Head of Operations - Banking

Working closely with the COO, the HOO is responsible for assisting with the planning, organising and controlling the day-to-day operational activities of the business and operational resilience of the firm. The HOO is a key element of the First Line of Defence for Operational Risk and also for the identification and prevention of Financial Crime, including AML. The role supports the delivery of the Strategic Business Plan and strategic objectives.

Responsibilities:

• Assisting the COO with the execution of the strategies developed by the Board and Senior Management, helping translate the long term objectives into the delivery of the strategic business plan, monitoring progress and taking remedial action where required.
• Develop and assist in the implementation of specific operations strategies, policies and procedures, ensuring consistency and compliance with the overall UK strategic business plan in order to meet current and future organisational needs.
• Contribute to the Improvement, development, and maintenance of operational processes to ensure effective running of the business area, ensuring procedures are put in place and maintained to execute the tasks effectively.
• Responsible for supervising the company’s systems, controls and operational infrastructure to support the execution of current programs of work and to allow for sustainable, continued growth and business expansion.
• Responsible for supporting the implementation and strengthening of the company’s operational resilience framework and policies.
• Assist the COO with the company’s outsourcing / third party risk management framework to ensure it is consistent with the operational resilience framework.
• Provide coordination and expertise in the event of supplier operation disruption.
• Oversight of the Operations Team, coordinated with other Business Heads to ensure the smooth running of the firm ensuring that end to end transaction processing follows best practices, minimises manual interventions and complies with UK policies/ International Standards.
• Assist in the management of business transformation/change management initiatives, driving business process reengineering to improve operational efficiency and optimise operational processes.
• Leverage off Peer Networks to share knowledge of best practice, experience and know-how to drive the UK systems development.
• Build a culture which emphasises risk awareness, efficiency and effectiveness and focuses on high performance and continuous improvement.
• Supervise the Operations teams, including setting objectives, regular reviews and staff development.
• Ensuring that, in cases of planned absence from the office, responsibilities are delegated to approved, nominated cover for the role ensuring they are briefed and trained sufficiently in advance on the tasks and responsibilities involved.
• Participation in and involvement in training and development initiatives as directed by HHR/CEO/COO.
• Help develop policy and standards as well as governance arrangements for operational resilience, working with risk and compliance to ensure that the development of these meets regulatory and business expectations.
• Support the development and maintenance of key program documentation including the reporting and supporting material for the Board and Management Committees.
• Support business functions in identifying, creating, and documenting key business services along with their associated impact tolerances and reporting metrics.
• Maintain, in partnership with business functions, the key business services and associated impact tolerances and reporting metrics in line with global standards and regulations.
• Conduct ongoing key business service mapping to identify critical dependencies and potential vulnerabilities.
• Partner with business functions to maintain or develop response plans in the event of severe but plausible operational disruptions.
• Monitor operating events relating to operational resilience, including near misses and help escalate, remediate, and coordinate the firm’s response as required.
• Identify areas to mature in the program to increase the firm’s resilience capabilities.
• Assist in the planning and execution of resilience projects and initiatives as required.
• Manage and support the oversight of the resilience arrangements for the suppliers integral to the delivery of critical services.
• Conduct mapping with critical suppliers to ensure dependencies and vulnerabilities are appropriately documented and understood.
• Work with functions which perform risk assessments of the firm’s suppliers and develop an ongoing due diligence and oversight framework.
• Support testing with suppliers to ensure playbooks for severe but plausible scenarios are robust, realistic, and achievable.
• Review supplier incidents for lessons learned.