Operations Manager - Legal and Risk Management - Birmingham, Newcastle, Leeds

Background

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Within the professional services environment, the management of risk is fundamental to the successful delivery of our client services and promotion of our brand.  Our Risk Management team provides a second line of defence support encompassing the technical support and processes which enable and support the delivery of service quality, contain the threat of litigation, limit damage to our reputation and achieve full fee recovery. 

This role sits within the Central Risk Management (RM) group in the UK – a team of over 250 risk management specialists covering a range of topics including auditor independence, financial crime, data protection, security, health & safety and other risk areas.  RM works closely with the Legal team, other risk management specialists embedded in the Service Lines and client handlers.

This Operations Manager role reports into the Operations Senior Manager.  The role covers both the Central Risk Management team and the Legal team.

Responsibilities

• Ownership for monitoring and challenge of GDS spend across L&RM
• Oversight and management of the external training budgets for L&RM
• Ownership of securing accounts payable invoice coding, processing and approvals
• Ownership of discretionary spend expenditure preparation and approval submission
• Ownership of code engagement set-up, management and follow-up as required
• Ownership of key people related data and changes for L&RM via submission of Talent e-forms and regular updates of the ERM (Employee Relationship Management) Tool
• Ownership of Risk Management team day planning, oversight and co-ordination
• Management of the Risk Management and Legal Comms calendar
• Oversight for analysing and reporting on the Global People Pulse surveys (Risk Management only)
• Organisation and coordination of the Counsellor Connect Group meetings twice a year (Risk Management only)
• Draft preparation of operational and budgetary summary PowerPoint slides for Risk Management Partner & Director meetings and Team days
• Support the preparation of the annual budgets, half-year reforecasts and any other required reforecast or Most Likely Outcome (MLO) analysis for Legal and Risk Management (L&RM)
• Support the ongoing monthly budget monitoring, trend and variance analysis for L&RM
• Support with monitoring, oversight and approvals for new hires from Talent up to and including managers
• Working with the Comms team, devising and leading comms campaigns as needed
• Support with ad hoc projects as needed
• Responding to ad hoc queries

Personal attributes

• Confident, proactive attitude and positive mindset, high degree of emotional intelligence, and demonstrated aptitude for resilience, flexibility, and ability to adapt to changing circumstances and dynamics
• Self-starter capable of working using own initiative
• Ability to lead, take responsibility and deliver
• Thirst to learn and develop
• Strong personal communication skills, capable of dealing with wide a range of people including Senior Leadership and Directors
• Ability to establish a high degree of credibility, respect and trust at all levels, including with senior leadership of the firm and within Legal & Risk Management
• Excellent team working skills including the ability to build excellent working relationships with both Finance and Talent
• Highly effective planning and organisational skills to prioritise key areas of responsibility, tasks and projects
• Ability to work to pre-determined deadlines, multi-task and meet objectives under pressure
• Ability to develop an understanding of Risk Management functions and the relevant challenges and priorities of each area
• Commercial awareness of the issues facing the business, risk management, and the ability to deal with problems in a practical and common-sense way.
• Operational and/or finance experience to a manager level looking for promotion over an 18-month period to Senior Manager: experience of creating and managing budgets, people matters, operational efficiencies, events and comms
• Strong Excel and PowerPoint skills
• A relevant accounting qualification would be an asset
• Knowledge of EY, CBS or Finance would be an asset