Manager, Chief Operating Office – Germany, Netherlands, Sweden & Luxembourg

We are seeking a Manager to support the Chief Operating Office of Barclays Europe across Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Luxembourg - owning key country management, risk, and control forums, and driving the delivery of strategic COO initiatives across Investment Banking, Global Markets, and Corporate Banking. This high-impact role offers a rare opportunity to operate at the heart of the Chief Operating Office—gaining unparalleled insight into how the bank functions end-to-end while collaborating with a diverse range of teams across geographies, business lines, and control functions.

Key Responsibilities:

Governance Ownership – Germany

• Serve as Deputy Chair and Secretariat for the BE Germany Risk and Controls Forum, operating across all businesses and functions to oversee the effectiveness of the control environment across Operational, Reputational, Compliance, and Financial Crime Risk, as well as the service performance of internally outsourced services.
• Operate and serve as Secretariat for the BE Germany Country Management Forum, specifically for Colleague, Regulatory, Controls, and Compliance-focused sessions.
• Prepare meeting materials and take minutes for both the Country Management and Risk and Controls Forums, ensuring actions are tracked and completed.

Branch COO Support – Netherlands, Sweden, Luxembourg

• Serve as the COO’s empowered representative for the Netherlands, Sweden, and Luxembourg branches—supporting Country CEOs and Heads of Investment and Corporate Banking in delivering effective governance, resolving issues, and overseeing engagement with local regulators.
• Operate the Country Management Forum governance structures, ensuring alignment with Barclays Europe standards and escalation of key issues.
• Prepare meeting materials and take minutes for both the Country Management Forums, ensuring actions are tracked and completed.

Delegate of the COO

• Act as a trusted delegate of the Chief Operating Officer, representing the COO’s perspective across governance forums, regulatory interactions, and strategic initiatives—ensuring continuity, alignment, and effective execution across multiple jurisdictions.
• Direct and coordinate local functions and internally outsourced service providers to deliver seamless front-to-back support for Investment Banking businesses.

Resilience and Crisis Management

• Support the COO as Crisis Leader for the Germany Crisis Leadership Team, playing a key role in country-level crisis response and resilience planning.

Strategic Project Delivery

• Collaborate with global project teams and local stakeholders to ensure country-specific requirements are addressed in the delivery of strategic initiatives, including operational process changes, implementation of new platforms (e.g. Coupa Procurement), regulatory projects (e.g. SEAR), real estate initiatives, and employee-related programs.

Regulatory and Audit Engagement

• Act as liaison with internal and external auditors and regulators, supporting audit readiness and regulatory engagement across the region.

Essential Skills  & Qualifications

• Degree in Finance, Business Management or equivalent professional Audit or other relevant Risk related qualification.
• Good working knowledge of enterprise and operational risk management frameworks, control processes and practices.
• Proven experience and application of risk management policies and detailed knowledge of current risk policies and regulatory change impacting the financial sector.
• Demonstrable experience of control focus including a track record of enhancing the control environment in previous roles.
• Proven Stakeholder Management skills in collaborating, influencing, and negotiating.
• Highly motivated, business-focused, and forward thinking.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with strong reporting and presentation abilities.
• Strong time management and organisational skills.
• Strong Microsoft Excel, Word, Outlook, PowerPoint, Copilot/AI skills.

This role is based in Frankfurt.

Purpose of the role

To provide operating and administrative support to senior leaders, simultaneously shaping and executing long-term strategic change, whilst helping to navigate complex challenges in the performance of their roles.

Accountabilities

• Implementation of Target Operating Model, business development, and financial and non-financial resource allocation, providing strategic insight and thought leadership.
• Strategic support to and oversight of demand pipeline and the book of work, including assistance in the development and execution of strategic initiatives, projects, research, and analysis to support decision-making.
• Support to and guidance for operational efficiency and colleague/customer/client experience within the organisation, including the identification of areas for improvement, streamlining of processes, and implementation of best practices to enhance productivity, effectiveness and experience.
• Management of of people plan, talent development and succession planning including the identification of high-potential employees, provision of mentorship and guidance, and support to leadership development and diversity initiatives.
• Communication with internal and external stakeholders, management of communication channels and ensuring effective coordination across different departments and teams.
• Participation in compliance activities such as SMR and other regulatory registrations/certifications, as well as support for crisis management and risk mitigation, including the development of contingency plans, coordination of responses to emergencies, and business continuity.
• Management of all organisational/team requirements relating to technology, real estate, people and communications in conjunction with relevant partners across the firm.
• Enablement of oversight of risk management and compliance with internal and external requirements, including internal Governance on critical control activities in partnership with the CCO team, such as Records Inventory and RCSAs.
• Cost control and workforce management of the Business/Function, including involvement in financial analysis and planning, forecasting, and monitoring of financial performance against targets.

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.