Service Governance, ITSM & Incident Lead - BPL

Overview

Purpose of the role: to support the implementation of major changes and improvements to the organization's IT service management practices by driving strategic initiatives to modernize, transform and future‑proof how the bank delivers and supports technology services. Organisational and role context is focused on establishing and running the service-management control plane for IT operations, aligning with Engineering, Product, Customer Operations, CISO, Controls, and the wider transformation programme. The role aims to make new technology services safe to launch, clear to operate and measurable once live, while avoiding siloed operations.

Key Accountabilities

• Establish and operate the BPL ITSM framework across incident, major incident, problem, change enablement, request, knowledge and service catalogue processes, ensuring the model is pragmatic, lean and appropriate for a fintech‑scale organisation.
• Lead the major incident management capability, including incident command, war‑room execution, escalation paths, communications routines, post‑incident review and follow‑through on systemic actions.
• Define the service catalogue, ownership model and service‑criticality approach, ensuring every launch service has clear ownership, support boundaries, routing, on‑call / escalation arrangements, runbooks and readiness evidence.
• Shape change enablement governance for BPL services, balancing control and speed through risk‑based change thresholds, standard change patterns, release readiness, rollback criteria, audit evidence and alignment to Barclays control requirements where applicable.
• Drive problem management and continuous improvement, ensuring recurring incidents, service instability and launch learnings are converted into accountable actions, engineering backlogs, service improvements and measurable reduction in repeat failure demand.
• Own operational readiness criteria for Day 0 launches, including runbooks, service records, escalation contacts, tooling routes, monitoring / signal inputs, customer and supplier hand‑offs, comms routes, controls evidence and go / no‑go support.
• Develop service reporting and executive MI across incidents, service performance, SLAs / KPIs, SLOs, DORA indicators where relevant, change performance, control posture, resilience readiness, risk, decisions and operational confidence.
• Partner with SRE, Platform, Engineering and AIOps capabilities to improve alert quality, incident detection, event correlation, automation, toil reduction, operational telemetry and post‑incident learning without diluting engineering accountability.
• Manage service‑governance interfaces with suppliers and legacy service providers, ensuring clear escalation models, support obligations, operational hand‑offs, evidence expectations and transition readiness gates as capabilities move towards the BPL target model.
• Build a practical service‑management culture across BPL Technology Operations: clear ownership, blameless learning, data‑led prioritisation, automation before headcount, strong control evidence and concise senior stakeholder communication.

Key Responsibilities

• Translate the Tech Ops operating model into executable service‑management processes, role clarity, RACI / ownership maps, governance routines, workflow requirements and adoption artefacts.
• Stand up the Day 0 incident model for launch services, including named incident roles, severity definitions, escalation triggers, war‑room protocols, communications templates, decision logs and post‑incident review process.
• Work with Engineering and Platform teams to define minimum operational readiness requirements for each service, including observability, alerting, ownership, runbooks, rollback, support coverage and service‑level expectations.
• Configure and continuously improve the service‑management operating model across Jira Service Management or agreed tooling, ensuring workflow design supports routing, evidence capture, reporting and scale.
• Establish a lightweight service catalogue / CMDB‑lite approach covering service owner, technical owner, criticality, dependencies, support model, supplier interfaces and operational evidence requirements.
• Lead operational engagement for launches and transitions, ensuring product, engineering, customer operations, support, supplier and control teams understand how services will run once live.
• Produce concise, senior‑ready updates on launch readiness, service risk, incident trends, operational decisions, control posture and confidence to proceed.

Key Deliverables

• Day 0 service‑governance model for launch services, including incident, problem, change, request, knowledge, service catalogue and reporting processes.
• Major incident management playbook, covering command model, severity levels, escalation, communications, decision logging, post‑incident review and action tracking.
• Operational readiness checklist and evidence pack for each launch service, aligned to go / no‑go decisions and Day 1+ stabilisation.
• Service catalogue / CMDB‑lite baseline with clear ownership, criticality, dependencies, routing, on‑call / escalation contacts and support boundaries.
• Service reporting pack covering incidents, MTTR, repeat incidents, change performance, service health, SLA / KPI performance, operational risks, controls evidence and decisions required.
• Day 1+ service maturity roadmap showing how the model evolves from people‑led launch control to a standardised, tool‑assisted and AI‑enabled cross‑provider service model.

