Operational Risk Lead (Financial Services) in Newport

Following a successful contract win in late 2023 from one of the UK’s largest and most trusted financial service providers, you will provide both contact centre and administrative solutions to help assist its 25 million customers. Specifically, you will support the end‑to‑end customer journey, right from the moment a customer is looking to open an account with the provider to the time they need to get in touch to make any amendments or close an account. Whatever the type of query, we are there to assist them in whatever way we can – either online, by phone or by post – to deliver the best experience.

As a member of the Risk & Compliance management team, you’ll support developing a culture that is both customer and outcome obsessed by motivating, supporting, coaching and leading a team to exceed expectations in all they do. You’ll play a key role in leading and supporting the implementation and strengthening of the Operational Risk framework and policies. You will enhance and enable the overall service using:

• Industry and regulatory expertise in Operational Risk frameworks to maximise data and insights;
• Maximise our operational efficiency through risk monitoring and reporting;
• Improve the customer experience through feedback, insight on products and propositions, and development of a Risk & Control Self‑Assessment;
• Coordinate required change through pilots, projects and programmes.

You’ll have experience leading diverse and talented teams across multiple locations in relation to Operational Risk. Achieving key targets and KRIs will be second nature to you; you will also thrive on improving for customers and colleagues, ultimately striving to deliver top quartile employee engagement scores. The role is critical in delivering second‑line risk management oversight activities. You’ll promote a culture of sound risk awareness, aligning strategic business objectives to risk appetite and supporting the delivery of the Risk Management Framework.

As the Operational Risk Lead you will lead and manage day‑to‑day focus on Operational Risk, ensuring consistent frameworks and structure to identify, measure, mitigate, report, monitor and manage Operational Risks. You’ll lead the second‑line Operational Risk capability by providing proactive oversight, reviewing and challenging risk management approaches operated by the first line. You’ll test and confirm the effectiveness of first line risk and control management activity and support continual oversight and specialist investigations. The Operational Risk Lead will also support daily processes that alert management to new issues and risk evolution while managing the team’s day‑to‑day operations and resources.

This is a hybrid variable role with some travel to an office in the North West or North East of the UK.

What you will be doing

• Develop, review and implement the Operational Risk framework strategy, including policy, standards and framework, and align to client requirements.
• Review and feed into the Risk Management Framework, ensuring continued regulatory and client alignment.
• Build strong relationships across the Risk & Compliance management team, with key stakeholders across Sopra Steria and the client, assessing best practice and becoming a trusted partner.
• Ensure the Risk & Control Self‑Assessment and Control Testing process is designed, implemented, embedded and adhered to across operations, meeting regulatory and contractual requirements.
• Aggregate, assess and report on the execution of RCSA and Control Testing results; support risk and control owners in development and execution of the RCSA and Control Testing processes.
• Lead efforts to embed and oversee operational resilience, ensuring critical services can withstand and recover from disruptions with regulatory compliance and industry standards.
• Develop, implement and embed incident response protocols and framework; oversee incident management ensuring timely resolution, root‑cause analysis and preventive measures.
• Oversee operational risk practices to meet best practice and industry standards, prepare detailed improvement reports and agree actions with business to resolve issues.
• Work with, support and challenge the Account Leadership team in risk management oversight, ensuring risk requirements are documented, reported and overseen.
• Motivate, support, inspire and coach the team to deliver exceptional customer experience and performance, achieving all KPIs, SLA targets and quality outcomes.

What you’ll bring

• Strong understanding of Risk Management Framework principles within a Financial Services organisation.
• Strong understanding of Operational Risk principles within a Financial Services organisation.
• Highly analytical, able to process and summarise large volumes of complex data from multiple sources and present insights for decision making.
• Leadership ability – able to contribute to, build and deliver on strategies.
• Strong customer experience focus – able to develop and deliver step‑change performance.
• Management of senior stakeholders in both client and multi‑supplier models.
• Proactive mindset, acting as a trusted adviser for stakeholders and clients.
• Passionate about delivering exceptional stakeholder/customer experience.
• Commercially aware – balancing stakeholder, client, customer and business needs.

It would be great if you had Business / Risk Governance experience within Financial Services.

Employment Details

• Employment Type: Full‑time, Permanent
• Location: Hybrid, some North West and North East UK office presence needed
• Security Clearance Level: SC
• Salary: Up to £75k
• Benefits: £6,600 car allowance, bonus, 25 days annual leave with option to buy additional days, private medical, life assurance, pension, and generous flexible benefits fund.

We embrace difference as a source of creativity, innovation and competitive advantage and are striving to become a more diverse organisation. We welcome applications from people with a diverse variety of backgrounds and identities. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation or marital status.

We have partnered with Vercida, the UK’s largest diversity and inclusion focused careers site, where all our vacancies are available in an accessible format. If you require any adjustments to the recruitment process, to enable you to perform to the best of your ability, please let us know when completing your application. We participate in the Disability Confident scheme and are committed to offering an interview to any candidate with a disability, who meets the minimum criteria for the role. If you believe this could apply to you, please let us know when completing your application.