Operations Director

Newcastle Upon Tyne

Our client is a well-established firm of independent financial advisers that has been providing expert guidance to its clients for over 25 years. We are fully regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and specialise in helping our clients secure their financial future and achieve their long-term goals.

They are are an FT Advisor Top 100 firm providing expert pension advice, retirement planning & investment services. Putting clients at the heart of everything they do, they are passionate about providing an unparalleled service that is bespoke to their needs.

The culture is built on a foundation of trust, care, and continuous improvement. Believing that a positive and inclusive workplace is essential for fostering innovation, growth, and success. The commitment to these core values guides their actions and decisions, shaping a vibrant and dynamic environment where every employee can thrive.

We are seeking an experienced and inspiring Group Operations Director to lead and mentor this expanding organisation through an exciting period of growth. This role is central to ensuring operational excellence, strategic alignment, and consistent client service across the business.

The successful candidate will be a dynamic leader, capable of mentoring teams, shaping strategy, and have the technical skills to upgrade systems and controls, process, and automation, driving consistent operational excellence.

What you will do

• Champion a client-first culture by embedding service excellence into every stage of the operational client journey.
• Drive a high-performance culture through energetic leadership, operational excellence, and a focus on continuous improvement.
• Upgrade systems and controls by leveraging technical skills to enhance processes, automation, and operational efficiency.
• Collaborate with the Senior Management Team to ensure effective performance management and seamless daily operations.
• Provide strong operational leadership aligned to strategic goals, ensuring consistent delivery of services, performance, and compliance.
• Mentor and develop managers, fostering accountability, collaboration, and innovation while aligning teams to support sustainable growth.
• Complement and monitor KPIs and performance metrics to drive operational efficiency, consistency, and quality across the group.
• Support risk management, governance, and compliance standards across all operational activities.

Skills

• Strong leadership, interpersonal and motivational skills
• Strategic thinker and solutions approach – outcome focused
• Proven technical, analytical, statistical, and organisational skills
• Excellent communicator, listening and problem-solving skills
• Commercial approach combined with engagement with stakeholder
• Adaptability and flexibility, able to manage fast paced change
• Excellent relationship building and critical thinking skills
• Execution of business tactical plans – enabler – make things happen
• Ability to prioritise workload and meet deadlines
• Demonstrates a high level of discretion and confidentiality.
• Demonstrate working within a Culture and Values driven business

Operational excellence

This role will cover policies, processes, key operations controls, quality, change readiness, incident management. Creating a framework which will helps us embed and maintain our Right First-Time mantra and Customer Focus.

Be a business leader and part of the senior management team

To manage the Operations team, including activities such as the effective running of team meetings, conducting appraisals and addressing recruitment needs where appropriate.

To be able to define and manage Operational Level Agreements which will help to meet SLAs and develop SMART objectives linked to the organisational goals

Champion a culture of first-contact resolution and continual improvement through processes to drive efficiency.

• Improve process within our practices and within the CRM system
• Improve efficiency and productivity bringing systems and controls
• Service 4500+ clients & 60+ staff
• Six sigma qualification
• Project management knowledge/qualifications
• Ability to handle multiple tasks
• Strong analytical & problem-solving skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Quality assurance and checking frameworks and implementation
• Data literacy – strong data and analytic reporting knowledge
• Define, track and report on SLAs & KPI’s
• Board experience

We are seeking an individual who has:

• Evidence of strong team development and progression across a diverse group of team members in both age and experience.
• Relatable and relevant management skills to develop a high performing team that delivers on expectation in a fast pace regulated environment.
• Ability to improve business performance with innovation and technology led solutions through demonstrable experience.