Partnership Director

The opportunity

The Partnership Director is accountable for optimising business growth and engagement by supporting, leading and enabling the Heads of Partnership Development and their teams of Partnership Development Managers to work effectively with Partners and their firms, (excluding Strategic Partner Firms).

To achieve this, there is a key focus on strong and consistent engagement with colleagues in central teams and with Partners to deliver a high quality and impactful relationship experience that delivers meaningful results for end Clients and the Partnership overall.

This will be achieved by:

• Ensuring excellent leadership of the Head of Partnership Development roles, alignment with strategy and functional scorecard objectives.
• Ensuring effective technical expertise and communication/influencing skills to drive high quality standards through their teams to deliver holistic customer outcomes and support the assurance model and control framework.
• Strategically assess data and insight to identify and execute opportunities to drive growth and margin as well as enabling effective risk mitigation.
• Regular scanning of the Financial Services marketplace to seek opportunities to grow and attract advisers, businesses, and clients.
• Being the eyes and ears of the Partnership to ensure effective two-way communication exists between the central teams and Partners.
• Managing risks in an effective way to ensure prescribed responsibilities are delivered and regulatory requirements are met.
• Managing budgets to ensure effective delivery against objectives and business performance is optimised.
• Being an active leader in the Senior Leadership Team to shape and deliver against the Group strategies.

What will you need to succeed?

Qualifications/Experience/Knowledge:

• Level 4 Diploma qualified and/or the equivalent in experience within operations in retail financial services.
• Previous experience across B2B / intermediary relationships, and thorough understanding of distribution models in FS marketplace.
• Experience in understanding and supporting small and medium size businesses with developing business plans and driving commerciality.
• Good understanding of how different business practices, operating models and product propositions can benefit different types of businesses and their customers.
• Good working knowledge across investment, protection/insurance, mortgage, and pension products and the issues facing owners of financial adviser businesses, commercial models, and key relevant rules and legislation.
• Experience of addressing risk management issues through professional and challenging interactions.
• Demonstrable effective stakeholder management and Influencing experience.
• Resource planning and budgetary experience.

Skills and Competencies:

• Strong leadership and performance management skills with larger teams.
• Self-starter looks for opportunities to drive continuous Improvement to deliver results.
• Strong relationship and consultancy skills with an ability to gain entry to, and influence, business owners, advisers and others.
• Highly organised with the ability to prioritise effectively.
• Resilient, proactive, and driven in a changing environment.
• Able to analyse and interpret management and financial information to identify opportunities to drive business growth balanced with quality and safety.
• High levels of personal impact – professional and calm, with an ability to see things clearly in terms of perspective and value. Strong presentation skills in front of large audiences.
• Customer focus and a strong eye for support & development opportunities.
• Pragmatic decision making, effective utilisation of professional judgement and a solution mindset.

Why us?

We're a dynamic, fast paced, and growing business with huge ambition. This is all made possible by the brilliant people who are part of The Openwork Partnership family. We're investing heavily in our colleagues, continuously striving to give them the platform to develop personally and professionally and reach their full potential.

We’re also very proud of our culture, as one of the Best 100 Large Companies to work for in 2022. The Openwork Partnership values, and respects individuality and we are committed to building an inclusive culture and environment which truly recognises and celebrates our colleague’s individual differences and identities – just like our financial advice, for us, it’s personal. We believe everyone can make a difference and your race, religion, disability, and gender will never be a barrier. At Openwork, we have a strong ethic of care for each other where you can balance a successful career with your commitments and interests outside of work. We believe that you will bring your best self to work if you are trusted to choose when, where and how you do it.