Head of Global Trade Transformation & Change

Bank of America•Chicago, NY

1d•$250,000 - $430,000•Onsite

About The Position

The role is responsible for defining, leading, and executing the multi-year transformation of the Global Trade business within Global Payments Solutions (GPS). It owns the transformation strategy and execution framework, investment and funding strategy, target operating and service models, technology modernization and legacy migration, ecosystem partnerships, organizational change, and client adoption. The successful candidate brings global and regional stakeholders together to deliver a more digital, data-led, automated, and scalable Trade business, ensuring investment produces measurable improvements in growth, client experience, operating leverage, and risk. The role leads transformation across Product, Operations, Technology, Service, Sales, and regional stakeholders. It develops and maintains the execution blueprint, secures and governs investment, implements future-state operating and digital-first service models, and provides business leadership for migration from legacy Trade platforms to future-state technology. It also champions digital, data, automation, AI, and emerging technology opportunities; develops ecosystem partnerships; and leads client pilots, commercialization, and scaled adoption. The position drives organizational readiness and adoption, including changes to processes, roles, skills, controls, and ways of working. It establishes executive-level transparency and accountability for delivery, investment, risk, dependencies, and realization of financial and non-financial benefits. The role is based in Chicago, Illinois, or New York, New York, with an in-office culture and role-specific flexibility. It is a first-shift position of 40 hours per week.

Requirements

Extensive transformation leadership experience within a large, complex financial institution, with accountability for major multi-year business and technology transformation beyond project or program delivery.
Strong Trade Finance and working-capital expertise, including Letters of Credit, Guarantees/Standbys, Supply Chain Finance, Open Account, and Receivables Finance, and related client, operational, risk, and technology processes.
Ability to translate strategy into execution through multi-year roadmaps, prioritization frameworks, delivery models, governance structures, resource strategies, and measurable outcomes.
Significant experience across Product, Operations, and Technology, with credibility to influence senior leaders and resolve cross-functional dependencies.
Demonstrated technology transformation experience, including complex platform modernization, integration with existing architecture, client and process migration, and legacy application retirement.
Strong target operating model expertise, including end-to-end process, organizational responsibility, service model, and technology interaction redesign.
Experience driving digitization and automation, redesigning manual or paper-intensive processes toward digital, data-led, and straight-through processing.
Strong financial and commercial acumen, including constructing and defending transformation business cases covering investment, revenue opportunities, efficiencies, risk reduction, and other measurable benefits.
Experience securing and managing significant multi-year transformation investment through annual planning, continuous funding processes, and senior investment-governance committees.
Proven global leadership delivering across regions, legal entities, and organizational structures while balancing global standardization with regional and regulatory requirements.
Strong change-management capabilities, including stakeholder alignment, organizational readiness, communications, training, adoption, behavioral change, and business transition.
Demonstrated senior stakeholder management and ability to influence executives and drive decisions across organizational boundaries without necessarily having direct reporting authority.
Strong risk and control orientation and experience delivering material transformation in a highly regulated environment, in partnership with control functions.
Excellent executive communication skills, including simplifying complex issues, articulating strategic choices, and communicating with executives, governance committees, technology leaders, and client-facing teams.
Proven leadership and talent-development capabilities, including building high-performing transformation teams and accountability across matrixed delivery organizations.
Skills listed include Business Development, Executive Presence, Leadership Development, Performance Management, Strategy Planning and Development, Innovative Thinking, Product Design and Development, Product Management, Relationship Building, Business Acumen, Oral Communications, Organizational Effectiveness, Process Effectiveness, and Project Management.

Nice To Haves

Deep understanding of the global Trade Finance ecosystem, including digitization, electronic trade documents, interoperability, transaction processing, data, and the evolving roles of banks, FinTechs, and technology providers.
Experience with Trade Finance and transaction-banking platforms and strategic technology providers, including familiarity with Finastra, FIS, and IBM.
Knowledge of AI-enabled Trade capabilities, including intelligent document processing, compliance and sanctions-screening use cases, workflow automation, data extraction, and generative AI opportunities.
Knowledge of ERP and client-connectivity models, APIs, and integration strategies for embedding Trade and working-capital solutions into corporate-client workflows.
Experience creating or leading a Transformation Office or Transformation Management Office, including methodologies, portfolio governance, resource models, and executive reporting.
Experience with complex client and portfolio migrations sequenced across products, geographies, operational processes, and technology platforms.
Experience decommissioning legacy platforms while managing commercial, operational, technology, control, and client dependencies and achieving platform retirement and cost benefits.
Experience developing digital-first service models combining self-service and automation with specialist human support.
Strong understanding of data as a transformation asset, including common data models, analytics, data quality, automation, servicing, controls, and client propositions.
Experience evaluating build, buy, and partner strategies and managing third-party relationships from capability assessment through implementation and roadmap alignment.
Strong knowledge of transformation economics, including benefit attribution, capacity release, cost takeout, operating leverage, revenue enablement, and benefits tracking.
Experience commercializing new capabilities through pilot-client selection, initial deployment, feedback, sales enablement, and scaled global adoption.
Strong external orientation and knowledge of emerging technologies and competitive developments affecting transaction banking and Trade Finance.
Demonstrated ability to operate in an executive-level global matrix and align stakeholders with different regional, functional, and commercial priorities.
Leadership style characterized by strategic thinking, intellectual curiosity, execution intensity, constructive challenge, and ability to address both senior strategy and detailed execution.
Ability to create a strong transformation culture with clarity of purpose, pace, ownership, and accountability while leading stakeholders through significant organizational change.

Responsibilities

Own and execute the multi-year Global Trade transformation strategy, aligning Product, Operations, Technology, Service, Sales, and regional stakeholders around a common roadmap and measurable outcomes.
Maintain and evolve the transformation execution blueprint and playbook, covering governance, resourcing, delivery methodology, prioritization, and execution models suited to funding and program complexity.
Own the transformation business case and multi-year funding strategy; develop investment proposals and represent Trade in investment, planning, and governance forums.
Lead implementation of the future-state operating model and digital-first service model, simplifying and standardizing processes while accelerating automation, data-led processing, and straight-through processing.
Provide business leadership for global migration from legacy Trade platforms to the future-state technology architecture, including sequencing, business readiness, risk management, and legacy-platform retirement.
Identify and champion digital, data, automation, AI, and emerging technology opportunities that improve client experience, reduce manual activity, and increase scalability.
Develop strategic relationships with technology providers, FinTechs, and other ecosystem participants; assess emerging capabilities and partnership opportunities.
Lead strategy for pilot clients, commercialization, and broader adoption of new digital capabilities, partnering with Sales, Product, Operations, Service, and Technology for global rollout.
Drive organizational readiness and adoption, ensuring technology changes are accompanied by required changes to processes, roles, skills, controls, and ways of working.
Establish executive-level transparency across delivery, investment, risk, and dependencies, with clear accountability for financial and non-financial benefits realization.
Build high-performing transformation teams and create accountability across matrixed delivery organizations.
Partner effectively with Risk, Compliance, Legal, and other control functions while delivering transformation in a regulated environment.