Service Charge Director - South West in Exeter

Service Charge Director

Salary

£75,000 per annum, plus benefits

Contract

Permanent

Hours

Monday to Friday – 9am to 5pm (35 hours per week)

Location

London, Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Later Living

First Port is on an ambitious journey to redefine excellence in UK residential property management.

We are committed to elevating industry standards and becoming the most trusted and professional residential property management company.

As a Service Charge Director, you will play a pivotal role in achieving this vision.

Responsibilities

• Drive the strategic direction and delivery of the customers’ financial experience, leading a team of service charge accountants to provide accurate and timely financial accounts and budgets.
• Lead innovation and thought leadership, push boundaries of opportunity, and manage the BAU financial service charge delivery, resolving complaints and queries proactively.
• Develop and manage a team of service charge accountants and administrators, driving performance and delivering an effective service to internal and external customers, and contractors.
• Attend Regional Board Meetings.
• Lead and drive team performance, assigning workloads to meet legislative and company expectations.
• Provide leadership to motivate, engage, maintain morale, and conduct coaching, performance development reviews and team briefings.
• Analyse departmental data and trends to ensure targets are met.
• Empower teams to provide timely, personalised responses, balancing customers, people and First Port needs.
• Create a positive, diverse environment, identify talent and create development and succession plans.
• Promote collaborative working with operational colleagues, increasing quality and speed of responses, and provide data to stakeholders for service improvements.
• Ensure service charge accounts and estimates are issued on time, accurate and meet required standards.
• Identify ways to improve accounting processes, reduce queries and achieve first‑time resolution.
• Establish rapid escalation processes, improving customer experience and supporting first‑time resolution through collaboration with Customer Services.
• Drive strategies to enable financial accountability and upskilling for operational stakeholders.
• Strengthen relationships with Operations and Customer Service teams through refined processes.
• Required Skills & Qualifications
• Strong accounting technical knowledge and people leadership capability.
• Experience with audits and process improvements.
• Self‑motivated and able to work in a fast‑paced environment.
• Excellent IT skills and knowledge of finance systems, especially QUBE.
• Experience leading teams, using varied leadership skills and performance plans.
• Strong customer and employee focus, using data insights for performance improvement.
• Agile and able to respond to customer demand.
• Customer‑centric approach, anticipating future needs and developing team skills.
• Confident, articulate communicator, building relationships at all levels.
• Root‑cause analysis and removal of demand failures.
• Influencing and stakeholder management at all business levels.
• Results‑oriented, meeting deadlines and legislative requirements.

Benefits

We offer competitive salaries and a range of benefit packages, including private medical insurance, pension contributions, life assurance, and discounts such as a gym membership.

The role also includes access to technology, training and support to help you perform at your best.

Diversity and Inclusion

We are committed to promoting diversity and recruiting on merit. We will make any adjustments needed to support applicants through the recruitment and onboarding process.

Equal Employment Opportunity

First Port is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from all backgrounds.

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