Job Description

An excellent opportunity has arisen for a Deputy COO to join us on a 12-month fixed term contract (maternity cover) in Mayfair, London.



This vacancy represents a great opportunity for a driven, highly organised, passionate and experienced leader to come on board. Reporting directly to the UK Chief Operating Officer, the role plays a critical leadership role in driving operational excellence, resilience and transformation across the UK business.



The role is accountable for overseeing and co-ordinating a spectrum of COO responsibilities spanning Operations, IT, General Services, Outsourcing, Operational Resilience, Information Security and Change management.



This role requires a candidate that can combine hands on operational management with strategic planning and execution. Serving as the COO delegate where needed and representing the COO function both internally and externally. The Deputy COO provides strategic direction, operational continuity and issue resolution whilst ensuring alignment with Group frameworks and regulatory expectations. This is a high impact role combining governance, delivery and senior stakeholder management to drive the COO agenda forward.

Duties / Responsibilities

Strategic and Operational Leadership

Act as Deputy to the COO, providing senior level oversight and judgement across all COO functions


Support the development and delivery of the UK COO strategy in alignment with Global and UK priorities Lead the planning, coordination and execution of strategic COO initiatives, ensuring delivery of agreed business outcomes, operational effectiveness, cost efficiency and risk management Champion cross functional collaboration across teams and represent the COO in senior management forums Provide challenge and insight to support prioritisation, resourcing and governance across COO activities. Maintain strong alignment across Operations, IT, General Services and Risk and Control teams.

Governance and Risk Oversight

Ensure robust governance structures and reporting mechanisms are in place across COO areas of responsibilities for Operational Resilience, Outsourcing and Third Parties, Information Security, Change Management. Coordinate preparation for key governance forums (eg Board, Manco, Risk committees) Oversee internal risk and control frameworks, ensuring compliance with key regulatory requirements. (PRA SS2/21 etc) Oversee operational risk and control reporting, identifying trends and driving remediation where required. Lead the COO contribution to internal and external audits, regulatory and risk reviews, ensuring the COO function meets all risk and control expectations. Provide oversight of UK Information Security governance framework, working with Group to ensure that cybersecurity risks, vulnerabilities and incidents and appropriately identified, assessed, escalated and remediated. Drive a proactive risk management culture across COO teams ensuring emerging risks are identified and mitigation plans are developed. Act as an escalation point, ensuring timely reporting to appropriate governance committees.

Business Management:

Assist the COO in running the COO function effectively by providing strategic and operational business management support across all areas (budgeting, forecasting, cost management, and resource planning) Produce management information, including performance dashboards, project updates and risk reporting for Manco and Board committees and regulatory bodies. Oversee the COO Office in delivering efficient day to day management priorities, including COO governance calendar management, action tracking and preparation of briefing materials. Lead COO cost management working with Finance to track budget performance and identify cost saving opportunities Coordinate COO contribution to the banks strategic business planning process. Manage COO Office communications, including preparation of internal COO updates, townhalls and Committee papers. Oversee secretariat support to COO chaired governance committees and meetings including agenda setting, MI collation, QA of materials, preparation and distribution of packs. Act as an escalation point within COO Office, unblocking issues or escalating further as required

General services Oversight

Provide leadership oversight of the UK Facilities infrastructure services provided by General Services, ensuring alignment with business needs and regulatory standards Collaborate closely be Group to ensure consistent service delivery and governance over premises, facilities, budget and vendor management activities.

Operational Resilience, Vendor Management and Outsourcing

Lead the UK operational resilience strategy to ensure the bank's important business services remain within impact tolerance limits during disruption scenarios. Oversee the delivery of key resilience activities, including mapping of important business services, impact tolerance setting and scenario testing. Maintain ownership of the Outsourcing and third-party framework for the COO, ensuring effective governance over third party providers and intra group service providers. Oversee third party risk management, ensuring vendor contracts, onboarding, and supplier monitoring review meet regulatory standards and business needs Lead on the execution and governance of operational resilience and crisis management testing (including scenario testing and lesson learned exercises) Oversee supplier risk management frameworks, focusing on third party risk assessments, due diligence, exit planning and service level monitoring. Drive ongoing improvements in the Bank's resilience through proactive identification of gaps and remediation activities.

PMO & Change Management

Lead the COO Project Management Office (PMO), overseeing the project portfolio to ensure alignment with business and regulatory priorities. Ensure change management standard is implemented across all strategic and major change initiatives, wherever business, regulatory or IT change driven Ensure project governance structures are robust and reporting to Board, Manco Committees is timely and accurate. Support project teams in identifying and managing risks and dependencies across projects Escalate key project risk, resourcing challenged or budget issues to the UK COO or Manco forums as needed. Coordinate the project prioritisation, the project tracking and change capacity demand Support ManCo in formally support/ approve new change initiative, their transition to a different project stage, the budgeting request and the tracking vs the baseline/timeplan defined Support STC organisation and track with PMs actions log and risk log, filtering and escalating key items to be reported to ManCo

Business Solutions and Data Management

Manage the PM/BA team to ensure that resources are directed in line with the Bank's strategy. Manage the COO Data team, ensuring that operational data requests from across the Bank are prioritised, delivered and governed effectively. Oversee development of dashboards and MI frameworks. Support the build-out of data quality controls and data lineage documentation within the COO Ensure COO data activities align with the Bank's broader data governance and regulatory frameworks. Allocate PM/BA and Data Analyst resources to prioritised Bank initiatives

Required knowledge, skills and experience:

Previous experience of preparing and monitoring budgets Ability to manage third party relationships including suppliers and contractors Exceptional written and oral communication skills Good organisation and time management skills Ability to research, digest, analyse and present material clearly and concisely Competent ability with Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint with the ability to use them effectively to deliver professional documents and reports and conduct analysis. Relevant professional experience Experience of working in a high-pressure environment, working to tight deadlines and displaying efficiency and effectiveness. The ability to work unsupervised, and willingness to work to deadlines to get the job done when required. Excellent written and verbal communication skills and the ability to interact with all levels of stakeholders Good time management skills Logical thinker with demonstrable problem-solving skills Strong planning skills; organised, self-motivated and able to work under pressure without close supervision. Excellent interpersonal & communication skills with demonstrable experience in working with a wide range of functions at all levels of the organisational chart

Required qualifications:

Degree qualified or equivalent record of professional development

Required competencies:

Attention to detail Self-motivated and able to work independently, taking ownership of responsibilities. As a strong team player, support colleagues in order to contribute to the day-to-day activities of the team. Organised; able to work under pressure to ensure that deadlines are met Excellent verbal and written communication skills Complete discretion concerning clients and Bank activities Self-motivated, with the ability to work well within a team Logical and analytical Persistence and resilience A personal orientation to getting things done and being actively involved in getting tasks finished, both through personal contribution and encouraging others A willingness and ability to travel for short periods, particularly to other EFG sites in the Midlands and the Channel Islands. Honesty and reliability

Our Benefits

At EFG, we tailor our benefits based on the needs of our employees and have purposely created an extensive benefits package that looks to support/enhance employee wellbeing in as many as aspects of life as possible. Below is a high-level summary of the fantastic benefits that we offer to our employees at EFG;


A highly competitive non-contributory pension contribution (with the option to contribute further via salary sacrifice) Enhanced annual leave entitlement Private Medical Cover Cash back membership Life Insurance Income protection Travel loans
A wide range of other benefits and opportunities for employees to take advantage of, such as Wellness Apps, Mortgage Brokering services, Insurance discounts, access to discount portals and much more.