Head of Strategy & Operations

About Wintermute 

Wintermute is a technology unicorn and one of the leading global players in the digital asset markets. Wintermute is the largest crypto-native algorithmic trading company providing liquidity across all major exchanges and trading platforms. Our OTC desk offers a wide range of spot and derivatives products and supports over 2,000 counterparties across crypto natives and traditional financial institutions. We actively participate in the development of the blockchain ecosystem by being one of the largest players in DeFi as well as our investments arm, partnerships and incubations. 

Wintermute was founded in 2017 by trading industry leaders and has successfully navigated multiple crypto industry cycles. Culturally, we combine the best of the two worlds: the technology standards of high-frequency trading firms in traditional markets and the innovative and entrepreneurial culture of technology startups. Read more here.  

Strategy & Operations team  

The Strategy & Operations team is in the COO office of Wintermute, tasked with scaling the company to its very ambitious milestones. Your role will be very varied and cross-functional. You will report to the COO and will be co-designing, owning and implementing strategic initiatives as well as building the core business functions for scale. Expect to be very practical and hands-on! 

Opportunities for you:

• Exposure to all departments of a top tier trading firm
• Working alongside Wintermute COO to deliver strategic projects with focus on growth
• Hands-on entrepreneurial experience
• Oversee projects managed by the S&O team, but also deliver your own projects with a player-coach mentality
• Influence on shaping your role; there is no limit to the potential scope of this role
• A lot of personal accountability and related non-linear rewards for results
• Experience working in the most dynamic and exciting industry of the decade in a company that has a very diversified exposure to crypto (you do not bet on a specific token, protocol or product)

Potential/likely functional subject areas:

• Cross-functional delivery: Driving strategic cross-functional initiatives to successful and quick implementation, be an active problem solver as well as executor
• Go-to-market: Analyzing business operations and implementing process improvements to increase efficiency and drive revenue
• Product & New businesses: Help identify growth markets and launch operations there (e.g. through licensing or new products)
• Reporting & analytics: Become expert on various financial and market data sources. Deeply understand the data, be able to analyze and check complex datasets and deal with databases, identify actionable insights from data.  Implement automation tools and data analytics dashboards to inform decision-making processes 
• Talent operations: Work on employer marketing, support certain talent searches, help develop internal training programs to support employee functional knowledge and professional growth
• Operations: Deliver the operations behind a variety of multi-disciplinary processes
• Commercial: Be able to review commercial agreements as needed, negotiate and manage external suppliers and advisors, liaise with investors, etc.

Hard Skills Requirements:

• 8-10 years experience in a high-performance environment, such as management consulting, investment banking, PE, VC-backed startup, law firm, etc. 
• 2+ years of in house execution experience in trading firms or other crypto firms
• Strong problem solving skills, both quantitative and qualitative – we will test
• Ability and interest to be hands on and drive execution; This is NOT a strategy-only role, you would need to own execution
• Strong communication skills - be able to communicate clearly, concisely and listen well
• Very structured, organized, and reliable. Able to drive a sense of urgency and alignment in cross-functional projects, able to assume ownership proactively 
• Deep understanding of trading and crypto
• Ability and interest to learn about new technologies quickly, both on conceptual (e.g. how DeFi protocols work) and hands-on (how to use automation tools) levels 
• Top tier MBA is a plus

Other Requirements

• Ability to see the big picture, design processes from scratch and break down big strategic projects into small executable steps (and execute these steps)
• Experience with data querying languages (e.g. SQL) and scripting languages (e.g. Python) to facilitate data-driven decision-making, may be a plus but isn’t necessary
• Familiarity with data visualization tools (e.g. Tableau, PowerBI) to communicate insights effectively
• Results-driven and ability to get things done in a fast and efficient way, good at making sure the "trains run on time"
• A healthy level of self-awareness and ability to learn from your own mistakes
• Preference to work in a meritocracy and being judged by what you deliver
• Ownership mentality, prepared to work beyond 9-to-5 to achieve what is required for the business
• Like working in the team environment working from our London office