Executive Director, API & Open Banking -Cash and Trade

Join the UAE’s largest bank and one of the world’s largest and safest financial institutions. Our focus is to create value for our employees, customers, shareholders and communities to grow through differentiation, agility and innovation. We are looking for top talent and your success is our success. Accelerate your growth as you help us reach our goals and advance your career. Be ready to make your mark a top company, in an exciting & dynamic industry.

Job Purpose:

The individual is responsible for defining, owning and scaling the bank’s API‑led propositions across Global Trade, Treasury Services and Tokenized / Digital Asset‑enabled offerings.

The role owns the strategic product vision, commercialization, monetization and enterprise‑wide adoption of API‑based capabilities, positioning APIs and Open Banking as a core distribution and engagement layer that embeds the bank into client ecosystems, enables real‑time financial flows and supports emerging use cases across the current and future state of transaction banking.

The role acts as a strategic bridge between business, technology, digital transformation and regulatory bodies, ensuring that all API‑led products are client‑centric, scalable, secure and fully compliant with UAE and international regulatory frameworks.

Key Accountabilities:

• Contribute to the development and execution of GTx and Wholesale Banking API and Open banking strategy across domestic and international locations.

• Define and own the API product vision and long‑term roadmap aligned with Global Transaction Banking, Treasury and Tokenization strategy.

• Position API and Open Banking capabilities as core differentiator for payments, liquidity management, escrow services and Next Gen propositions

• Identify collaborate-to- create opportunities with Fintech partners for innovative use cases for Cash and Trade propositions.

• Drive harmonization and consistency across product lines to create a coherent, scalable API and Open Banking stack for all cash and Trade Product verticals.

• Drive collaboration across business, technology and control functions. Ensure alignment with FAB policies, frameworks and operating standards.

• Represent the function effectively to senior management, external and internal stakeholdersJob Context:

Product Vision & Strategic Ownership

• Define and own the API product vision and multi‑year roadmap aligned to Global Trade, Treasury and Tokenization strategy.

• Position APIs as core channels for payments, liquidity, escrow, trade, and digital asset‑enabled offerings.

• Identify and prioritize embedded finance, ecosystem‑led growth and tokenization‑driven opportunities through API and Open Banking infrastructure

• Drive consistency and scalability across product lines to deliver a cohesive enterprise API proposition.

End‑to‑End Product Lifecycle Management

• Own the full API product lifecycle from ideation and design through launch, scale and ongoing optimization.

• Ensure API products are commercially viable, reusable, secure and client‑centric.

• Balance speed‑to‑market with long‑term resilience, operational robustness and regulatory expectations.

Client, Platform & Ecosystem Enablement

• Enable and scale direct integration of bank capabilities into corporate ERP, TMS, digital platforms and partner ecosystems.

• Engage strategic clients and partners to co‑create and scale API‑led use cases

• Act as senior product representative in client, partnership and industry engagements.

Commercialization & Value Realization

• Define pricing, packaging and usage‑based commercial models for API products.

• Track and demonstrate value across CASA growth, fee income, client acquisition and retention.

• Leverage adoption analytics and performance insights to refine investment priorities and product strategy.

Governance, Risk & Regulatory Alignment

• Ensure API products are compliant with client money, safeguarding, operational resilience and data requirements.

• Maintain alignment with Central Bank, FSRA / ADGM and other applicable regulatory frameworks for developing fit-for-purpose propositions in these jurisdictions

• Embed risk controls, transparency and reporting by design within all API solutions.

Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Act as a trusted senior partner to GTB, Treasury, Digital Assets, Technology, Risk and Operations.

• Provide clear, commercially grounded updates to the Managing Director and senior management forums.

General Responsibilities

• Promote API reuse and standardization to reduce duplication and accelerate delivery.

• Lead cross-functional groups to align API strategy with enterprise goals.

• Maintain high standards of API documentation.

• Contribute to budget planning and resource allocation for API engineering.

• Provide training and enablement on API best practices.

Qualifications & Experience:

• 10+ years of experience in transaction banking, treasury, digital platforms or product‑led financial services.

• Proven track record of building and scaling API‑driven or platform‑based products in regulated environments.

• Strong functional understanding of trade finance, cash management, treasury and settlement models.

• Deep expertise in API protocols (REST, GraphQL, gRPC), API gateways, and service mesh.
• Strong grasp of API lifecycle governance, versioning, and deprecation.
• Familiarity with regulatory frameworks (e.g., Open Banking, GDPR, PSD2).
• Exposure to tokenization, digital assets, programmable finance or embedded finance is strongly preferred.