Associate Vice President, Business Manager - Investment Operations

Ares Management Corporation•New York, NY

18h

About The Position

Ares is seeking a highly motivated AVP to join the Business Management function-a strategic advisory and execution team focused on front-to-back process, technology, data, and operating infrastructure optimization across investment strategies and business units. This role is designed for a strategic hands-on leader who can operate as a trusted partner to business strategy leadership & working groups (including Investment teams, IR, Portfolio Monitoring etc.) and key functional teams (Operations, Technology, Finance, Risk, Legal/Compliance, and third-party providers), while owning delivery of transformation initiatives that improve scalability, efficiency, and transparency.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree (MBA or equivalent) a plus.
5-8 years of relevant experience in management consulting, strategy, COO/Business Management, operating model design/execution, process excellence, or related roles with strong implementation ownership.
Demonstrated track record delivering measurable operational improvements (efficiency, scalability, control enhancement, data quality, stakeholder experience).
Prior financial services / asset management experience.
Strong executive communication and influence skills; ability to align stakeholders across functions and levels without formal authority.
Advanced proficiency in MSFT Office suite (PowerPoint, Excel, visio); comfort with process mapping and operational KPI design, and Data Analytics/visualization tools (Tableau, PowerBI, Qlik etc.).
Experience experimenting with AI-enabled tools and/or workflows automation platforms.

Responsibilities

Strategic Planning & Roadmap Ownership Partner with business and functional leaders to identify operational pain points and define solutions across people, process, data, and technology.
Build and maintain an operational roadmap that sequences process improvements and enables scale across the full lifecycle (including increasing focus on post-close and ongoing operational workflows).
Develop business cases and prioritization frameworks (impact vs. effort, risk reduction, capacity uplift, service quality, data integrity), and drive stakeholder alignment on tradeoffs.
Organize and run workshops with stakeholders to articulate roadmap and prioritization decisions
Develop a detailed understanding of the end-to-end investment lifecycle – including roles and handoffs, controls, data dependencies, and supporting systems/tools.
Lead continuous “bottoms-up” investment lifecycle reviews to identify bottlenecks, eliminate rework, reduce manual touchpoints, and improve operational clarity and consistency.
Design future-state operating models and workflows, including RACI/ownership, SLAs, controls, documentation, and training/enablement plans.
Execute and embed process changes so improvements “stick” through playbooks, adoption reinforcement, and ongoing operating rhythms (e.g., recurring process health reviews and issue triage).
Measure outcomes through KPIs (cycle times, exception/break rates, adoption metrics, service levels), and iterate based on performance and stakeholder feedback
Bridge business needs and technology delivery by translating operating model requirements into clear functional requirements and target-state designs.
Partner with Technology and functional teams to prioritize workflow/tooling enhancements and ensure solutions align to target-state processes.
Stay current on emerging technologies, service-provider capabilities, and market trends; evaluate applicability to business workflows and operating model goals.
Support vendor/provider assessments and proof-of-concepts, defining evaluation criteria tied to operational outcomes and scalability.
Act as a champion for innovation and automation—identifying high-impact use cases where AI and automation can reduce manual effort, improve quality, and accelerate cycle times in day-to-day operational activities.
Maintain awareness of the AI/automation tooling landscape and practical use cases (e.g., diligence/research support, document workflows, approvals tracking, reporting enablement, knowledge management, operational analytics).
Lead and coordinate AI/automation pilots in partnership with Technology and relevant control partners (Risk/Compliance/Legal as applicable), and scale successful solutions into standardized workflows.
Establish working groups and “champions” networks to drive adoption, upskill teams, share best practices, and create consistent feedback loops; develop enablement materials (training sessions, resource pages, playbooks).
Serve as a senior business partner, ensuring operational priorities and issues are communicated clearly and addressed across infrastructure teams.
Drive effective stakeholder engagement through regular reviews, crisp executive updates, and clear decision points.
Leverage the “power of the platform” by connecting initiatives and sharing best practices across strategies and functions to improve consistency and scale.