Head of Partnerships

Hello, we’re Starling. We built a new kind of bank because we knew technology had the power to help people save, spend and manage their money in a new and transformative way. We’re a fully licensed UK bank with the culture and spirit of a fast-moving, disruptive tech company. We’re a bank, but better: fairer, easier to use and designed to demystify money for everyone. We employ more than 3,500 people across our London, Southampton, Cardiff and Manchester offices.

This is an exciting opportunity to join Starling’s Customer and Banking team to help manage our key partner and supplier relationships.

Reporting to the MD Payments, Cards and FX, as our Head of Partnerships, you will cover two important activities - firstly, act as our point of business development, exploring and triaging new partnership opportunities. Secondly, manage our existing suppliers; card schemes, payment providers and credit bureaus, working alongside the existing SMEs within the business.

Key Responsibilities Include:

Business Development

• Work with the Procurement team and key SMEs within the Bank to define our partnership strategy, outlining areas of interest and developing an inbound and outbound watching brief
• Identify and triage relevant partnership opportunities for the Retail Bank, Business Bank and Starling Banking Services (SBS)
• Work with procurement to onboard key suppliers and partners, leading on pricing and contractual discussions

Managing key suppliers

• Working alongside the Procurement team, lead on complex supplier negotiations and ongoing contractual discussions
• Manage existing partnerships with discipline, covering contractual renewal, meeting cadence, financial reporting and other key SRM responsibilities
• Ensure the Bank has continuity of service from a contractual standpoint
• Manage supplier performance to ensure commercial outcomes and service levels are continuously met
• Own partner budgeting and forecasting; ensure spend is managed to budgets
• In particular, manage complex payment scheme relationships and invoicing / fees / interchange / incentives

Requirements

Key experience and competencies

• Partnership evaluation
• Building longstanding relationships with suppliers
• Commercial mindset to fairly challenge and address contractual issues
• Managing large complex contracts and suppliers, especially payment related partners
• Negotiating new contractual terms
• Proactive and self-motivated - at this stage this is an individual contributor
• Ideally, familiarity with managing card schemes from an issuer perspective
• Hands-on, resilient and adaptable to a fast moving environments
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills
• Consistently act with the highest ethical standards, ensuring decisions are always in the best interest of our customers, colleagues, and the bank. Lead by example, fostering a culture of trust and transparency across all levels.

Benefits

• 25 days holiday (plus take your public holiday allowance whenever works best for you)
• An extra day’s holiday for your birthday
• Annual leave is increased with length of service, and you can choose to buy or sell up to five extra days off
• 16 hours paid volunteering time a year
• Salary sacrifice, company enhanced pension scheme
• Life insurance at 4x your salary & group income protection
• Private Medical Insurance with VitalityHealth including mental health support and cancer care. Partner benefits include discounts with Waitrose, Mr&Mrs Smith and Peloton
• Generous family-friendly policies
• Incentives refer a friend scheme
• Perkbox membership giving access to retail discounts, a wellness platform for physical and mental health, and weekly free and boosted perks
• Access to initiatives like Cycle to Work, Salary Sacrificed Gym partnerships and Electric Vehicle (EV) leasing

About us:

You may be put off applying for a role because you don't tick every box. Forget that! While we can’t accommodate every flexible working request, we're always open to discussion. So, if you're excited about working with us, but aren’t sure if you're 100% there yet, get in touch anyway.We’re on a mission to radically reshape banking – and that starts with our brilliant team. Whatever came before, we’re proud to bring together people of all backgrounds and experiences who love working together to solve problems.

Starling Bank is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster diversity & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment at Starling Bank are considered without regard to race, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. When you provide us with this information, you are doing so at your own consent, with full knowledge that we will process this personal data in accordance with our Privacy Notice. By submitting your application, you agree that Starling Bank will collect your personal data for recruiting and related purposes. Our Privacy Notice explains what personal information we will process, where we will process your personal information, its purposes for processing your personal information, and the rights you can exercise over our use of your personal information.