Blackfinch Group
Senior Operations and Change Manager
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The Senior Operations and Change Manager
The Senior Operations and Change Manager is a senior leadership role responsible for leading, developing, and continuously improving Blackfinch’s Operations function while supporting the Operations Director in the ownership and delivery of the Group’s Change Management framework.
The role will lead the Client Excellence, Investment Operations, and Operations Coordinator teams, creating a high-performing culture with clear accountability, strong leadership, and a focus on exceptional service, operational resilience, and continuous improvement.
The Senior Operations and Change Manager will be responsible for building robust, scalable, and well-controlled operational processes, reducing errors and operational risk, and driving improvements in service, efficiency, and control. They will work closely with Engineering and Data to identify opportunities to automate, simplify, and improve processes through technology, AI, and automation.
Alongside operational leadership, the role will support the Operations Director in coordinating the Evolution Programme, Hatchery Programme, and Data & AI Transformation Programme, ensuring change demand is effectively captured, triaged, and prioritized, and that dependencies, risks, and resource requirements across Data and Engineering are understood.
The role will provide the link between operational delivery, business change, Data, and Engineering, ensuring that both BAU operations and strategic change remain aligned to Blackfinch’s priorities and continue to deliver strong outcomes for advisers and end investors.
Key Responsibilities
People Leadership & Performance
- Lead, mentor, and develop the Client Excellence and Investment Operations teams.
- Build and maintain a high-performing culture centered on ownership, accountability, collaboration, service, and continuous improvement.
- Set clear expectations, objectives, and performance standards for managers and team members.
- Establish and monitor appropriate OKRs, KPIs, and SLAs to drive performance and accountability.
- Develop management capability, succession planning, and colleague development across the function.
- Ensure teams have clear priorities and understand how their work contributes to wider operational and business objectives.
Client & Adviser Excellence
- Ensure Operations consistently delivers an exceptional service to advisers and end investors.
- Keep the adviser and client at the center of operational decision-making, process design, and change.
- Use service data, feedback, complaints, and operational insight to identify and resolve friction points.
- Set clear service expectations across the function and ensure teams understand how their work impacts customer outcomes.
- Ensure recurring service issues are addressed at root cause and translated into sustainable improvements.
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Operational Excellence & Risk
- Build robust, scalable, and resilient operational processes with clear ownership and effective controls.
- Reduce operational errors, rework, manual intervention, and key-person dependency.
- Use root-cause analysis to identify and address recurring operational issues.
- Identify, assess, and manage operational risks across the teams, ensuring appropriate controls, escalation, and remediation.
- Ensure key processes are clearly documented, controlled, and regularly reviewed.
- Maintain effective senior operational oversight of investment platforms and related processes.
- Ensure Operations can scale effectively without a disproportionate increase in cost, risk, or headcount.
Change Management & Governance
- Support the Operations Director in owning, maintaining, and continually improving Blackfinch’s Change Management framework.
- Support change governance across the Evolution, Hatchery, and Data & AI Transformation programmes.
- Ensure a consistent and proportionate approach to the intake, assessment, prioritization, and progression of change.
- Maintain a clear and transparent view of change demand, priorities, dependencies, risks, and progress across the programmes.
Change Intake, Triage & Prioritisation
- Manage the central intake and triage process for change requests requiring Data and Engineering support.
- Work with stakeholders to ensure requests are sufficiently defined, with clear requirements, outcomes, and benefits.
- Assess requests alongside Data, Engineering, and relevant business stakeholders to understand complexity, dependencies, risk, resource requirements, and customer or business impact.
- Support the Operations Director and programme stakeholders in making informed prioritization decisions.
Programme Coordination & Delivery
- Provide clear direction and priorities to the Operations Coordinators following triage and prioritization.
- Ensure Operations Coordinators have clear ownership of agreed programme activity and understand required outcomes and timescales.
- Act as a central link between business stakeholders, programme teams, Data, and Engineering.
- Escalate significant conflicts, delays, resource constraints, or risks appropriately.
- Support successful implementation, adoption, and benefits realization of operational and business change.
Skills & Experience
To be successful in this role, you will be an experienced senior operations and change leader with a strong track record of leading teams, improving operational performance, and delivering meaningful change within financial services.
You will have:
- Significant experience leading and developing operational and/or change teams in financial services.
- A strong track record of building high-performing teams with clear accountability, performance standards, and service expectations.
- Demonstrable experience working with investment platforms and a strong understanding of platform operating models.
- Proven experience designing, improving, and embedding robust, scalable, and well-controlled operational processes.
- Strong experience in change management, programme coordination, or portfolio management.
- Experience managing change intake, triage, and prioritization across competing programmes or business priorities.
- Practical experience of AI and automation, with the ability to identify appropriate use cases and translate operational needs into effective solutions.
- Strong operational risk and control experience, including identifying risks, strengthening controls, and managing operational incidents.
- Experience using KPIs and SLAs and management information to manage performance and drive continuous improvement.
- A proven track record of reducing operational errors and rework through root-cause analysis, stronger controls, and process improvement.
- Strong stakeholder management and influencing skills, with the credibility to work effectively with senior leaders and cross-functional teams.
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to use data to identify issues, make decisions, and prioritize activity.
- The judgement and leadership capability to balance customer experience, operational efficiency, risk, change demand, and commercial priorities.
- A proactive and pragmatic approach, with the ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving and evolving environment.
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Essential Qualifications
- Financial Services related qualifications and certifications
We reserve the right to close the vacancy early, should we receive sufficient applications.
Blackfinch is an equal opportunities employer that values diversity and welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religious practice, or any other perceived differences. A copy of our Equal Opportunities Policy is available upon request.
About Us
Blackfinch Group is an award-winning investment specialist. Built on over 20 years of investment track record, the name Blackfinch first came into being on the anniversary of Darwin’s birth, 12th February 2013. A trusted provider, we work in partnership with advisers. Our businesses cover tax-efficient solutions, early stage investing, managed portfolio services, property financing, and renewable energy. We’re proud to be entrusted with over £1bn in assets under management.
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