Operations Manager - Financial Planning

Key Responsibilities

• Manage day-to-day operations across client services, paraplanning, and adviser support, ensuring efficient, consistent, and scalable processes
• Manage and develop operations and client servicing teams, ensuring appropriate structure, capability, training, and performance
• Embed strong operational governance, including SLAs, SOPs, and continuous improvement initiatives, and lead operational projects to drive efficiency and service quality
• Champion the effective use of AI and technology to improve workflows, data structures, automation, and system integration across the Financial Planning business
• Act as product owner for our back-office systems 
• Partner with IT, vendors and internal teams to implement effective tech solutions.
• Work closely with the Compliance Manager to ensure operational alignment with FCA requirements (including Consumer Duty and MiFID II)
• Support operational resilience by identifying Important Business Services, defining impact tolerances, and conducting scenario testing with clear remediation planning
• Maintain operational risk registers and collaborate with compliance and risk teams to monitor and manage operational risks
• Lead structured problem-solving, root cause analysis, and solution design to deliver practical, sustainable operational improvements
• Drive improvements in adviser efficiency and the end-to-end client journey through strong operational management, including reducing administrative burden, optimising processes, and using client feedback to deliver continuous improvement
• Develop and maintain operational, adviser and risk MI dashboards, ensuring data accuracy, consistency and strong data governance

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise

• Operations management experience within a regulated Financial Planning or Wealth Management environment
• Strong knowledge of FCA regulatory frameworks and experience operating in a regulated environment
• Experience with financial planning back-office systems, with the ability to optimise existing tools and implement new solutions
• Strong problem-solving and solution delivery capability, with a focus on operational excellence and continuous improvement
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional collaboration and drive change across a growing business
• Strong data and MI capability, with the ability to improve data quality, reporting, automation, and system effectiveness
• Ability to build and influence relationships with senior stakeholders and operational teams
• High level of integrity, sound professional judgement, and strong attention to detail

Benefits