Associate Vice President, Operations

Who We Are As a leading Canadian wealth management organization, Richardson Wealth offers the personal touch of a boutique firm while delivering big results. With offices across the country, we are home to some of Canada’s best investment advisors. We’ve embarked on an exciting growth phase – a multi-year transformational journey to enhance our entrepreneurial, high-performing, advisor-centric culture.

Job Purpose This role is responsible for leading and modernizing Richardson Wealth’s core operational ecosystem, with primary oversight of the end-to-end operations activities. The role ensures operational excellence, regulatory compliance, and service consistency across advisor and client touchpoints, while steering the organization toward a digitally enabled, data-driven, and scalable operating model. As a Senior Leader Operations, the role is critical in the ongoing transformation of Richardson Wealth’s platform simplifying processes, reducing operational friction, elevating the advisor experience, and aligning all operational capabilities to the future-state integrated RW + iA Private Wealth environment.

This is an existing vacancy.

Duties & Responsibilities

Back Office Operations Leadership

Lead day-to-day oversight of core wealth dealer operations including account opening, transfers, trade corrections, settlements, reconciliations, corporate actions, tax reporting, and estate processing.

Drive operational accuracy, efficiency, and risk mitigation through modernization, automation, and process redesign.

Oversee relationships with key custodians and vendors, ensuring adherence to service level agreements and enhancing service delivery.

Ensure readiness and stability through system changes, platform enhancements, and new product launches (e.g., fee‑based platforms, credit products, new asset classes).

Oversee application environments, testing cycles, UAT and production validation—adapted from practices outlined in the reference document.

Account Opening and Updates

Oversee end‑to‑end account opening activities, including account opening, account updates and coordination with internal and external partners to ensure timely setup of client accounts.

Provide operational support for the digital onboarding process, guiding users through digital tools and workflows, resolving exceptions.

Contributes to the continuous improvement of the digital onboarding experience by identifying process gaps, recurring issues, and inefficiencies, and by collaborating with partners to streamline workflows, reduce rework, and improve turnaround times.

Account Transfers

Oversee the initiation and process of account ensuring documentation completeness, accuracy of transfer details, and compliance with internal and external requirements.

Oversee end‑to‑end follow‑up on transfer requests, including monitoring status, resolving issues, communicating progress to advisors or stakeholders, and ensuring timely completion within established service standards.

Serve as an escalation point for transfer‑related issues, handling complex or time‑sensitive cases, resolving barriers to completion.

Fee Administration

Own end‑to‑end fee administration processes including advisory fee generation, fee-based billing integrity, fee recalculations, manual adjustments, and exception handling.

Ensure timely and accurate monthly, quarterly, and annual billing across platforms.

Establish governance and quality controls over advisory fee structures, discounting, and compensation‑related workflows.

Partner with Finance, Compensation, and Advisor Practices to maintain transparency and accuracy in how fees are assessed and paid.

Money Movement Operations

Oversee payments operations processes including registered and non‑registered accounts, recurrent and ad‑hoc requests and third‑party payments.

Implement strong payments operations controls, ensuring alignment with regulatory requirements and internal risk frameworks.

Lead operational support for payments questions, documentation and exception handling.

Estate & Complex Account

Oversee processes supporting estates, survivorship changes, executor guidance, and multi‑step account transitions.

Ensure operational accuracy, regulatory compliance, documentation quality, and empathetic advisor/client handling during estate settlements.

Develop and standardize workflows for complex structures (trusts, corporations, joint mandates, powers of attorney, etc.).

Year End Activities

Oversee year‑end operational activities, ensuring all critical processing, time‑sensitive requests, and outstanding items are prioritized and completed in alignment with year‑end deadlines, service standards, and business objectives.

Accountable for the