BDO: Operations Manager: Financial Planning (JHB Illovo)

Operations Manager: Financial Planning (National) based in Johannesburg

BDO Wealth Advisers() is recruiting a skilled and experiencedOperations Manager to join our Financial Planning division. This role is based inJohannesburg, with national responsibilities supporting our Wealth clusters across regions. This position is full-time and permanent.

An opportunity to lead the operational backbone of a national Financial Planning business, ensuring a high-performance, compliant, and client-centric environment. Responsibilities include supervision governance, process integrity, and performance enablement that supports our advice teams to deliver exceptional client outcomes.

You will work closely with the COO, MD, and key Group functions (Compliance, Finance, People & Culture) to ensure alignment to regulatory requirements and BDO's strategic direction.

You'll play a critical role in shaping:

• Operational excellenceacross Wealth systems and processes
• Regulatory and licence oversight, including FAIS/FICA/POPIA coordination
• People development frameworks, including the Wealth 2-year Trainee Programme
• Business reporting & data governanceenabling strategic decisions

This position offers a market-related remuneration package aligned to experience and role seniority.

• Operational Systems & Data Governance
  Ensure strong adoption, data integrity, and performance reporting across platforms including Elite Wealth, Commspace, SharePoint and Power BI. Conduct workflow audits and support efficiency improvements through automation and AI tools.
• Compliance Oversight & Risk Coordination
  Maintain supervision structures, licence and register accuracy, and support regulatory audits and investigations. Drive consistent compliance behaviours across clusters.
• People Development & Cluster Support
  Conduct monthly engagements with Planners, Paraplanners, Administrators, and Trainees to track performance, capacity, and progress to competency. Lead the Traineeship programme rollout and reporting.
• Business Reporting & Insights
  Deliver dashboards and operational insights monthly to COO & MD, highlighting risk, capacity, and improvements required. Support Exco and Board reporting.
• Process Integrity & Continuous Improvement
  Maintain SOPs, champion efficient workflows, and lead annual process reviews to embed operational consistency and resilience.
• Cross-functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement
  Partner with Group functions on projects and support engaging external partnerships with universities and industry bodies.
• A tertiary qualification inFinancial Planningor similar
• 5-10 yearswithin Financial Services, ideally in operations, compliance, or practice management for an FSP
• Solid understanding ofFAIS, FICA, POPIA, and representative supervision requirements
• Experience with CRM/workflow systems (such as Elite Wealth or similar)
• Strong data-governance and reporting capabilities
• Technical:
  Operational risk management, SOP & process mapping, data integrity oversight, performance framework administration, automation adoption, regulatory reporting.
• Behavioural:
  High attention to detail, critical thinking, leadership presence, clear communication, problem-solving under pressure, strong coaching approach, resilience in a transforming environment.

If you are passionate about operational excellence and believe in enabling professionals to deliver exceptional advice and service, we invite you to apply. This is a role for someone who enjoys both structure and innovation, and knows how to bring the two together.