Counterparty Onboarding Focal

The Counterparty Onboarding Focal is responsible for significantly improving the end-to-end onboarding experience for new derivative counterparties by acting as a single, accountable point of coordination across multiple internal teams.

The role exists to reduce onboarding cycle time, improve transparency for customers, and increase clock speed across internally siloed processes (Know Your Customer (KYC), Credit, Contracts, Legal), enabling Commodity Derivatives Trading (CDT) to meet its growth ambitions.

This role does not replace functional ownership within Legal, Credit, KYC, or Contracts. Instead, it serves as the connective tissue across these teams—owning the customer's journey, clarifying next steps, unblocking issues, and ensuring momentum from initial engagement through full counterparty setup. It is a pathfinder for all Line of Business (LOB) on how an onboarding experience could be shaped at company.

Customer Experience Ownership

• Ensure smooth Customer Onboarding Experience, cutting across internal silos to ensure the Customer Experience is streamlined and simplified, ensuring clarity on required steps, documentation, and sequencing.
• Proactively manage customer expectations, timelines, and questions throughout the onboarding lifecycle.
• Ensure customers clearly understand what is required, why it is required, and what happens next at each stage of onboarding.
• Translate complex internal requirements into a clear, professional, and efficient customer experience.
• Work directly with customers—virtually and, where appropriate, in person—to explain onboarding requirements, required documentation, sequencing, and expected timelines.
• Create a consistent, professional, and transparent onboarding experience that strengthens CDT’s commercial credibility

End-to-End Onboarding Coordination

• Orchestrate onboarding activities across Legal, KYC, Credit, Contracts, and other relevant internal teams.
• Track progress, dependencies, and blockers across all onboarding workstreams.
• Actively intervene to resolve delays, escalate risks, and maintain momentum without compromising control standards.
• Proactively escalate issues to appropriate stakeholders to remove blockers, unblock decision-making, and ensure timely onboarding progress.

Cycle Time & Clock-Speed Improvement

• Drive material reductions in average onboarding cycle time (currently >60 days), benchmarking against external best practices (e.g., banking sector timelines).
• Identify bottlenecks, handoff inefficiencies, and duplicated work across onboarding processes.
• Recommend and implement pragmatic improvements to simplify and standardize the customer journey
• Work closely with Counterparty Lifecycle Management (CLCM) to assess and drive structural improvements

Stakeholder Management & Influence

• Build strong working relationships with Commercial, Legal, Credit, Contracts, and KYC teams without direct authority.
• Balance customer centricity with adherence to Shell’s risk, compliance, and governance requirements.
• Serve as a trusted integrator between the CDT desks and enabling functions

Change & Scaling for Growth

• Support CDT’s growth ambition (including onboarding ~50 new derivatives counterparties in 2026) by ensuring onboarding capability scales without additional permanent FTE.
• Contribute to 2026 pilot approaches (e.g., dedicated focal model, impacted FTE, or creative resourcing solutions).
• Provide data, insights, and lessons learned to inform longer-term onboarding and customer experience strategies.

Required Skills & Experience:

• Experience in customer onboarding, client management, commercial operations, or risk enablement in a regulated environment.
• Demonstrated ability to engage directly with customers, explain complex requirements clearly, and manage expectations professionally.
• Strong coordination skills across multiple internal teams with competing priorities.
• Ability to develop high-quality customer-facing documentation or marketing materials that simplify complex processes.
• Highly organized, execution-focused, and comfortable operating in fast paced trading environments.
• Exposure to derivatives, wholesale markets, or trading environments.
• Min 2 years' experience working with KYC, Credit, Legal, or Contracts teams.
• Familiarity with process improvement or customer experience design.
• Comfort engaging with customers in person, including alongside commercial desks.
• Strong customer mindset balanced with disciplined risk awareness
• Commercially credible and confident with external counterparties
• Able to influence without authority and thrive in ambiguity
• Pragmatic, solutions oriented, and comfortable challenging the status quo
• Passionate about improving customer experience while protecting Shell’s control framework