Head of Assurance & External Reporting Handlesbanken Plc Nov 2020 – April 2025
Head of Assurance & External Reporting with Handlesbanken Plc, a leading Nordic bank with international operations providing a range of financial services including corporate banking, investment banking, trading and customer banking. Leading a team of 8 responsible for strategic leadership of the Assurance & External Reporting function to providing oversight of the organisations assurance framework and reporting to ensure transparency, integrity and compliance with internal controls and external regulations.
Key achievements
- Built the Assurance and External Reporting function from scratch recruiting specialist skills and resources remotely through the COVID pandemic. Successfully built the team to 8 FTE whilst ensuring that existing work was undertaken, and attestations were fully supported.
- Designed. developed and implemented the end-to-end process for delivering on both CHAPS and LINK annual submissions. Utilised the 3LOD of model and approach, successfully developed these to highlight clear lines of responsibility and timelines and introduce a clearly defined non-compliance process. These have since been rolled out across all reports within the team.
- Successfully introduced additional reporting and assessments within the team. Recruited specific resource to undertake new work enhancing the teams’ capabilities allowing seamless support for the annual SCA-RTS assessment and the ongoing CBILS loan reporting scheme.
- Built and facilitated high levels of collaboration both internally and externally. Developed excellent working relationships with Group, Risk and Audit stakeholders which resulted in more efficient reporting and enhanced sharing of information. Fostered relationships regulators such as PSR, FCA, BoE, HMRC, PAY.UK and CMA benefited from a proactive approach and communication resulting in a more interactive and collaborative relationship.
- Introduced regular reporting across the business using existing board reports and newly created weekly reports used during the submission processes enabling greater visibility of key risks and dependencies that could impact deadlines and submission quality.
- Instilled a Risk and reporting culture in the team resulting in dedicated RCSA’s and risk reporting through the relevant committees for all reports undertaken. Documented instructions and department guides were created to enhance governance and Risk Management across the function
Product Owner Handlesbanken Plc Dec 2014 – 2020
Product Owner for the CMA Banking Remedies and PSR regulations, Product Owner for the Current Account Switch Service playing a pivotal role in shaping the banks products and services to align with customer needs and regulatory requirements whilst maximising value for the bank.
Key achievements
- Created a plan and monitoring tool covering all the CMA remedies and PSR requirements proactively progressing the implementation of each required part across the bank. Working closely with Product, Data Quality, Technology and Compliance, successfully ensured that all required controls and processes were in place to ensure Handelsbanken Plc compliance within the prescribed deadline.
- Constantly strived to improve the product and associated processes to minimize risk and provide efficient outcomes for both customers and branch colleagues.
- Solely responsible for the development of CASS as a product, built and developed excellent relationships both internally and externally, ensuring the smooth delivery of CASS both within the bank and within the PAY.UK infrastructure.
- Responsible for the completion and submission of the annual CASS Code of Conduct, worked closely and effectively with Audit, Information Security, Risk and Operations to create a process and action plan that ensured an efficient, controlled and evidenced approach to delivering within the timescales.
- Managed and developed the relationship with both Pay.UK and Business Banking Remedies, the independent body set up by HM Treasury to manage the BBS Scheme.
- Represented Handelsbanken Plc at the Business Banking Association and the CMA and was an elected member of the CASS Executive Committee at Pay.UK.
Head of Implementation Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) UK June 2012 – Dec 2014
Head of Implementation with RBS, a leading provider of banking and insurance services to personal, business and commercial customers. Leading a team of 15 FTE responsible for managing the onboarding of new, high profile, complex business mandates in direct support of RBS UK’s income objectives across multiple product disciplines (Domestic Cash Management, Commercial Cards, Account Switching, International Partner Banks and Global Liquidity).
Key achievements
- Created and built a market leading implementation team, continually evolved the team to meet increased demand and changing market dynamics. Drove high levels of customer satisfaction and increased client advocacy of the RBS service, which in turn maximized the ability to win new business and resulted in the expansion of team capacity by 100% within 2 years.
- Provided leadership, motivation and created a collaborative culture within the team that produced creative and high-quality solutions ensuring that customer expectations and income objectives were consistently exceeded.
- Solely responsible for the delivery of implementation across RBS Transaction Services within the UK, maintaining high levels of visibility and engagement with stakeholders across RBS UK and the external payment schemes (CHAPS, BACS and SWIFT).
- Managed the end-to-end customer proposition and regularly provided effective management of high-profile external relationships to facilitate collaboration and achieve shared results. Built excellent relationships with many external schemes and regulators working closely with stakeholders such as BACS, CHAPS, WorldPay and Partner Banks around Europe.
