Job title: Business Planning & Operations Director

Location: London

Salary: Up to ??90.5k + bonus

Job Description

This role will report to the Head of Initiatives & Planning and will:

(1) Lead strategic projects/initiatives, in partnership with business owners across the organisation;

(2) Support the organisation in meeting its strategic objectives by driving business planning and review activities;

(3) Manage and support the overall operating cadence for the company throughout Europe

Planning

• Drive the company's Europe's Multi-Year Planning (MYP) exercise, in partnership with global and regional stakeholders (Planning, Strategy, Finance, Product, Marketing)
• Support the transmission of strategic growth initiatives from planning into Budget and Scorecard metrics
• Promote a robust planning function by driving consistency and quality, acting as a 'critical friend' to review and challenge the economic and financial assumptions (market growth and share, macroeconomic factors) underlying planning initiatives
• Explore opportunities to optimise and drive efficiencies in the planning process, add greater rigour, and deliver recognised business outcomes
• Work with global colleagues to develop the company's planning processes and capabilities, and to embed these into markets and functions in Europe

Initiatives

• Lead one or more initiatives, working with business owners across the organisation to develop the company's capabilities in priority areas (recent examples include Value in Kind (VIK) and operational resilience)
• Ensure relevant stakeholders across the organisation are engaged in the delivery of a programme or initiative, convening cross-functional teams to prioritise and deliver
• Collaborate with Global and regional stakeholders to integrate and optimise capabilities at all levels of the company
• Leverage appropriate governance structures (workstreams, steering committees, executive leadership, Board) to reach critical decisions
• Provide structure and guidance to business owners in the execution of a programme of work, helping to determine and drive critical path activities
• Promote transparency and accountability for execution of specific deliverables
• Work with business owners to identify and mitigate key risks and dependencies, include prioritisation and resourcing of activities

Qualifications

What we're after

• Experience within a complex Matrix organisation; Sound judgment and discretion
• Knowledge of the business, operations and processes
• Customer-centric with a keen interest in promoting the company's role in the payments industry
• Commercially astute and passionate about supporting the company to achieve its performance objectives; Strategy, planning and business case assessment experience; Financial, accounting, and/or econometric skills highly valued
• A growth mindset: Curious, committed to ongoing learning while also being an agent for change in the organisation
• Capable of handling complexity and ambiguity, and adapting to evolving organisational requirements; Versatility to tackle a diverse range of issues facing the company (regulatory, commercial, organisational); Willing to 'roll up their sleeves' to get the job done
• Analytical, takes a structured approach to problem-solving and is able to 'connect the dots'
• Able to build strong stakeholder relationships and collaborate in a Matrix organisation. Leads others in driving change through key initiatives
• Articulate, concise, clear written and verbal communication
• Solid skills in core business software applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)