Senior Business Analyst – Operational Readiness & Operating Model – Immediate Start
Location: London – Hybrid
Engagement Type: Permanent
Company: Albany Beck
Client Industry: Wealth Management
About Albany Beck
Albany Beck is a Management Consultancy focused on providing specialist talent and transformative solutions to Financial Services clients. We combine subject matter expertise with innovative delivery models that help clients scale efficiently, while offering meaningful, long-term career opportunities to our people. At Albany Beck, you’ll be choosing to work with an organisation that’s passionate about your learning journey and committed to your professional and personal development.
Role Overview
Albany Beck is seeking an experienced Senior Business Analyst to join a business-critical transformation programme within a leading UK Wealth Management organisation. This is an immediate requirement to support the operational readiness of a major programme pilot. The successful candidate will need to hit the ground running, working closely with business and programme stakeholders to rapidly understand existing processes, map current and future-state workflows, identify operational gaps and define the processes and operating model required to successfully launch the pilot. This is a highly hands-on delivery role. We are looking for someone who is comfortable working under significant time pressure, can quickly make sense of complex business processes and is capable of producing high-quality outputs at pace. The environment will be fast-moving and, at times, reactive, so the successful candidate will need to be pragmatic, adaptable and comfortable working within a business-critical programme where priorities can change quickly.
Key Responsibilities
- Support the delivery of operational readiness for a critical programme pilot within a seven-week delivery window.
- Rapidly understand existing business processes, operational requirements and dependencies.
- Lead detailed As-Is and To-Be process mapping and process flow development.
- Identify operational gaps, risks, dependencies and areas requiring intervention ahead of launch.
- Gather and document business and operational requirements.
- Translate complex processes into clear, practical documentation that can be used by operational teams.
- Work directly with SMEs to validate processes and resolve gaps quickly.
- Support the design and implementation of the future-state operating model.
- Conduct detailed gap analysis between current and required future-state operations.
- Define future processes, hand-offs, roles, responsibilities and ownership.
- Identify where new processes, controls or procedures are required.
- Support the development of practical solutions to address operational readiness gaps.
- Ensure proposed processes are workable and can be implemented within demanding programme timelines.
- Work closely with Programme, Change, Operations and Technology teams to ensure readiness for the pilot.
- Prioritise business-critical deliverables and drive them through to completion.
- Proactively identify blockers and escalate issues that could impact operational readiness.
- Respond quickly to emerging requirements as the programme moves towards launch.
- Support the pilot through implementation and help identify improvements required for subsequent phases.
Key Skills & Experience
- Strong experience as a Senior Business Analyst within Financial Services transformation programmes.
- Proven experience supporting operational readiness, operating model design and business transformation.
- Excellent As-Is / To-Be process mapping and process flow capability.
- Strong experience conducting detailed gap analysis.
- Ability to rapidly understand complex business processes and produce high-quality outputs.
- Experience gathering and documenting business and operational requirements.
- Strong workshop facilitation and stakeholder management skills.
- Experience working across Operations, Change, Technology and Programme teams.
- Comfortable operating independently with minimal supervision.
- Proven ability to deliver against aggressive deadlines within high-pressure programme environments.
- Strong written documentation and process design capability.
- Pragmatic, delivery-focused approach with the ability to prioritise what is critical to achieving operational readiness.
Desirable Experience
- Wealth Management or Private Banking experience.
- Experience supporting major operational or technology transformation programmes.
- Previous experience delivering business readiness for pilots, launches or phased implementations.
- Target Operating Model design and implementation experience.
- Experience developing operational procedures, controls or SOPs.
- Experience supporting programmes moving rapidly from design into implementation.
- Exposure to business-critical remediation or recovery programmes.
Personal Attributes
- Able to hit the ground running with minimal onboarding or supervision.
- Comfortable working under pressure and delivering at significant pace.
- Highly hands-on and willing to get into the detail.
- Strong bias towards action and getting deliverables completed.
- Able to quickly distinguish between critical requirements and lower-priority activity.
- Pragmatic rather than overly theoretical in approach.
- Confident challenging stakeholders and driving decisions where required.
- Comfortable operating within ambiguity and changing priorities.
- Resilient and calm within a high-pressure delivery environment.
- Strong communicator who can quickly build credibility with business SMEs and programme leadership.
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