Director of Operations & Partnerships

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About Cleo

Most people come to Cleo to do work that matters. Every day, we empower people to build a life beyond their next paycheck, building a beloved AI that enables you to forge your own path toward financial well-being.

Backed by some of the most well-known investors in tech, we’ve reached millions of people to support them throughout their financial lives, from their first paycheck to their first home and beyond. We're hitting headlines too. This year, Forbes named us as one of their Next Billion Dollar Startups, and we were crowned the 'Hottest Tech Scaleup' at the Europas.

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Cleo builds a relationship with her customers that helps them transform their financial health, and gets them the products they need to save them money and reach their goals. As we scale, we’re bringing new features and products into the ecosystem at whiplash-inducing pace - across spending cards, credit score coaching services and beyond. To make this work at our global scale we’re looking for someone to oversee and manage all of Cleos’ growing Operations and Partnerships team. 

As the Director of Operations, you will be leading a large team and be instrumental in getting Cleo to the next phase. Your remit will include overseeing business operations, customer service, all partnerships, our banking products and banking operations, as well as our financial reporting and reconciliation.  

This role reports into the Chief Financial Officer. 

What you will be doing

• Leading: You will be responsible for leading the team that supports all of the operations at Cleo, including Partnerships, Operations, Banking Products, Customer Service and more. You will be responsible for setting the strategy for this team, maintaining OKRs and delivering business results. You will serve on the wider leadership team. 
• Operations Excellence: Working to elevate the visibility, performance, and importance of operations across the company, expanding current remit, and strengthening cross-functional relationships - including integration with product, engineering and more. 
• Partnerships: You will oversee the management of all the relationships with our external partners to serve complex financial products, lead on commercial negotiations, future product development and BAU partnership management. You will be responsible for ensuring we have the right partners, at the right cost to serve, enabling Cleo to continue to scale quickly and deliver best in class products. 
• Customer Service: Your team is responsible for the delivery of all customer service related activities, and you will be responsible for ensuring delivery of OKRs, scaling of a global team, and ensuring the best customer experience for our users. 
• Credit Card and Banking Operations: You will oversee all of the team responsible for operations behind banking products, including bank partner management, audits, testing, quality assurance, as well as traditional credit operations including disputes, complaint management, credit reporting and more. You will ensure that Cleo has the right set of banking partners required to operate our current and future product sets.
• Product ops:  Your team serves as the glue between the product, operations and compliance structure - you will oversee and help build out processes, success measures and executing on initiatives to operationalize Cleo’s operations, improve our systems and hit OKRs.

About you 

• You have worked within a financial technology company and/or have experience in the financial technology sector, 10+ years experience 
• You have led teams of 5+ people, and have experience managing across a horizontal business, and experience in leadership functions 
• You are in a senior leadership function, helping drive strategy and making clear business decisions
• You have overseen and participated in the management of partnerships, operations or with third party service providers 
• You have experience negotiating large scale contracts and overseen complex commercial evaluations 
• You have excellent project management skills, and have delivered large-scale projects across a cross-functional team. 
• You have worked closely with product, data and engineering teams. 
• You can demonstrate a sharp analytical mind, and the ability to identify root-cause issues
• You have the ability to distill complex issues into structured frameworks and action plans, and communicate them clearly across company disciplines
• You’re good at working from 0-1 on problems and can share examples of teams or operational processes and systems that you have led from idea to execution. 

Nice to haves

• You have worked at a VC-backed startup before, and have seen hyper-growth in action and have led a company from start up to scale up
• Comfortable producing and reviewing financial analysis or business operating models in Excel
• Experience in project management

What do you get for all your hard work?

• A competitive compensation package (base + equity) with reviews every 8 months. You can view our public progression framework and salary bandings here: https://cleo-ai.progressionapp.com/. This role is on a leadership track within BDP, and we can offer a salary range between £128,008 - £145,000 p.a., depending on experience.  
• Work at one of the fastest-growing tech startups, backed by top VC firms like Sofina, Balderton & EQT Ventures.
• A clear progression plan. We want you to keep growing. That means trying new things, leading others, challenging the status quo and owning your impact. Always with our complete support.
• Flexibility: We treat you as humans first, employees second. Because we can’t fight for the world’s financial health, if we’re not healthy ourselves. This means all the usual perks but it also means flexibility. We take pride in being a flexible workplace that trusts our Cleople to deliver their best work, giving you the autonomy to structure your day around morning drop-offs to school or daily dog walks.
• Hybrid-first: Join our hybrid-first team, where we blend the best of both remote and in-office work. We expect our team members to be in our London office 1-2 times a week. On Thursdays, we buy you lunch but you can come to the office on whichever days work best for you!
• Other benefits;
  • 25 days annual leave a year + public holidays (+ an additional day for every year you spend at Cleo)
  • Check out our new benefits package here: https://web.meetcleo.com/blog/big-benefits-energy-the-latest-cleo-employee-benefits
  • 6% employer-matched pension in the UK
  • Company-wide performance reviews every 8 months e.g every 2 terms, in line with our termly cycles (Jan-April, May-Aug, Sept-Dec):
    • Generous pay increases for high-performers and high-growth team members
    • Equity top-ups for team members getting promoted
  • Private Medical Insurance via Vitality, dental cover, and life assurance
  • Enhanced parental leave
  • 1 month paid sabbatical after 4 years at Cleo
  • Regular socials and activities, online and in-person
  • We'll pay for your OpenAI subscription
  • Online mental health support via Spill
  • And many more!