Job Description

Purpose of the role

To enable the success of senior executives by helping navigate complex challenges, make informed decisions and deliver against their strategic objectives.

Accountabilities

• Strategic support to senior executives, such as the CEO or other top-level leaders including assistance in the development and execution of in year and multi-year business strategy, research, and analysis to support decision-making and act as delegate for the senior executive in specific situations.
• Management of Colleague engagement planning in line with the strategic direction, managing communication channels and ensuring effective coordination across different departments and teams.
• Management of key projects and strategic initiatives on behalf of senior executives, ensuring strategic projects are on track, monitoring of progress, and provision of regular updates to the executive team.
• Improvement of operational efficiency, alongside functional partners, within the organisation including the identification of areas for improvement, streamlining of processes, and implementation of consistently excellent best practices to enhance productivity and effectiveness.
• Development of performance reporting for key metrics that reinforce the strategic objectives of the division and support the external commitments made. Analyse and draw insight to drive performance. Involvement in aspects of financial analysis and budget management, including assistance in financial planning, forecasting, cost management and monitoring of financial performance against targets.
• Support to senior leadership to ensure appropriate resourcing across the business/function including planning and forecasting, partnering with HR to drive talent development and succession planning including the identification of high-potential employees, provision of mentorship and guidance, and support to leadership development and diversity initiatives.
• Support to the senior executive with risk and control oversight, escalation, crisis management and risk mitigation, support the development of contingency plans, coordination of responses to emergencies, and ensure business continuity.
• Implementation of a robust governance framework which supports the board of directors, executive forums and governance committees through the preparation of board materials, organisation of meetings, and ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

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.

The Head of Governance & Management System sits at the heart of the business, energising leadership focus, alignment and accountability. Supporting the CEO in preparing for leadership meetings so discussions are focused, high quality and outcome-driven. Accelerating decision making and delivery on priorities that matters most. Providing disciplined business oversight and control, supporting decision making and execution pace on behalf of the Chief of Staff and CEO. It acts as the central integrator across strategy, execution, governance, and internal & external stakeholder management. Ensuring that commitments are translated into clear decisions, delivered outcomes and tracked against OKRs. The office strengthens the management system and operating rhythm of the enterprise, raises the quality and sequencing of forums and data, and surfaces risks, dependencies, and trade-offs early. Through trusted authority, commercial judgement, and structured follow-through, the Chief of Staff Office enables the CEO and leadership team to operate proactively, consistently, and with confidence in a complex, high-change environment.

Purpose of the role

To enable CEO and leadership effectiveness by running a high‑quality CEO office and management system that brings clarity, structure, and pace to priorities, decisions, and follow‑through across the business.

Accountabilities

• Own the end-to-end CEO office operating model (ways of working, rhythms) and continuously improve it as the organisation scales.
• Run an optimised management system (calendar of forums, agenda standards, decision rights, information sequence) so it drives pace, clarity and accountability. Ensuring decisions are well informed, supported by options and recommendations and made on time.
• Lead the secretariat function for key leadership/board-level forums: agendas, papers quality control, minutes/decisions, action tracking, and audit trail.
• Establish and maintain a single source of truth for CEO/ELT decisions, actions, priorities and dependencies; ensure follow-through and escalation where required.
• Coordinate across functions to ensure risks, issues and decisions are surfaced early, triaged correctly, and resolved at the right level.
• Manage sensitive, high-trust CEO office matters with discretion, judgement and control discipline.
• Deliver a high-quality, service-led CEO office, providing senior leadership ready materials that enable the CEO and ELT to operate effectively and support the management of critical stakeholders.

Essential Skills/Basic Qualifications:

• Experience supporting Board and Board Committees (or equivalent regulated governance forums)
• Experience in payment acquiring, fintech, digital banking, or platform-led businesses
• Experience standing up a new office/PMO/governance function (operating model, roles, templates, playbooks)
• Familiarity with performance management and MI design (KPIs/OKRs, balanced scorecards, dashboards)
• Experience leading a small team and managing through influence across a matrix
• Significant experience running a senior executive office, secretariat, governance, or COO-style function in a complex organisation
• Strong capability operating management systems (forums, cadence, packs, action/decision tracking, escalation paths)
• Proven ability to produce and quality-control board/ExCo-ready papers, agendas, minutes and decision logs with high accuracy
• Outstanding organisation, prioritisation and follow-through including action discipline, risk/issue tracking
• Excellent stakeholder management with confidence operating with CEO/ELT-level counterparts; able to challenge appropriately
• High standards of judgement, confidentiality and discretion
• Strong written communication: crisp synthesis, clear narrative, decision-focused documents

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.