ISDA
Director, Market and Products Specialist
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Director, Market and Products Specialist
Reports to: Senior Counsel, Europe
Location: London
Job Purpose
The Director, Markets & Product Specialist will serve as ISDA’s primary voice on derivatives market structure, product design, and market practice in the context of the Emerging Markets (EM) strategy. The role sits at the intersection of market expertise and stakeholder engagement. The individual will spend a significant proportion of their time in dialogue with market participants, regulators, central banks, and MDB counterparts, helping shape how those stakeholders think about market development priorities and what changes to market structure, regulation, or practice could unlock depth and resilience. The role holder must work closely with the global legal team providing a complimentary markets and products perspective, as well as with other ISDA functions and senior leadership and participants and members in the derivatives industry locally and globally. The role holder should be capable of working in a fast-paced and autonomous environment which comes with being in a high-profile role in the derivatives market.
Duties and Responsibilities
Industry and Stakeholder Engagement
- Engage substantively with local and international regulators, central banks, and financial supervisors on how derivatives market frameworks can be designed or reformed to support market depth, risk management capacity, and financial stability.
- Engage with banks, buy-side institutions, infrastructure providers, and industry bodies in priority EMDE jurisdictions, building trusted relationships that position ISDA as the credible partner for derivatives market development.
- Represent ISDA in working groups, roundtables, conferences, and bilateral meetings with market participants and policymakers, drawing on direct experience of how developed markets work to inform and advance the conversation.
- Collaborate with MDB partners — including the World Bank, IFC, EBRD, ADB, and IDB — on country-level engagement and capacity building, contributing the market practitioner perspective to their technical assistance programmes.
Market Diagnostic and Advisory Work
- Contribute to the design and delivery of ISDA’s derivatives market diagnostic framework, identifying structural, regulatory, and operational bottlenecks in priority markets and helping to sequence practical recommendations.
- Provide expert assessment of product market conditions in priority jurisdictions across interest rate, FX, credit, and commodity derivatives, drawing on knowledge of market conventions, liquidity dynamics, hedging practice, and infrastructure requirements.
- Articulate clearly which features of mature markets — in product design, trading conventions, clearing and settlement infrastructure, margin practice, and regulatory treatment — are most consequential for market development, and how those features might be adapted or sequenced in local contexts.
- Contribute to briefing materials, discussion papers, consultation responses, and policy submissions that convey ISDA’s position on market development priorities in EMDE jurisdictions.
Internal Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
- Work closely with the legal specialist leading the EM strategy to ensure coherence between the legal and documentation and the market practice dimensions of ISDA’s engagement.
- Contribute EMDE market insights to ISDA’s broader Policy, Research, and Market Infrastructure teams, ensuring that perspectives from developing markets inform association-wide thinking.
- Support the development of educational and capacity building content for legal counterparts, judiciary members, and front and back-office practitioners in priority jurisdictions.
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Qualifications
- Minimum: 10-15 years experience in derivatives markets (products, infrastructure, or regulation) with strong exposure to market structure and development
- Further financial qualifications an advantage
Relevant Experience/ Skills / Abilities
The successful candidate will understand with precision how a mature derivatives market works — across product, infrastructure, regulation, and commercial practice — and will be able to explain what good looks like and how it was built, in ways that are relevant and credible to counterparts in jurisdictions at earlier stages of market development.
Essential:
- Substantial experience in derivatives markets gained in a financial institution, regulatory body, market infrastructure provider, or industry association — with direct, hands-on exposure to interest rate, FX, and/or credit derivatives products in a developed market context.
- Deep, practical knowledge of how a mature derivatives market functions across the full value chain: product structuring and conventions, trading and execution, clearing and settlement, collateral and margin management, and regulatory treatment.
- Demonstrated ability to engage credibly and influence senior stakeholders — regulators, central bankers, senior bankers, or institutional investors — on substantive questions of market structure and practice.
- Strong communication skills, written and oral, with the ability to translate complex market concepts into clear, accessible language for audiences with varying levels of technical familiarity.
- The intellectual agility to move between technical product mechanics and the broader policy and development narrative — and to make that connection vivid and persuasive in stakeholder dialogue.
- Genuine interest in the role that well-functioning derivatives markets play in economic growth, risk management capacity, and financial stability in emerging economies.
Preferred not Essential:
- Direct professional experience in one or more EMDE markets — whether in a banking, regulatory, MDB, or advisory capacity — providing first-hand understanding of the constraints and dynamics that shape derivatives market development in these contexts.
- Familiarity with the regulatory landscape and market microstructure of one or more priority jurisdictions: Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the Philippines, or Kazakhstan.
- Prior experience working with or for a multilateral development bank, international financial institution, or global regulatory body on market development or technical assistance programmes.
- Experience in an industry association, standard-setting body, or public policy role, with exposure to regulatory consultation processes and stakeholder coalition-building.
About this Role and ISDA
ISDA has embarked on a strategic initiative to deepen its engagement across emerging markets and developing economies (EMDE), reflecting the long-term growth potential of derivatives markets in these jurisdictions and the essential role that well-functioning derivatives markets play in stable, efficient financial systems. This initiative — the EM strategy — represents a deliberate shift beyond ISDA’s historical focus on close-out netting and collateral enforceability to a broader “beyond netting” engagement across regulation, market infrastructure, product conventions, risk management practice, and capacity building. Priority jurisdictions in the first phase include Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, Brazil, and others. The strategy is delivered through three mutually reinforcing workstreams: direct market engagement with local regulators and financial institutions; network partnerships with multilateral development banks; and structured capacity building programmes. A senior legal professional is already leading the legal and documentation dimensions of the EM strategy. We are now seeking a complementary specialist to anchor the markets and product side of the work: someone who can bring deep first-hand experience of how developed derivatives markets function and can credibly translate that knowledge — in practical, actionable terms — for regulators, central banks, financial institutions, and policymakers in EMDE contexts.
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This role offers a rare opportunity to apply deep markets expertise in a genuinely consequential setting. The EM strategy represents one of ISDA’s most significant strategic investments in a generation, and the individual appointed will have a direct hand in shaping how derivatives markets develop in jurisdictions that will matter increasingly to the global financial system.
The successful candidate will work alongside a small, senior, high-calibre team with wide latitude to shape their own agenda, draw on ISDA’s institutional relationships and global reputation, and engage with some of the most structurally interesting questions in international finance. ISDA is an organisation where expertise commands respect and where the work has genuine reach.
Since 1985, ISDA has worked to make the global derivatives markets safer and more efficient. Today, ISDA has over 1,000 member institutions from 76 countries. These members comprise a broad range of derivatives market participants, including corporations, investment managers, government and supranational entities, insurance companies, energy and commodities firms, and international and regional banks. In addition to market participants, members also include key components of the derivatives market infrastructure, such as exchanges, intermediaries, clearing houses and repositories, as well as law firms, accounting firms, and other service providers. Information about ISDA and its activities is available on the Association’s website: www.isda.org. Follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube.
Benefits
ISDA offers a great work environment, with competitive salaries and excellent benefits.
- Retirement – 10% Non-Contributory
- Life, disability, and accident insurance
- Private Healthcare – medical
- 27 days holiday per year
- Maternity, paternity, and shared parental leave
- Education – ISDA offers a yearly training calendar across all offices
- Flexible working policy
- Season ticket loan available
- Electric Vehicle Salary Sacrifice Scheme
- Bike to Work scheme
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