Barclays
Strategic Finance - Insights and Operations Lead - BPL
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Job Description
Purpose of the Role
To provide financial expertise and support to specific business units or departments within the organisation, and act as a liaison between the finance function and various business units, helping to bridge the gap between financial data and business decisions.
Accountabilities
- Development and implementation of business unit financial strategies, plans, and budgets, using insights to evaluate the financial implications of strategic initiatives and recommend appropriate actions.
- Development of financial models to forecast future performance, assess investment opportunities, and evaluate financial risks for business units, and to analyse the impact of business decisions on financial performance and provision of recommendations.
- Cross functional collaboration to provide financial insights and guidance to business unit stakeholders.
- Identification of opportunities and implementation of financial process improvements that streamline financial operations.
- Support to business units in identification, assessment, and mitigation of financial risks, including provision of training and guidance to business units on financial risk management and compliance practices.
- Analysis and presentation of financial data to provide insights into business performance, identify trends, and support decision-making.
Vice President Expectations
- To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures.
- If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements.
- 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 be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions.
- Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross-functional areas of impact and alignment.
- Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
- Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
- Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
- Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
- Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
- Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
- Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills 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.
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Role Overview
This is a newly created, high-profile role within Barclays Payments, sitting at the centre of the Corporate & Strategic Finance function. Reporting to the Head of Corporate & Strategic Finance, the position partners closely with senior finance leaders across Payments, GTM, Product & Technology, VAS, and Corporate FP&A to strengthen the function's reporting, analytical and operational capabilities.
The role combines strategic insight, finance operations, reporting excellence and data leadership. It is designed for a senior finance professional who enjoys working at the intersection of strategy, data, transformation and execution, influencing outcomes across a broad stakeholder landscape rather than directly managing teams.
Key Responsibilities
Finance Operations & Governance
- Support the overall rhythm and effectiveness of the finance function, including planning cycles, governance forums, reporting calendars and senior leadership reviews. Ensure reporting outputs are consistent, accurate and decision-ready.
Reporting & Performance Management
- Lead the design and continuous enhancement of reporting infrastructure, dashboards, performance tracking and management information. Drive a high-quality, integrated view of performance across all finance pillars.
Board & Executive Reporting
- Partner on the development of materials for executive leadership, board reporting and investor-facing communications, ensuring robust analysis, compelling narratives and high-quality outputs.
Strategic Projects & Insights
- Lead and coordinate high-impact strategic initiatives and business-critical projects, providing analytical rigour, structure and delivery focus. Develop investment cases and strategic assessments while engaging directly with senior executives and C-suite stakeholders.
AI & Innovation Leadership
- Champion the adoption of AI and emerging technologies within the finance function. Identify practical use cases, drive pilot initiatives and help shape the future operating model through data-driven innovation.
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Data & Analytics Partnership
- Act as the key liaison between Finance and Data & Analytics teams, ensuring strong data governance, consistent metrics and a reliable single source of truth to support business decision-making.
Why This Role Stands Out
This is a rare opportunity to shape a newly established function with significant visibility across senior leadership. The role offers exposure to strategic decision-making, executive stakeholders, transformation initiatives and AI-driven innovation, making it an excellent fit for someone looking to broaden their impact beyond traditional finance responsibilities.
Barclays’ payments acceptance business provides critical infrastructure to the UK economy, processing billions of pounds of payments annually for both small businesses and domestic and international corporate clients.
In April 2025, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to grow and transform the payments acceptance business by broadening the range of services offered, enhancing the experience for both existing and prospective clients. Leveraging extensive client relationships and deep experience of UK payments, we will create an environment of continuous innovation - activated by Brookfield’s global private equity expertise in payments, technology, operational transformation and corporate carve-outs - to ensure the business is strategically positioned for long-term growth.
Barclays will invest approximately £400m in the new business, the majority of which will be incurred during the first three years. Performance-linked incentives will drive greater alignment between the partners, underpinning the long-term commitment to the transformation. Barclays and Brookfield will work to create a standalone entity over time, continuing to use the Barclaycard Payments (BPL) brand and acting as the sole payments acceptance services provider to Barclays’ clients for a minimum of ten years.
For more information on our partnership with Brookfield, please visit Barclays.com.
Requirements
To be successful as a Strategic Insights & Finance Operations Lead, you should have experience in:
- Strong modelling and data analytics background, with hands-on experience using SQL and Tableau to extract, analyse and interpret complex datasets
- Advanced data visualisation skills, translating analytical insights into clear, compelling dashboards and narratives for business and finance stakeholders
- Proven ability to drive automation and process optimisation, streamlining finance and reporting workflows to improve efficiency, accuracy and scalability
Some other highly valued skills may include:
- Holds a recognised professional finance qualification (e.g. ACA, ACCA, CIMA)
You may be assessed on 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.
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