Head of Procurement - BPL

Barclays Payments (BPL) is a leading global payments business, helping consumers, merchants, corporates and financial institutions move money securely and efficiently. Through innovative payment solutions, partnerships and technology, we support millions of customers and businesses globally. At Barclays, our vision is to be the UK's most respected financial services organisation, delivering growth through client focus, innovation, operational excellence and disciplined risk management. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where colleagues can thrive, develop and make a meaningful impact.

Overall Purpose of Role

We are seeking a strategic and commercially focused Director of Procurement & Third-Party Risk Management to lead procurement strategy, supplier governance and third-party risk oversight across Barclays Payments Limited (BPL).

The role will be responsible for driving value through strategic sourcing, commercial negotiations and supplier performance management while ensuring regulatory compliance, operational resilience and effective third-party risk governance. The successful candidate will partner closely with senior leaders across Technology, Operations, Finance, Risk, Legal and Product functions to ensure supplier ecosystems support business growth, innovation and regulatory expectations.

This is a highly visible leadership role requiring strong commercial acumen, strategic thinking and the ability to influence senior stakeholders across a complex, regulated environment.

Key Accountabilities

Strategic Procurement Leadership

• Develop and execute BPL's procurement strategy aligned to business objectives, growth ambitions and enterprise standards.

• Lead strategic sourcing initiatives across all categories including technology, digital, cloud infrastructure, software, data services and professional services.

• Deliver sustainable commercial value through effective supplier selection, contract optimisation and cost management.

• Provide thought leadership on market trends, supplier innovation and emerging technologies.

• Shape and enable the separation of the BPL supply chain from Barclays and ensure appropriate TSAs in place working with the business and Barclays core Procurement team

• Lead the design and and implementation of end to end procurement and third party risk management systems within the BPL organisation, ensuring compliance and speed of execution

Commercial Negotiation & Supplier Management

• Lead complex commercial negotiations with strategic and critical suppliers.

• Establish and maintain executive-level supplier relationships.

• Drive supplier performance through robust governance, KPIs and service management frameworks.

• Identify opportunities for supplier consolidation, optimisation and innovation.

Third-Party Risk Management

• Own and enhance the BPL Third-Party Risk Management framework in accordance with Barclays policies and applicable regulatory requirements.

• Ensure appropriate supplier due diligence, risk assessments, onboarding and ongoing monitoring activities are completed.

• Provide oversight of supplier risk exposure, concentration risk and emerging third-party risks.

• Lead supplier governance activities supporting Operational Resilience, Outsourcing and Critical Third Parties requirements.

Regulatory & Governance Oversight

• Partner with Compliance, Legal, Operational Risk and Technology Risk teams to ensure adherence to regulatory expectations.

• Support internal and external audits, regulatory reviews and risk assessments.

• Ensure third-party arrangements and BPL processes comply with FCA, PRA, CBI, PCI-DSS and relevant regulatory requirements.

• Prepare executive and Board-level reporting on procurement performance, outsourcing oversight, supplier risks and mitigation activities.

Stakeholder Management & Leadership

• Act as a trusted adviser to Executive Committee members and senior stakeholders as the commercial conscious of BPL’s supplier costs and overall supply chain risk

• Influence strategic decision-making through commercial insight and risk-based recommendations.

• Build strong partnerships across Technology, Operations, Product, Finance, Risk and Control Functions.

• Lead cross-functional initiatives to improve procurement efficiency and supplier governance effectiveness.

• Build a high performing, commercial, lean and execution focussed procurement organisation to enable BPL to compete, innovate and comply with regulations

Operational Resilience & Supplier Continuity

• Identify and manage supplier concentration risk and critical service dependencies.

• Partnering with technology, operations, risk, ensure robust contingency, exit and recovery strategies are in place for critical suppliers.

• Support enterprise resilience and business continuity objectives through effective supplier oversight.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Significant experience leading Procurement, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management or Third-Party Risk Management functions within E- Payments, Payment Acquiring, FinTech or SaaS environments.

• Knowledge of Payments, Merchant Acquiring, Issuing or FinTech ecosystems.

• Professional Procurement qualification (MCIPS or equivalent).

• Experience with cloud, SaaS and technology procurement.

• Understanding of FCA, PRA and UK operational resilience regulations.