Candidate Profile

The successful candidate will be an experienced service‑management and technology‑operations leader with a strong track record of standing up or materially improving ITSM, incident management and operational governance in complex, regulated technology environments. They will be comfortable operating hands‑on in an immature / build environment while also creating the repeatable standards, artefacts and routines required for scale. They must be able to lead calmly during major incidents, create clarity across ambiguous ownership boundaries, challenge over‑heavy process where it slows delivery, and build credibility with engineering, product, customer operations, supplier and executive stakeholders. The role requires strong judgement: enough control to protect service reliability and regulatory confidence, without importing unnecessary legacy process overhead.

Essential Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Significant experience in IT service management, service operations or technology operations within a complex fintech, payments, payment acquiring company.
• Proven experience leading major incident management, incident command, crisis coordination, stakeholder communications and post‑incident improvement in high‑availability services.
• Strong practical knowledge of ITSM processes, including incident, problem, change, request, knowledge, service catalogue, SLA / KPI management and operational reporting.
• Experience designing or improving service‑management tooling and workflows, ideally including Jira Service Management, ServiceNow or equivalent ITSM platforms.
• Ability to define operational readiness criteria, service runbooks, escalation models, support boundaries, service‑level expectations and evidence packs for technology launches.
• Strong understanding of SRE, observability, alert hygiene, service ownership, SLOs, error budgets, postmortems and automation‑led service improvement.
• Experience working across engineering, product, customer operations, suppliers, control teams and senior technology leadership to resolve ambiguity and drive adoption.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to produce clear executive‑ready updates, incident communications, decision papers and service‑readiness reporting.
• Experience in merchant acquiring, payments, gateway, servicing portal, digital channels or high‑volume transaction‑processing environments.
• Familiarity with operational resilience, business continuity, disaster recovery, technology controls, audit evidence and regulated outsourcing / supplier management expectations.
• Experience operating in a carve‑out, new‑entity build, platform migration, service transition or large‑scale transformation environment.
• Understanding of AIOps, event correlation, service telemetry, automated evidence capture and AI‑enabled service‑management patterns.

This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship and applicants must already hold the legal right to work in the UK. This role is intended for candidates who are already operating at Director level.

Success Measures

• Day 0 launch services have clear ownership, service records, operational readiness evidence, escalation paths, tooling routes, runbooks and go / no‑go confidence.
• Major incidents are managed through a consistent command model with clear communications, timely escalation, accurate decision logging and completed post‑incident actions.
• ITSM processes are adopted by relevant BPL teams and partners without excessive bureaucracy, enabling faster recovery, better evidence and clearer accountability.
• Service reporting provides reliable insight into service health, incident trends, change performance, risk, controls, resilience posture and decisions required.
• Recurring incidents and service issues are converted into problem records, accountable improvement actions and measurable reduction in repeat failure demand.
• CIO and senior stakeholders have confidence that Technology Operations is providing a scalable, controlled and service‑led operating backbone for BPL.

Barclays’ payments acceptance business provides critical infrastructure to the UK economy, processing billions of pounds of payments annually for both small businesses and domestic and international corporate clients. In April 2025, we announced a long‑term partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to grow and transform the payments acceptance business by broadening the range of services offered, enhancing the experience for both existing and prospective clients. Leveraging extensive client relationships and deep experience of UK payments, we will create an environment of continuous innovation - activated by Brookfield’s global private equity expertise in payments, technology, operational transformation and corporate carve‑outs - to ensure the business is strategically positioned for long‑term growth. Barclays will invest approximately £400m in the new business, the majority of which will be incurred during the first three years. Performance‑linked incentives will drive greater alignment between the partners, underpinning the long‑term commitment to the transformation. Barclays and Brookfield will work to create a standalone entity over time, continuing to use the Barclaycard Payments (BPL) brand and acting as the sole payments acceptance services provider to Barclays’ clients for a minimum of ten years.

For more information on our partnership with Brookfield, please visit Barclays.com.

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