Strategic Finance - Insights and Operations Lead - BPL

This is a newly created, high-profile role within Barclays Payments, sitting at the centre of the Corporate & Strategic Finance function. Reporting to the Head of Corporate & Strategic Finance, the position partners closely with senior finance leaders across Payments, GTM, Product & Technology, VAS, and Corporate FP&A to strengthen the function's reporting, analytical and operational capabilities.

The role combines strategic insight, finance operations, reporting excellence and data leadership. It is designed for a senior finance professional who enjoys working at the intersection of strategy, data, transformation and execution, influencing outcomes across a broad stakeholder landscape rather than directly managing teams.

Support the overall rhythm and effectiveness of the finance function, including planning cycles, governance forums, reporting calendars and senior leadership reviews. Ensure reporting outputs are consistent, accurate and decision-ready.

Lead the design and continuous enhancement of reporting infrastructure, dashboards, performance tracking and management information. Drive a high-quality, integrated view of performance across all finance pillars.

Partner on the development of materials for executive leadership, board reporting and investor-facing communications, ensuring robust analysis, compelling narratives and high-quality outputs.

Lead and coordinate high-impact strategic initiatives and business-critical projects, providing analytical rigour, structure and delivery focus. Develop investment cases and strategic assessments while engaging directly with senior executives and C-suite stakeholders.

Champion the adoption of AI and emerging technologies within the finance function. Identify practical use cases, drive pilot initiatives and help shape the future operating model through data-driven innovation.

Act as the key liaison between Finance and Data & Analytics teams, ensuring strong data governance, consistent metrics and a reliable single source of truth to support business decision-making.

This is a rare opportunity to shape a newly established function with significant visibility across senior leadership. The role offers exposure to strategic decision-making, executive stakeholders, transformation initiatives and AI-driven innovation, making it an excellent fit for someone looking to broaden their impact beyond traditional finance responsibilities.

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

To be successful as a Strategic Insights & Finance Operations Lead, you should have experience in:

• Strong modelling and data analytics…