Operations & Business Support Manager - OFSTED Regulated Children's Homes at IHEC Group Ltd (2025-11 – Present)
I provide group-wide operational leadership, compliance and business support across multiple children's residential homes ensuring high standards of governance, safeguarding and operational performance.
- Provide operational oversight and support to Registered Managers
- Support mobilisation, turnaround and stabilisation of services
- Coordinate recruitment activity and workforce planning
- Oversee training coordination and compliance tracking
- Liaise with central HR, IT, placements, maintenance, and finance functions
- Support Ofsted inspections and action plans
- Monitor KPI's and escalate operational or safeguarding risks
- Ensure implementation of governance frameworks
- Promote a strong safeguarding culture
- Act as an escalation point for operational incidents
Consultant at IHEC Group Ltd (2025-08 – 2025-10)
Business Manager/HR Manager - OFSTED Regulated Children's Homes at GBA Care (2022-01 – Present)
Responsible for the day to day running of an Ofsted Regulated children's homes business from our Head Office site ensuring that a safe and nurturing environment is provided to the children in our care whilst providing leadership and management support to a group of 8 registered children's home managers.
- Promote and actively encourage the delivery of a safe, structured and nurturing environment by ensuring compliance and regulations are met, such as safeguarding, whistleblowing processes, Health & Safety, Riddor, liability insurances along with acting as appointed Data Controller for GDPR compliance.
- Ensure all employees are aware of their responsibilities in relation to adherence of policies and regulations by keeping up to date with changes within legislations and implementing or reviewing company policies and procedures.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for any business support needs including all site utilities, suppliers & business memberships such as ICO and ICHA.
- Support home managers and deputies with all aspects of leadership and management by developing training and supervision matrixes to monitor performance, actively encourage personal growth and address employee development needs.
- Help to create and implement new systems, procedures, and strategies to improve efficiency and productivity.
- Created and promoted company values across the business to drive inclusion and employee wellbeing ensuring a healthy business culture.
- Process monthly employee Payroll and Nest pension contributions. Along with weekly processing of invoices & ad hoc bills/payments.
- Responsible for internal functions of HR in line with our HR Partner including annual leave, sickness, employee contracts, grievances, disciplinaries, mediation and union point of contact.
- Manage all aspects of Recruitment - adverts, applications & interviews.
- Ensure the safer recruitment process is accurately followed and recorded.
- Manage the DBS system ensuring all DBS are up to date for all GBA Care staff members.
Investigation Specialist/Senior Investigation Specialist at Covea Insurance (formally known as Provident Insurance) (2013-09 – 2021-12)
Assisted and lead a team to prevent Fraud within the Insurance industry and deliver the Financial Crime strategy through the handling and investigation of suspected fraudulent policies. During my time in this role, I was nominated for the "Initiative of the year" award and promoted to a Senior Fraud Investigation Specialist:
- Acted as a referral point to my team members and assisted them with complex investigations.
- Built and maintained strong relationships with key external parties which improved processes and communication by visiting them on a monthly basis.
- Ran monthly MI for external parties and team members to enable performance feedback and ensure individuals are on target to meet their year-end objectives. Updated management on MI and general relations within the team
- Completed monthly audits on both team members and external parties to ensure they are adhered to company values.
- Recognised and celebrated successes within the team, praising where necessary to encourage the development of others.
- Openly listened to employees and to resolve and staff issues in a timely manner.
- Organised incoming work and distributed this across the team whilst considering capacity and time scales.
- Assisted in the development of internal fraud systems provided ideas and suggestions to improve and evolve processes.
- Handled complex complaints and ensuring the best possible outcome was reached.
Customer Service Advisor/Senior Customer Service Advisor at Provident Insurance (2008-01 – 2013-09)
This role required excellent customer service skills along with attention to detail and tenacity to provide accurate data. During my time in this role, I was nominated for the "Customer Service Advisor" of the year award and promoted to a Senior Customer Service Advisor.
- Provided underwriting knowledge and logic on daily and built relationships with brokers using a right first-time approach.
- Handled complaint calls ensuring the customer has a positive and fair customer journey.
- Supported the monitoring of performance, delegated work and ran backlog reports which ensure the team ran smoothly and that targets met.
- Set up Direct Debit policies using my finance knowledge and assisted with any Direct Debit queries within the team including the issuing and authorisation of outgoing payments.
- Direct Debit cheque batching and chasing any missing payments.
- Demonstrated good listening skills whilst helping new starters within the department and being their point of referral.
- Provided an honest and straight forward attitude to ensure I provided the customer with expectations that can be met.
Accounts Assistant at Provident Insurance (2004-08 – 2008-01)
In my first role with Provident Insurance, I worked in the Finance department. This role required me to demonstrate initiative by prioritising work in order of importance, and it required excellent attention to detail in balancing company cashbooks at month end. Collaborated with other departments and built relationships within the company along with external suppliers and banking agents.
