Director of Operations

Director of Operations

Department: Operations

Employment Type: Permanent – Full Time

Location: London

Reporting To: Viktor Nebehaj

Description

London or Budapest (office based)

At Freetrade, we believe investing is one of the best ways to grow your savings, but for many, it seems complicated, expensive, and out of reach. We’re here to change that.

We’re building a team with diverse and unique perspectives to help us on our mission to become the default way to invest. Our goal is to help our customers achieve better long-term financial outcomes. In 2025, we’ll be focusing on making our business cash flow profitable.

We’ll also be radically improving our product for our core customer base. In the UK, we now have over 1.6 million registered users, and we offer a range of products such as the Freetrade Pension, a stocks and shares ISA, and UK Treasury bills.

The Role:

As Director of Operations at Freetrade, you will be responsible for owning the largest organisation at our firm, and driving operational performance and improvements, while managing and controlling risk.

You will build increasing subject matter expertise in your various teams, implement management practices for driving high performance, and instil best-in-class processes to ensure Freetrade operates efficiently and at scale.

This is a senior leadership role where your ability to understand and simplify complex brokerage matters, lead your management team and inspire your organisation, as well as your ability to engage with technology to automate, will be pivotal to our continued success.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Strategy:

• Lead and inspire a diverse team across two locations (London, UK and Budapest, Hungary) to deliver operational performance and improvements.
• Develop and execute the operational strategy in alignment with Freetrade’s business plan, focusing on scalability, automation, process improvements, nearshoring to Budapest, and risk mitigation.
• Work closely with and act as a strategic partner to the executive team, contributing to company-wide decision-making and planning.

Operational Excellence:

• Oversee the day-to-day operational functions, ensuring seamless execution across a wide range of areas, including customer services, trading & settlements, corporate actions, complaints handling and more.
• Drive the design and implementation of scalable processes to support customer growth, maintain exceptional service levels, and control risk.
• Leverage technology and data to optimise workflows and automate manual tasks.

Risk Management:

• Establish robust risk management practices through process improvements and automations.
• Collaborate with legal, compliance, and product teams to navigate evolving regulatory landscapes.
• Act as a key point of contact for audits and regulatory interactions, ensuring transparency and accountability.

Performance Monitoring & Reporting:

• Own and refine the Management Information (MI) and associated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor operational efficiency and effectiveness.
• Provide regular updates to the executive team and board, highlighting opportunities, challenges, and progress against the business plan and strategic goals.

Team Development:

• Working with your management team, recruit, mentor, and develop a high-performing operations team.
• Foster a culture of tech-enabled automation, process improvements, and accountability.
• Ensure teams are equipped with the tools and training necessary to excel in their roles.
• Lead the building of subject matter expertise in your teams.

Essential & Non-Essential Criteria

What We’re Looking For:

• A senior leader with relevant experience from a management consulting, technology, or financial services environment.
• A problem solver who thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• A true operator who can build and refine scalable processes through process improvements and automation.
• Strong people management skills: You are demanding but fair, and have a track record of recruiting and developing high performance in an organisation.
• A leader with top-class academics and the intellectual horsepower to drive meaningful change. MBA is a plus.
• Someone who challenges the status quo and isn’t satisfied with mediocrity.
• Tech-savvy: You are comfortable leveraging technology and collaborating/influencing engineers to scale and automate operations.

What we don’t require:

• We don’t require extensive industry experience in financial services or brokerage. We can teach and onboard the right candidate who is willing to learn our industry.
• Domain knowledge: We prefer someone who can lead operational change and build processes, leaning on the expertise of subject matter experts where needed.

Benefits & Logistics

The application process consists of a 4 stage process. You will initially have a zoom interview with one of our internal Talent Specialists, followed by a hiring manager interview, you will complete an onsite task and conduct a final values-based interview.

We offer a competitive salary, plus stock options and cafeteria.

You’ll have a stake in the company you’re building, with stock options benchmarked to US companies.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to a diverse and representative team. Whatever your race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability – we want to hear from you. We’re very open about what we’re working on, and the best places to learn more are our buzzing community forum and our blog.

Please note we are not accepting agency CVs.

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