Collections Operations Manager (Commercial) (Cheadle)

Benefits of working at Together:

• 26 days holiday, and a day off for your birthday (increasing with service to 30 days), plus bank holidays
• Free access to company holiday homes
• Buy & sell holidays
• Discretionary annual bonus plus an additional Shared Reward Bonus
• Matched pension contribution
• Health cash plan plus Private medical insurance
• Life assurance and Critical illness cover
• Travel season ticket loans and Ride to work scheme
• Free local gym access
• Local bar / restaurant discounts

Company Description:

We’re Together. For over 50 years, we’ve helped thousands of people, businesses and professionals unlock their property ambitions with our common-sense approach to mortgages and secured loans. We take the time to understand our customers and our door is always open, so we can often help when other lenders can’t or won’t. Based in Cheadle, Cheshire, our 750 colleagues help our customers throughout the UK, backed by the power of a £7 billion loan book.

Job Description:

As a Collections Operations Manager you will be responsible for leading the end-to-end customer journey and operational performance of the function. The role ensures the effective management of customers experiencing financial difficulty while balancing customer outcomes, compliance and commercial performance. The role provides strategic leadership across early arrears management, forbearance, recoveries (including LPA receivers and enforcement activities), with accountability for supporting customers reducing credit losses, maximising recoveries and protecting the organisation’s reputation.

As a Collections Operations Manager we are looking for someone to:

• Lead the day-to-day operations across the full commercial collections and recoveries lifecycle, from pre-arrears and early arrears through to late arrears, litigation support, enforcement, recoveries and account resolution
• Create clear end-to-end accountability for commercial collections and recoveries, ensuring colleagues understand the full customer journey and can make balanced, commercially sound decisions
• Promote fair and sustainable customer outcomes through appropriate forbearance solutions.
• Oversee high-volume collections activity and relationship-led case management across commercial accounts, ensuring activity is appropriately segmented by risk, exposure, behaviour, affordability and recoverability
• Act as the point of escalation and decision maker for complex commercial cases, including non-responsive customers, unsustainable arrangements, restructuring options, litigation referral, enforcement strategy, settlement proposals and exit routes
• Maintain effective contact, case management and recovery strategies that support early intervention, sustainable rehabilitation where appropriate and timely progression to recovery action where required
• Ensure adherence to commercial credit risk controls, in-life and arrears management standards, mandates, policies, procedures, conduct expectations and agreed governance frameworks.
• Partner closely with Credit Risk, Portfolio Risk, Legal, Asset Management, Corporate Recoveries, Finance, Strategy, Data and third-party suppliers to optimise commercial recovery outcomes and protect the Group’s balance sheet and reputation
• Use MI, portfolio insight and root-cause analysis to improve commercial treatment strategies, prioritise effort, reduce avoidable arrears progression and increase operational effectiveness
• Support transformation, automation and service modernisation initiatives, including improved workflow, contact strategy, decisioning, data quality and performance reporting
• Maintain robust operational governance, including quality assurance, issue management, risk event management, audit readiness, supplier oversight and clear decisioning records
• Deliver a supportive, career-focused coaching culture where colleagues have clear objectives, understand the role they play in delivering business outcomes and receive regular high-quality management intervention
• Ensure colleagues are recruited, onboarded, trained and managed in line with business expectations, with appropriate capability development and succession planning
• Role model Together’s beliefs, champion inclusion and contribute to the delivery of the firm’s wider objectives across customers, colleagues, communities and sustainability

Qualifications:

Essential:

• Extensive experience leading commercial collections and recoveries within financial services.
• Proven strategic leadership of large operational teams
• Experience leading managers, relationship managers, collections representatives, commercial support teams or operational specialists in a performance-led environment
• Strong commercial judgement with the ability to balance customer circumstances, affordability, asset position, recoverability, legal options, cost, time and risk appetite
• Good understanding of secured lending, property-backed commercial finance, commercial arrears management standards, credit risk controls and in-life portfolio management
• Experience using operational MI, portfolio insight, segmentation and performance data to diagnose issues, prioritise effort and improve outcomes
• Strong stakeholder management skills, with experience working across Credit Risk, Legal, Asset Management, Finance, Operations, Strategy and third-party suppliers
• Understanding of legal and recovery routes relevant to commercial lending, including litigation, enforcement, LPA receivership, insolvency, administration, settlement and shortfall recovery options
• Proven ability to operate with strong governance, clear decisioning records, effective controls and appropriate challenge
• Confident communicator with the ability to influence senior stakeholders, lead through change and translate strategy into operational execution

Leadership Capabilities and Behaviours:

• Commercially focused: makes balanced decisions that support customers where appropriate while protecting value, reducing loss and delivering sustainable customer outcomes
• Outcome-focused: creates clarity, pace and accountability across operational priorities, case progression and performance delivery
• Risk-aware: embeds disciplined controls, governance, mandate adherence and assurance into everyday commercial collections and recoveries activity
• Collaborative: works across commercial, credit, legal, asset management, finance and supplier teams to remove friction and improve the end-to-end journey
• Inclusive leader: builds capable, engaged teams where colleagues understand expectations and are supported to perform and develop
• Change-Orientated: identifies opportunities to simplify, automate and modernise commercial collections and recoveries delivery

Together embraces diversity and inclusion, and are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace. Not only do we welcome difference – we celebrate it, support it and really value our colleagues for who they are. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives and skills.

If you feel you'd benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please don’t hesitate to let us know when completing your application. This information will be picked up by our team, so we can try and put steps in place to help you be at your best through this process.