Group Strategy and Corporate Development - Senior Manager

Hello, we’re Starling. We built a new kind of bank because we knew technology had the power to help people save, spend and manage their money in a new and transformative way. We’re a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive tech company. We’re a bank, but better: fairer, easier to use and designed to demystify money for everyone. We employ more than 3,500 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester offices.

We are looking for a Senior Manager to drive the Group’s inorganic and organic growth agenda. This is a high-impact role for a seasoned strategy consultant or investment banker looking to move into an in-house strategic role. You will leverage your strategic project experience and/or transaction experience to lead strategic projects, M&A execution, capital markets activities, and long-term strategic planning for both the Bank and our global SaaS business, Engine.

Key Accountabilities

• Strategic Leadership & Transaction Execution
  • Lead Strategy Projects: Structure, lead and execute complex strategic projects from problem definition and hypothesis generation to value realisation.
  • Deal Leadership: Manage the end-to-end transaction lifecycle for M&A, joint ventures, and strategic partnerships. This includes leading origination, thesis generation, rigorous valuation, and definitive agreement negotiation. You will act as a primary interface with external advisors (investment banks, legal counsel, diligence providers).
  • C-Suite Advisory: Act as a trusted advisor to the Group CEO and Group CFO. You will translate complex financial data into 'Board-ready' strategic recommendations, often under tight timelines.
  • Quality Control: Own the quality of all strategic output. Ensure papers, board decks, and external investor materials are flawless and compelling.
• Analysis & Financial Planning
  • Commercial & Financial Oversight: Oversee and develop detailed financial models and business cases. Ensure rigorous testing of assumptions for models relating to organic and inorganic corporate activity, and have a clear understanding of the Starling’s key business drivers.
  • Valuation & Modelling: Oversee the construction of complex financial models working closely with the Financial Modelling team. You must be able to develop and audit models line-by-line and own the integrity of the outputs.
  • Capital Allocation: Assist in developing the Group’s approach to assessing the ROI of various capital deployment options.
  • Market Intelligence: Monitor the Fintech and Banking landscape for valuation benchmarks, precedent transactions, and emerging competitor threats to inform the Group’s strategy.
  • Data Analysis: Be comfortable analysing unstructured data sets to derive clear messages.
• Team Development
  • Mentorship: Actively mentor Associates and Analysts in best practices, across strategy and corporate development activities.
  • Mindset: Champion a first-principles thinking approach in the team and across the wider business.
  • Culture: Exemplify the Strategy team’s high-performing culture.
  • Collaboration: Develop strong working relationships with teams across the Group.
  • Process Rigour: Own the culture of high-velocity execution and delivery within the team.

Requirements

• Experience & Background
  • Extensive experience, with a significant portion spent in:
  • Strategy Consulting Firm: Demonstrable experience leading complex strategic projects, with a focus on leveraging technical skills.
  • Investment Banking (Associate to VP level): Ideally within a FIG, Fintech, or TMT coverage group at a top-tier bulge bracket or elite boutique bank.
  • Private Equity: Experience on the deal team of a mid-to-large cap fund is also highly relevant.
  • Transaction Track Record: Ideally you could demonstrate a range of transaction experience. You should be able to discuss your specific role in executing M&A, capital raising, commercial due diligence projects or joint ventures.
• Technical Skills
  • Problem Solving: Ability to disaggregate complex, undefined problems into manageable work streams using hypothesis-driven methodologies.
  • Financial Modelling: Highly competent modelling, with a clear ability to debate the nuances of cost of capital, terminal value assumptions, and synergy phasing.
  • Transaction Mechanics: Understanding of the high-level legal and structural components of a deal.
  • Presentation Skills: You must be able to create presentations that tell a compelling, data-backed commercial story suitable for the Group Board and external investors.
• Soft Skills & Attributes
  • Ambiguity Tolerance: Comfort working in a fast-paced, fluid environment where priorities shift rapidly. You maintain high standards under pressure.
  • First Principles: You take a logical and data-driven approach to any task, even if it’s something you’ve never done before.
  • Commercial Instinct: You focus on value drivers and the bottom-line impact of every strategic decision.
  • Execution Focus: You have a bias for action. You are comfortable managing multiple live work streams and driving them to conclusion with autonomy when required. You are focused not just on setting the direction of projects and providing advice to junior team members, but driving forward various work streams.
  • Stakeholder Management: Exceptional interpersonal skills with the confidence to challenge senior stakeholders and influence decision-making.
  • Resilience: Comfort working in a high-pressure, fluid environment where priorities shift rapidly.
  • Low Ego: The ability to successfully work as part of a team with little hierarchy.

Benefits

• 25 days holiday (plus take your public holiday allowance whenever works best for you).
• An extra day’s holiday for your birthday.
• Annual leave is increased with length of service, and you can choose to buy or sell up to five extra days off.
• 16 hours paid volunteering time a year.
• Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme.
• Life insurance at 4x your salary & group income protection.
• Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton.
• Generous family-friendly policies.
• Incentives refer a friend scheme.
• Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks.
• Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and Electric Vehicle (EV) leasing.

About us

You may be put off applying for a role because you don't tick every box. Forget that! While we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we’re always open to discussion. So, if you’re excited about working with us, but aren’t sure if you’re 100% there yet, get in touch anyway.

We’re on a mission to radically reshape banking – and that starts with our brilliant team. Whatever came before, we’re proud to bring together people of all backgrounds and experiences who love working together to solve problems.

Starling is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Starling are considered without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.