Commercial Office Chief Operating Officer

Glasgow, United Kingdom; London, United Kingdom

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Date live: 22/04/2026

Business Area: Private Bank Processing

Area of Expertise: Change

Reference Code: JR-0000101018

Contract: Permanent

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Join us at Barclays as a Commercial Office Chief Operating Officer (COO). In this role you will be responsible for ensuring the Product and Commercial Chief Operating Officer (COO) Teams achieve their goals and objectives to deliver the Commercial Office Strategy for Private Bank. You will act as a conduit into Operations and Technology and coordinate activity across all impacted pillars and functions. Focus will be the Commercial Office to ensure the strategy can be delivered alongside the banks policies, standards, and external regulation.

To be successful as Commercial Office COO, you should have:

Experience in Private Banking, Wealth Management.
Strong stakeholder management and influence across Business and COO and act as an enabler of strategy.
Ability to balance commercial, client and regulatory needs and requirements of a multi-geographic organisation.
Strong analytical skills, with the ability to review, digest and challenge complex processes, structural and system related information.

Some other highly valued skills/experience include:

Proactive, self-starting mindset.
Solid understand of governance frameworks, policies and operational control environment.
Change and transformation exposure to global programmes.

You may be assessed on the key critical skills relevant for success in role, such as risk and controls, change and transformation, business acumen strategic thinking and digital and technology, as well as job-specific technical skills.

This role can be based in Glasgow or London.

Purpose of the role

To support the organisation, achieve its strategic objectives by ensuring the business is ready to receive the agreed change (address business problems and opportunities), ensuring that change initiatives are successfully assessed and implemented to enable them to be embedded in the organisation. 

Accountabilities

Identification and analysis of business impact and opportunities that require change within the organisation.
Development of business readiness strategies that will help to ensure the successful implementation of change initiatives.
Communication with stakeholders, including senior management, project teams, and external partners, to ensure that they are informed about change initiatives and that their needs and expectations are being met.
Collaboration with Client Readiness, Operational Readiness & Tech Delivery to ensure business, sales, operations, client servicing and functional partners are prepared for a smooth transition of technology delivery into BAU (including Target Operating Model, Training, Communications, Service Agreements.) .
Management of resistance to change, ensuring that stakeholders are engaged and that their concerns are addressed.
Review of business readiness plans and status reports in conjunction with change delivery managers to ensure business readiness activities completed on time including newly identified risks, issues and dependencies.
Collaboration with project teams to ensure that change initiatives are aligned with project objectives and that change management activities are integrated into project plans.
Provision of guidance and support to business stakeholders, ensuring that they have the necessary skills and knowledge to implement change initiatives successfully.

Vice President Expectations

To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..
If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..
If the position has leadership responsibilities, People 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..
OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

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.

More about working at Barclays

Barclays offices across the UK are designed to be places where our people can come together to do their best work, surrounded by excellent facilities for both work and leisure. These are warm, diverse, supportive communities in some of the UK’s best locations, where everyone can thrive.

Our approach to hybrid working ensures there’s the right balance of working alongside colleagues at our onsite locations, as required for each role. For business areas that offer a hybrid working experience, this will be in a structured way, where colleagues work at an onsite location on fixed, ‘anchor’, days of the week. Some roles may require full onsite working. Please discuss the working pattern requirements for the role you are applying for with the hiring manager.

We continue to embed and review our hybrid working environment and remain in a phase of testing and learning. This means that working arrangements could change, with reasonable notice, to align with the needs of our business.

Barclays welcomes applications from all candidates and is committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments (accommodations) are put in place to allow for a fair and inclusive recruitment process. For more information and how to request one, please review Adjustments to the recruitment process.

We’re committed to providing an inclusive culture and environment, that recognises and supports ways to balance your personal needs, alongside the professional needs of our business. Providing the opportunity for all our employees globally to work flexibly empowers each of us to work in a way that suits our lives, as well as enabling us to better service our customers’ and clients’ needs.

Our approach to working flexibly is designed to support you to balance your life and to accommodate diverse needs, whilst still allowing us to meet our business needs. If you’d like to request a flexible working arrangement, please discuss this with your hiring manager.

We're committed to providing a supportive and simplified experience for our candidates throughout the application and assessment process. Here, you will find information about what to expect and some guidance around your assessment and interview.

While the application process depends on the role, there are some constant steps, which are;

Step 1 - Your application
Step 2 - Your assessment
Step 3 - Your interview
Step 4 - Next steps

We aim to create an inclusive work environment where everyone can reach their full potential. If you require any adjustments to our recruitment process, please click here to learn more.

Find out more information here.

Barclays offers a diverse, inclusive and engaged culture. A place where people can bring their whole selves to work and be respected for who they are, valued for what they do and celebrated for their contribution to our business and our community.
We are an equal opportunity employer and opposed to discrimination on any grounds. It is the policy of Barclays to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, colour, creed, religion, national origin, alienage or citizenship status, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or domestic/civil partnership status, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by law.

Barclays is required by law to confirm that you have the Legal Right to Work in any role that you apply for. If you currently hold a work visa sponsored by Barclays, or you would require sponsorship from Barclays, you must declare this as part of your application. Sponsored visas are role and entity specific and any changes must be reviewed. It is important that you ensure you are working on the correct visa at all times. Failure to accurately disclose your visa status or Legal Right to Work may result in your application or any employment offer being withdrawn at any time.

The Barclays Way

This is the spirit of Barclays. It’s why we exist, what we believe and how we behave. But most importantly, it’s how we make decisions, take action and get things done.

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