Head, Economic & Market Research

The role is responsible for translating macroeconomic trends, sector dynamics, and consumer behavior into actionable intelligence that informs strategic decisions, strengthens risk management, and drives sustainable business growth across all markets in which the Group operates. This will be achieved through combining rigorous economic analysis with consumer and market intelligence to ensure every business decision is grounded in empirical evidence and forward-looking insight.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Strategic Leadership: Set the strategic direction for the research department, aligning analytical outputs with organizational objectives and customer needs.
• Institutionalized Research: Embed research directly into business planning cycles, such as annual budgeting or quarterly product reviews, to ensure every strategic move is grounded in empirical evidence.
• Economic Forecasting: Lead the development and maintenance of econometric models to forecast key variables such as GDP, inflation, interest rates, and foreign exchange.
• Consumer & Market Intelligence: Build intelligence service to monitor latest trends in consumer health metrics, business financial health frameworks, and emerging market trends to surface insights that inform customer segmentation and engagement strategies.
• Sector & Industry Analysis - Direct deep-dive research into priority sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing, energy etc. to identify risks, opportunities, and business implications
• Scenario Planning: Build detailed narratives for various economic paths to help business leaders to prepare for volatility.
• Decision Support: Provide critical research and risk assessments to internal bodies like the Assets and Liability Committee (ALCO), Credit Committees, and Global Markets. This will be achieved by developing models to simulate how different economic environments affect product demand, credit risk, and portfolio resilience.
• Stakeholder-Specific Outputs: Tailor research to different audiences—providing high-level risk assessments for Executive Management, tactical pricing signals for the Retail Banking division, and market-entry signals for the corporate banking teams, etc.
• External Engagement: Act as a public spokesperson, engaging with media, policy think tanks, and international bodies (e.g., IMF, World Bank) to establish the Bank as a thought leader.
• Stakeholder Management: Collaborate across diverse functions and Group subsidiaries to ensure research supports both institutional and retail investor audiences.
DAILY RESPONSIBILITIES
• Review of mainstream (e.g. global market shifts, international policy changes, etc.) and alternative data sources (e.g. social media, digital payments trends, etc.) to identify emerging market trends and engage with business executives to inform and influence business decisions.
• Provide a concise brief to the relevant Executives on significant economic activity that could impact liquidity.
• Supervise or directly work on updating complex models to forecast variables like GDP, inflation, or interest rate yield curves.
• Participate in high-level committees, such as the Assets and Liability Committee (ALCO) or Credit Committee, to provide risk assessments for new product launches or large-scale lending.
• Review and edit major publications, such as quarterly economic outlooks, sector specific deep dives, or white papers for institutional clients.
• Conduct one-on-one meetings with direct reports focusing on professional development and research quality control.

The Person
For the above position, the successful applicant should have the following:

1. A bachelor’s degree Economics or Financial Economics from a recognized university.
2. Professional qualification in Certified Financial Analyst or Statistical Analysis
3. Master’s degree - Economics
4. At least Eight years’ relevant work experience with specific experience in:
   • 8 years, experience in Economics research & macroeconomic analysis (Required).
   • 6 years’ experience in Progress leadership and People management (Required)
   • 6 years’ experience in Company &/or macro modelling, including valuation methodologies (Required).
   • 5 years’ experience in Stakeholder Management (Required).
   • 5-year experience in Presentation at Economic Fora &/or Advocacy engagements (Required)
   • 5 years’ experience in Market & Consumer Intelligence Analytics (Desired).
   • 3 years’ experience in Proficient in econometric or statistical software e.g STATA, R, Python, Power BI/Tableau etc. (Desired)

The above position is a demanding role for which the Bank will provide a competitive remuneration package to the successful candidate. If you believe you can clearly demonstrate your abilities to meet the criteria given above, please log in to our Recruitment portal and submit your application with a detailed CV.

Qualified candidates with a disability are encouraged to apply.
Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.