Digital Direct Individual Retirement Product, AVP at Morgan Stanley

AVP, Digital Direct Individual Retirement (Product)

The AVP, Digital Direct Individual Retirement (Product) will support the strategy, development, and ongoing management of Digital Direct retirement offerings for self-directed clients. This role partners closely with engineering, design, compliance, legal, operations, marketing, and service teams to deliver client-centric retirement capabilitiesspanning account opening and funding, rollovers, contributions/distributions, beneficiary management, and retirement-related disclosureswhile meeting regulatory, risk, and business objectives.

What you'll do in the role:

• Contribute to the multi-quarter product roadmap for Digital Direct retirement experiences (e.g., Traditional/Roth IRAs, rollover flows, distribution journeys).
• Translate business goals and client needs into prioritized initiatives, supported by clear success metrics and business cases.
• Monitor market and competitive trends in digital retirement and identify opportunities to improve acquisition, engagement, and servicing.

• Partner with technology and design to define epics/user stories, acceptance criteria, and end-to-end requirements for retirement features.
• Coordinate cross-functional delivery activities (UAT planning, launch readiness, training, and post-launch monitoring).
• Maintain strong alignment across stakeholders; proactively manage dependencies, scope, and timelines.

• Use data and client feedback to optimize funnels (e.g., account opening completion, rollover conversion, contribution setup).
• Support A/B testing and iterative UX improvements, ensuring changes align to risk/compliance requirements.
• Work with marketing and digital channels to enable clear client communications and education for retirement products.

• Own/coordinate Retirement smart alerts, forms, and agreements across key journeys (account opening/funding, rollovers, contributions/distributions, beneficiary updates), partnering with Legal/Compliance/Marketing/Service to ensure accuracy and timely updates.
• Operationalize governance for retirement disclosures/communications, including intake, prioritization, review/approval workflow, release management, and post-launch monitoring.
• Provide dedicated execution support for BAU regulatory updates and change requests, reducing delivery risk while protecting roadmap commitments and release timelines.

• Ensure retirement product journeys comply with applicable regulations and internal policies (e.g., disclosures, communications review, record retention, complaint handling).
• Partner with Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Ops to identify and mitigate risks across the product lifecycle.
• Support audits, exams, and internal governance forums by providing documentation, controls evidence, and product narratives as needed.

• Help define and improve servicing and operations workflows (e.g., rollover processing, distributions, beneficiary updates, RMD-related servicing where applicable).
• Drive issue triage and root-cause analysis for production incidents; manage remediation prioritization with technology partners.
• Maintain product documentation: requirements, decision logs, process maps, and operating procedures.

Skills Required:

• 4 years + relevant experience
• Experience with digital account opening, funding, and/or rollover workflows in a brokerage or wealth platform.
• Familiarity with retirement-related regulatory concepts and disclosures (in partnership with Legal/Compliance).
• Experience improving conversion funnels and service journeys through experimentation and UX research.
• Comfort working with distributed teams and multiple stakeholder groups across product, engineering, ops, risk, and marketing.
• Product judgment and prioritization
• Stakeholder management and influence
• Structured problem-solving and attention to detail
• Risk mindset and control orientation
• Client-first mindset with strong execution discipline
• Bachelor's degree required (Business, Finance, Economics, Engineering, or related). Advanced degree a plus.