Strategy & External Engagement Lead

Barclays; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Barclays UK is seeking a Strategy & External Engagement Lead to shape customer strategy across the business. The role focuses on driving strategic thinking, supporting external engagement with regulators, consumer groups, and charities, and preparing board-level materials.

You will work with senior leaders, translate strategic objectives into clear plans, and develop content for external forums and roundtables, contributing to the bank's commercial realization and customer outcomes.

Qualifications

• Proven experience in strategy roles within financial services, with expertise in customer, proposition, or engagement strategy.
• Ability to translate strategic objectives into concrete plans, measurable outcomes and change.
• Good understanding of proposition design and customer engagement to improve outcomes.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills for senior executives and leadership audiences.
• Exceptional stakeholder management with credibility to engage internal and external partners.
• Experience in customer lifecycle management is highly valued.

Responsibilities

• Translate Barclays' strategic objectives into concrete action plans for specific business units.
• Develop detailed implementation roadmaps with timelines, resources and performance metrics.
• Develop and implement robust commercial models for new initiatives and ventures.
• Identify and analyze risks and opportunities to inform strategic decisions.
• Implement change management strategies to facilitate adoption of new initiatives.

Skills

Strategy in financial services

Stakeholder management

Executive presentation

External engagement

Proposition design

Customer engagement

Job description

Join us as a Strategy & External Engagement Lead within Barclays UK Customer Lifecycle Management and help shape the future of how we engage with our customers. This is a high-profile role focused on driving strategic thinking, supporting external engagement, and bringing our customer strategy to life across the business. You'll develop executive and board-level materials, prepare content for external forums, roundtables and industry engagement opportunities, and help define the next phase of our strategic direction. Working closely with senior leaders, including Managing Directors and Directors, as well as external stakeholders such as regulators, consumer groups and charities, you'll play a key role in communicating a compelling narrative both internally and externally.

To be successful as a Strategy & External Engagement Lead, you must have the following essential skills:

• Proven experience in strategy roles within financial services, with expertise in customer, proposition, or engagement strategy.
• Demonstrated ability to execute and deliver strategy, translating strategic objectives into clear plans, measurable outcomes, and successful business change.
• Good understanding of proposition design and customer engagement, with the ability to develop solutions that improve customer outcomes and build financial confidence through tools and education.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with experience creating compelling content and delivering impactful presentations to senior executives and leadership audiences.
• Exceptional stakeholder management skills, with the credibility and influence to build effective relationships across senior internal stakeholders and external partners.

Some Other Highly Valued Skills May Include

• Experience of customer lifecycle management.

This role will be based in London or Northampton.

Purpose of the role

To drive the successful implementation and commercial realization of the bank's strategic goals, ensuring alignment with market trends and delivering sustained financial performance.

Accountabilities

• Understanding and interpretation of the bank's overall strategic objectives and translate them into concrete action plans for specific business units and functions.
• Development of detailed implementation roadmaps, outlining key initiatives, timelines, resource allocation, and performance metrics.
• Development and implementation of robust commercial models for new initiatives and ventures, ensuring financial viability and profitability.
• Identification and analysis of potential risks and opportunities, providing insights and recommendations for strategic decision-making.
• Development and implementation of effective change management strategies to facilitate the adoption of new initiatives and processes.

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 escalations breaches of policies/procedures..
• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counseling 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.