Distribution Operating Model & Lead

Overview

The Distribution Operating Model & Roles Lead is accountable for defining, activating, and sustaining how work gets done across Citizens’ branch‑centric distribution ecosystem. This role owns the end‑to‑end operating model and role architecture that translate Citizens’ distribution strategy and cultural ambition into clear roles, decision rights, workflows, staffing models, and branch routines that scale.

Serving as the enterprise owner of the Distribution Operating Model, this leader ensures that the future‑state branch vision is executable in practice - grounded in real branch operations, capacity constraints, and risk requirements - while enabling advisory‑led growth and ecosystem coordination across branches, contact centers, digital, wealth, business banking, and enabling functions.

This role is the single point of accountability for operating model and role design outcomes, with a broad set of pillar leads, SMEs, and consultants supporting execution. Serve as the primary enterprise counterpart and design authority for external partners (e.g., Accenture), ensuring day‑to‑day alignment, quality of outputs, and integration with internal strategy, SMEs, and field realities.

The core accountability of this role is to own and steward the Distribution Operating Model and Role Architecture, ensuring that:

• Work is organized clearly and consistently
• Decision rights and governance are explicit and practical
• Roles are designed around value, customer impact, and advisory outcomes
• Staffing and routines align to branch archetypes, demand, and capacity
• The model is scalable, sustainable, and operationally feasible

Key Responsibilities

Operating Model Ownership

• Serve as the enterprise owner of the future‑state branch operating model, accountable for how distribution operates day‑to‑day.
• Systematically pressure‑test operating model, workflow, and role design assumptions against live branch execution realities, capacity constraints, and workload drivers to ensure feasibility and sustainability.
• Define how work flows across the branch ecosystem, including branch–ecosystem interactions, governance forums, and escalation paths.
• Ensure the operating model enables advisory‑led growth, execution discipline, and cross‑channel coordination.

Role Architecture & Staffing Models

• Own the future‑state role architecture across distribution, including role clarity, accountability, and interdependencies.
• Own a branch‑centric staffing framework that translates demand and workload drivers into scalable staffing models by archetype, validated for execution and regulatory expectations.
• Lead role re‑composition for priority branch roles, ensuring expectations align to branch capacity, risk controls, and service models.
• Define and validate branch staffing models by archetype, grounded in workload drivers, demand, and execution realities.

Branch Routines & Execution Enablement

• Design and standardize branch and ecosystem routines (daily, weekly, monthly) that reinforce priorities, coaching, and execution discipline.
• Ensure routines simplify work, reduce friction, and free leader capacity for customers and teams.
• Validate that routines are realistic, sustainable, and embedded into leader expectations.

Governance, Decision Rights & Risk Alignment

• Define and maintain decision rights, governance structures, and escalation paths that enable empowered execution within appropriate guardrails.
• Partner closely with Risk, Compliance, HR, and Audit to ensure operating model decisions are feasible, compliant, and regulator‑ready.
• Surface operating model risks, feasibility constraints, and policy implications for leadership decision‑making.

Enterprise Integration & Stewardship

• Act as the long‑term steward of the distribution operating model, ensuring it evolves with strategy, customer needs, and technology.
• Deliberately orchestrate branch, market, operations, risk, and functional SME input at each stage of design to ensure operating model decisions are informed by real‑world execution and control requirements.
• Incorporate lessons from pilots, markets, and execution experience into ongoing model refinement.
• Ensure alignment between operating model, talent…