• Experience leading transformation, automation or procurement digitisation programmes.

• Demonstrable experience operating in a highly regulated environment.

• Strong commercial negotiation skills across complex technology and strategic supplier contracts.

• Experience developing and enhancing Third-Party Risk Management, supplier governance frameworks and underlying processes.

• Deep understanding of operational resilience, outsourcing and third-party risk management requirements.

• Strong financial and analytical capability, including business case development, TCO and value realisation analysis.

• Excellent stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence and challenge at Executive and Director level.

• Experience presenting to governance committees and senior leadership forums.

• The suitable candidate needs to be based in the UK already and be able to work in London or Northampton.

• This role is intended for candidates who are already operating at Director level.

Leadership Expectations

As a Director within Barclays Payments, you will:

• Demonstrate enterprise leadership and strategic thinking.

• Create an inclusive and high-performance culture.

• Lead through change and ambiguity.

• Drive innovation while maintaining a strong risk and control mindset.

• Inspire and develop colleagues to achieve outstanding outcomes.

• Represent Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship.

Barclays Values

Everything we do is shaped by our Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship, alongside our Mindset to Empower, Challenge

Barclays’ payments acceptance business provides critical infrastructure to the UK economy, processing billions of pounds of payments annually for both small businesses and domestic and international corporate clients.

In April 2025, we announced a long-term partnership with Brookfield Asset Management to grow and transform the payments acceptance business by broadening the range of services offered, enhancing the experience for both existing and prospective clients. Leveraging extensive client relationships and deep experience of UK payments, we will create an environment of continuous innovation - activated by Brookfield’s global private equity expertise in payments, technology, operational transformation and corporate carve-outs - to ensure the business is strategically positioned for long-term growth.

Barclays will invest approximately £400m in the new business, the majority of which will be incurred during the first three years. Performance-linked incentives will drive greater alignment between the partners, underpinning the long-term commitment to the transformation. Barclays and Brookfield will work to create a standalone entity over time, continuing to use the Barclaycard Payments (BPL) brand and acting as the sole payments acceptance services provider to Barclays’ clients for a minimum of ten years. 

For more information on our partnership with Brookfield, please visit Barclays.com.

Purpose of the role

To monitor existing Barclays supplier relationships and operations to mitigate risk to the Bank and our customers.

Accountabilities

• Management of existing Barclays suppliers relationships by developing Management Information (MI) that meets the needs of the bank and complies with quality and control standards.
• Development of service level agreements to guide service delivery aligned to time efficiency and support the monitoring of service performance.
• Collaboration with various stakeholder groups to align services to the clients’ needs and the banks objectives.
• Development and execution of service improvement initiatives that improve service efficiency and competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Director Expectations

• To manage a business function, providing significant input to function wide strategic initiatives. Contribute to and influence policy and procedures for the function and plan, manage and consult on multiple complex and critical strategic projects, which may be business wide..
• They manage the direction of a large team or sub-function, leading other people managers and embedding a performance culture aligned to the values of the business. Or for an individual contributor, they lead organisation wide projects and act as deep technical expert and thought leader, identifying new ways of working and collaborating cross functionally. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Provide expert advice to senior functional management and committees to influence decisions made outside of own function, offering significant input to function wide strategic initiatives.
• Manage, coordinate and enable resourcing, budgeting and policy creation for a significant sub-function.
• Escalates breaches of policies / procedure appropriately.
• Foster and guide compliance, ensure regulations are observed that relevant processes in place to facilitate adherence.
• Focus on the external environment, regulators, or advocacy groups to both monitor and influence on behalf of Barclays, when appropriate.
• Demonstrate extensive knowledge of how the function integrates with the business division / Group to achieve the overall business objectives.
• Maintain broad and comprehensive knowledge of industry theories and practices within own discipline alongside up-to-date relevant sector / functional knowledge, and insight into external market developments / initiatives.
• Use interpretative thinking and advanced analytical skills to solve problems and design solutions in often complex/ sensitive situations.
• Exercise management authority to make significant decisions and certain strategic decisions or recommendations within own area.
• Negotiate with and influence stakeholders at a senior level both internally and externally.
• Act as principal contact point for key clients and counterparts in other functions/ businesses divisions.
• Mandated as a spokesperson for the function and business division.

All Senior 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.

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.