Head of Client Operations

Description

Your Location

Why Join Us

• Lead a critical function at the heart of our Operations business, with real money, real regulatory weight, real client impact and where your decisions will be felt across the business

• Join the Operations leadership team with genuine influence over strategy, investment and the direction of a function in the middle of meaningful transformation

• Put your stamp on what AI-first, automated operations actually looks like in practice, not a blank sheet, but a real function with momentum and the mandate to go further

• Own a meaningful budget and vendor landscape, with the authority to make build, buy and partner calls and be held accountable for the returns

• Bring several distinct but connected functions together into one high-performing operation, with the people, culture and development agenda to match

• A FTSE 100 fintech at a pivotal moment, a leadership team that moves fast and thinks big, a competitive package, and a role where the ambition is genuine

The Perks

• Competitive salary

• Flexible Benefits Package on top of your salary (12%)

• Private medical cover for you and your family

• Life insurance

• Contribution to gym memberships

• 25 Days holiday, with 1 additional day off to celebrate your Birthday & 2 additional days off a year for voluntary work (28 in total

• The option to buy or sell holiday days.

• Unlimited access to the LinkedIn Learning Platform

• A comprehensive global and local onboarding process

• Employee-led LGBTQ+, Women’s, Black and Parents & Carers networks with an annual budget for organising events & projects that foster an open, diverse and inclusive culture

• Enhanced primary (maternity), secondary (paternity), and shared parental pay and leave, as well as a range of support and benefits for parents

• Option to participate and create ESG initiatives based on IG Brighter Future Fund

How we work

• Lead and Inspire: Drives trust, alignment, and enthusiasm

• Think Big: Focus on the problems that most impact commercial outcomes

• Champion the client: Understand and prioritise client's needs

• Deliver at pace: Push for fast, sustainable growth;

• Raise the bar: Take ownership, be accountable and share feedback

What you’ll do

• Lead and own the full Client Operations function: Corporate Actions, Stock Transfers, Payments & Credit Ops, Transaction Reporting and Process Monitoring, setting direction, driving performance and ensuring robust controls, governance and regulatory compliance across all areas

• Define and deliver an AI-first, automation-led operating model, identifying where manual effort can be eliminated, prioritising the highest-impact opportunities, and transitioning the function to exception-based and agentic ways of working

• Own the commercial levers of the function, budget, headcount, vendor relationships and cost-to-serve, making clear build vs buy vs partner decisions and demonstrating measurable returns on automation and AI investment

• Build and develop a high-performing leadership team beneath you, with clear succession strength, and maintain strong cross-functional relationships with Compliance, Technology, Product, Finance and your Operations peers

• Act as the accountable senior leader for operational risk, regulatory compliance and performance reporting, escalating issues appropriately, owning named accountabilities under the senior manager regime, and representing Client Operations in wider strategic discussions

What you’ll need for this role

• Deep experience leading complex, high-volume operational functions in regulated financial services, with a track record of owning performance, risk and compliance across payments, asset servicing, transfers or equivalent domains

• A genuine automation-first mindset: someone who has designed AI and automation into an operating model, not just endorsed it, with the commercial acumen to build the business case, select the right partners and demonstrate measurable returns

• Strong vendor and commercial management experience, able to negotiate, contract and hold third parties to account, and make clear build vs buy vs partner decisions with confidence

• A people leader who builds high-performing teams and strong leadership benches beneath them, and who brings Compliance, Technology, Product and Finance along rather than working around them

• The credibility and presence to operate at senior leadership level, able to represent Client Operations in strategic discussions, report with clarity on performance and risk, and act as a named accountable owner under the senior manager regime