction operation (UAE + international). You will own day-to-day execution across trading operations, risk, client lifecycle, payments, and service quality-while ensuring strict regulatory compliance and profitable growth.

Responsibilities

• Own E2E operations: onboarding funding trading risk withdrawals retention complaints.
• Design and enforce SOPs, SLAs, and internal controls across all departments; drive a metrics-first culture.
• Lead daily ops stand-ups and weekly performance reviews (KPI dashboards).

• Trading & Risk: Oversee Dealing Desk (A/B-book policy), exposure limits, auto-hedging, LP routing, symbol settings, markups, swaps.
• Optimize execution quality (slippage, rejection, latency) and spreads vs margin targets.
• Approve exception handling (outages, fat-finger, pricing disputes); lead monthly P&L & risk committees.

• Technology & Platforms: Govern MT4/MT5 admin, bridge/aggregator, liquidity/prime broker integrations, FIX/API, pricing streams.
• Coordinate with IT for uptime/DR/BCP; manage incident post-mortems and platform change management.

• Payments & Finance Ops: Own payment flows (PSPs, crypto rails, bank wires), reconciliation, chargebacks, risk rules, and treasury routing.
• Reduce unit costs (PSP fees, card acceptance rates, FX conversion), improve straight-through processing.

• Client Experience & Growth Enablement: Partner with Sales/Marketing on funnels, onboarding speed (KYC X hours), NPS, retention and upsell programs.
• Implement VIP/IB/affiliate operating frameworks with transparent rebate/commission controls.

• Compliance & Governance: Ensure day-to-day alignment with UAE SCA requirements and other licenses (e.g., FSA Seychelles, FINTRAC Canada, etc.).
• Enforce AML/CFT, market abuse, best execution, TCF, complaint handling, adverse media, SAR/STR escalation.
• Maintain internal audit readiness, board reporting, policy library, and regulatory correspondence.

• People & Culture: Build, mentor, and performance-manage high-caliber teams; implement shift models (24/5 or 24/7 as required).
• Set clear OKRs; align compensation/bonus with risk-adjusted profitability and client outcomes.

Nice to Have

• Multi-jurisdiction rollout experience (GCC, EU, Africa, LatAm, or Asia).
• Experience integrating CRM/Back-office and BI tools.
• Familiarity with prop-trading overlays, PAMM/copy trading, and asset-management modules.

Core Competencies

• Operational Excellence
• Risk Discipline
• Regulatory Rigor
• Financial Acumen
• Process Design & Automation
• Cross-functional Leadership
• Vendor/Liquidity Negotiation
• Crisis Management & Incident Response
• Clear, concise communication (Board-ready)

Required Experience

• 8-12+ years in FX/CFD brokerage, with 5+ years in Ops/Risk leadership; prior COO / Head of Operations / Director of Trading Ops strongly preferred.
• Proven expertise with MT4/MT5, bridges/aggregators (oneZero, PrimeXM, Centroid, Gold-i), LP/Prime relationships, and execution analytics.
• Hands-on with A/B-book strategy, exposure caps, and P&L stewardship.
• Strong regulatory track record (UAE SCA or equivalent Tier-1/2 regimes), AML frameworks, audits, and remediation.
• Payments stack know-how: PSPs, card acquiring, crypto rails, treasury, reconciliation, chargebacks.
• Data-driven operator: builds dashboards, interrogates metrics, and scales processes.