Operational Readiness Manager

Join Barclays as an Operational Readiness Manager as part of Product and Operational Readiness Team within the Commercial Issuing Operational Readiness. In this role, you will play a critical part in ensuring all Issuing change is operationally ready, compliant, and safely embedded before go-live. The team is responsible for managing change intake and prioritisation, assessing impacts across customers, colleagues, processes, technology, and controls, and owning end-to-end operational readiness through to B Check, go-live, and post-implementation review.

You will co-lead operational readiness and support the Vice President for Commercial Issuing change, ensuring initiatives are delivered safely, compliantly, and fully embedded into live operations. Acting as a central coordinator, you will work across Product, Technology, Risk, Compliance, and Operations to ensure changes are effectively implemented with minimal disruption to customers, colleagues, and service performance.

This role combines people leadership with hands-on delivery of large, complex change initiatives. You will lead a team of operational readiness analysts, drive both delivery excellence and capability development while maintaining a strong focus on continuous improvement. This is an excellent opportunity for a driven leader who thrives in a fast-paced environment and is passionate about delivering high-quality change while ensuring operational excellence and customer-centric outcomes.

To be successful as an Operational Readiness Manager, you should have:

• Strong experience delivering operational readiness or change in a regulated operations environment.
• Experience with operational readiness frameworks or change governance models.
• Proven people Leadership Experience, with coaching and development at the core.
• Strong understanding of risk, controls, governance, and operational delivery.
• Experience within Commercial Issuing, Cards, or Payment’s environments.
• Understanding of technology change lifecycles and system implementation impacts.
• Ability to assess and mitigate impacts across customers, processes, technology, and controls.
• Clear, credible communicator able to influence at senior levels.

Other highly valued skills include:

• Exposure to process improvement approaches.
• Familiarity with tooling for change delivery.
• Ability to drive cultural change and embed new ways of working.
• Able to maintain a reputation for integrity, evoking rapid trust from key stakeholders.
• Ability to translate operational processes into technical requirements to successfully deliver change.

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in role, such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen, strategic thinking and digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills.

This role can be performed from Sunderland or Northampton, with a hybrid working model of working a minimum of 2/3 days per week in the office.

Purpose of the role

To manage the implementation of strategic change initiatives to enhance the banks operational efficiency. 

Accountabilities

• Management of strategic operational changes and initiatives to enhance the bank's operational efficiency and effectiveness, including the identification and assessment of changes on people, processes, and systems.
• Collaboration with internal stakeholders, including business leaders, project managers and SMEs to support business operation team and promote alignment between operations with the bank’s objectives.
• Development and implementation of change management strategies and effectively communicate the strategies so they are understood and adopted by stakeholders.
• Management and development of KPIs to measure the effectiveness of business functions, utilising data and technology to support the identification of areas that require improvement.
• Comply with all regulatory requirements and internal policies related to change management.
• Provision of guidance and support to stakeholders throughout the operational change management process through training and coaching.

Assistant Vice President Expectations

• To advise and influence decision making, contribute to policy development and take responsibility for operational effectiveness. Collaborate closely with other functions/ business divisions.
• Lead a team performing complex tasks, using well developed professional knowledge and skills to deliver on work that impacts the whole business function. Set objectives and coach employees in pursuit of those objectives, appraisal of performance relative to objectives and determination of reward outcomes
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others.
• OR for an individual contributor, they will lead collaborative assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will identify new directions for assignments and/ or projects, identifying a combination of cross functional methodologies or practices to meet required outcomes.
• Consult on complex issues; providing advice to People Leaders to support the resolution of escalated issues.
• Identify ways to mitigate risk and developing new policies/procedures in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Take ownership for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work done.
• Perform work that is closely related to that of other areas, which requires understanding of how areas coordinate and contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the organisation sub-function.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategy.
• Engage in complex analysis of data from multiple sources of information, internal and external sources such as procedures and practises (in other areas, teams, companies, etc).to solve problems creatively and effectively.
• Communicate complex information. 'Complex' information could include sensitive information or information that is difficult to communicate because of its content or its audience.
• Influence or convince stakeholders to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.