SVP - Product Development, Europe

About the Role

Vest is building its European product-development capability, and this role leads it. You will define what Vest should build for the European market, why each product should exist, which investors it should serve, and through which vehicle it should be delivered. The mandate is not to replicate Vest's U.S. lineup, but to design derivatives-based products purpose-built for European investors, regulation, distribution channels, and market infrastructure.

This is an entrepreneurial, end-to-end role for someone who wants to build enduring investment product franchises rather than advise on or distribute individual transactions. You will work directly with Vest's founders and senior leadership and alongside First Trust's European distribution organization.

What You'll Do

• Define and own Vest's European product strategy and a prioritized three-year roadmap, grounded in investor needs, market structure, regulation, and distribution economics. Decide which products to pursue, defer, or decline, and which U.S. strategies to adapt versus redesign.
• Generate original, differentiated product ideas by studying how European investors buy and use products, including private banks, wealth managers, discretionary managers, insurers, pension investors, family offices, and institutional allocators.
• Design strategies using listed options, OTC derivatives, swaps, structured securities, and systematic indexes. Model product economics across volatility, rate, dividend, and correlation environments, and validate behavior with Vest's investment, trading, risk, and quant teams.
• Select the appropriate vehicle for each strategy (UCITS ETF, UCITS fund, SICAV or OEIC, structured note, insurance or unit-linked product, custom index, model portfolio, or segregated mandate), weighing eligibility, tax, liquidity, transparency, distribution access, and operational complexity.
• Apply working knowledge of the UCITS framework and partner with legal and compliance on eligible assets, global exposure, counterparty and collateral rules, diversification, leverage, and disclosure. Surface regulatory issues early enough to shape design.
• Build the European distribution understanding and relationships needed to commercialize products, in close partnership with First Trust, and lead products end-to-end from concept through launch, coordinating internal teams and external service providers against firm timelines.
• Develop clear product narratives and educational materials, present recommendations to Vest and First Trust leadership, and build a scalable, well-governed product-development function over time.

What You'll Bring

• Approximately 12+ years in equity derivatives, structured products, investment product development, or a closely related field, ideally including time at a leading global investment bank (equity-derivatives structuring, structured-products origination, or a cross-asset solutions or systematic-strategies business).
• Strong command of options, structured payoffs, volatility, hedging, funding, dividends, and correlation, plus the practical constraints of pricing, liquidity, and execution.
• Meaningful experience with European investment products and the UCITS market, and hands-on work across more than one vehicle type (funds, structured notes, insurance products, custom indexes, or mandates).
• A demonstrated understanding of the European investor and distribution landscape, and a record of influencing senior internal and external stakeholders.
• Preferred: experience launching a UCITS fund or ETF; familiarity with Luxembourg, Irish, and UK fund structures; work with management companies, depositaries, administrators, and fund boards; exposure to defined-outcome, autocallable, or systematic income strategies; and an established European structured-products network.

Who You Are

Intellectually curious and analytical, creative but grounded in commercial and operational reality, comfortable challenging conventional thinking, and exceptionally precise. You recognize that small errors in derivatives-based products carry material investment, operational, regulatory, and reputational consequences. You are collaborative without being consensus-dependent, confident with senior bankers and executives, and motivated by building a business rather than executing transactions.