Director – PDS / Agency Clearing

Job Description

Purpose of the role

To manage operations within a business area and maintain processes, risk management initiatives and compliance with relevant regulators. 

Accountabilities

• Identification of trends and opportunities to improve areas and develop new process and procedures through the monitoring and analysis of operation data and performance metrices.
• Management of operations for a business area and promote efficient processes, risk management and compliance initiatives to support the bank's operations.
• Collaboration with internal stakeholders (including business leaders, project manager and SMEs) and external stakeholders (including vendors and service providers) to support business operations and promote alignment with the bank's objectives and SLAs.
• Management of operational professionals and provide guidance, coaching and support to improve colleagues' delivery quality.
• Management and development of KPIs to measure the effectiveness of operation functions, utilising data and technology to support the identification of areas that require improvement.
• Compliance with all regulatory requirements and internal policies related to customer experience.
• Creation of a safe environment for colleagues to speak up, actively and regularly encourage and solicit feedback to ensure people agenda remains focused on the right areas.
• Management of attrition by working closely with HR in implementing retention initiatives for work force.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior 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.

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.

• Lead the global Prime Derivatives Services Operations organisation, with accountability for colleagues globally across multiple locations as well as an outsourced service provider relationship.
• Own the end-to-end operational delivery of PDS to our clients, spanning Futures & Options / Listed Derivatives, OTC Clearing, FX Prime Brokerage, PDS Treasury, collateral and margin management, client money protection, futures deliveries, options expiry, fees & commissions, and client service and strategy.
• Maintain a safe, stable and resilient operating environment, with clear ownership of operational risk, controls, regulatory obligations and service continuity, ensuring the organisation continues to protect the firm and its clients while the business evolves. This includes a strong understand of the regulatory and legal environment associated with this business.
• Act as the senior Operations partner to PDS business leadership, bringing an Operations perspective into commercial and strategic decision-making and ensuring Operations is proactive in shaping business priorities rather than simply responding to them.
• Set a new standard for client service, building a more proactive, strategic and insight-led client model that anticipates client needs, identifies friction and opportunities, and makes Operations a visible contributor to the overall PDS client proposition.
• Drive the next phase of automation, simplification and strategic transformation, identifying opportunities to remove manual activity, create capacity, improve scalability and reduce operational risk while accelerating execution of the PDS change agenda.
• Empower a globally consistent operating model, ensuring global consistency and clear accountability and standards across the organization, and ensuring appropriate governance while retaining the flexibility required to support different markets, products and clients.
• Own the PDS Operations strategic portfolio and commercial agenda, providing clear visibility to senior stakeholders of priorities, investment, delivery, benefits and impact, while actively managing headcount, cost, productivity and investment decisions.
• Build a sustainable global leadership and talent model, identifying and developing top talent, strengthening succession, reducing key-person dependencies and ensuring critical institutional knowledge is embedded within globally resilient processes and teams.
• Represent PDS Operations credibly at the most senior levels, building strong relationships with clients, business and functional leadership, Technology, Risk and other partners, as well as relevant CCPs, exchanges and external market participants; bringing pace, judgement, challenge and accountability to the continued evolution of the franchise.

What the successful candidate gains?

• A genuine Global Head mandate — with meaningful accountability and visibility across the global franchise.
• Ownership of a broad and sophisticated derivatives operating platform — covering Listed Derivatives, Futures & Options, OTC Clearing, FXPB, Treasury, collateral and margin, client money, deliveries and expiries, fees and commissions, alongside client service and strategy.
• A strong platform to build from, rather than a turnaround to rescue — inheriting a stable, performant and well-controlled organisation with an excellent team, allowing the successful candidate to focus their energy on taking an already successful operation to its next level.
• The opportunity to redefine and evolve what excellent client service looks like in Operations — moving beyond traditional transaction processing and issue resolution towards a proactive, strategic partnership model that directly contributes to the client proposition.
• A meaningful transformation mandate — with the sponsorship to challenge established ways of working, accelerate automation, simplify processes and use technology to create capacity, scalability and materially reduce operational risk.
• The chance to shape a truly global operating model — addressing historic inconsistencies across locations and processes and establishing clearer global standards, accountabilities and ways of working.
• Significant exposure to senior business leadership and clients — operating as a trusted partner to the PDS business and engaging directly with major clients, Technology, Risk, Finance, external market infrastructure and other senior stakeholders.
• An opportunity to build their own impact — developing the next generation of PDS Operations leaders, creating strong succession pipelines, and nurturing high-potential talent.
• Real influence over evolution and strategic priorities — shaping the PDS Operations book of work, making choices around where the organisation invests its people and technology capacity, and demonstrating tangible business, client, productivity and risk outcomes.
• A significant career platform — combining global people leadership, complex markets operations, client engagement, transformation, risk ownership and commercial accountability in one role, providing substantial breadth and visibility for someone with ambitions beyond their immediate Operations remit.