Director of Banking Operations

We're excited to be partnering with a leading institution in the UAE that is building a digital-first, AI-enabled financial services organisation from the ground up. This is a unique opportunity to join at an early stage and help shape the people, operational, and service foundations of a business with significant institutional backing and long-term ambition. If you're passionate about HR operations, payroll excellence, and creating exceptional employee experiences, we'd love to hear from you.Role Purpose:Leads the design, launch, and day-to-day running of the bank’s customer-facing and physical banking operations, spanning customer service, contact center, branch service delivery, and the physical enterprise. Builds a controlled, digital-first operating model that is ready for Day 1 and scalable thereafter.Key responsibilities:Stand up and lead customer service, contact-center, and branch-service capabilities, including service standards, quality assurance, escalation paths, and capacity plans.Establish and oversee maker-checker procedures for branch transactions, with clear delegations and demonstrable control effectiveness.Direct physical-enterprise readiness and operations, including premises, facilities, workplace services, and physical archival.Define, monitor, and report operational KPIs, SLAs, customer-experience measures, and risk indicators; drive remediation where performance falls short.Own operational risk management, including RCSAs, incident and error management, root-cause analysis, and closure of audit and regulatory findings.Partner with Technology, Product, Risk, and Compliance to embed operational requirements, assisted-channel fallbacks, and consumer-protection controls in customer journeys.Lead Day-1 readiness testing, rehearsals, cutover, and contingency planning for critical customer-facing processes.Build and develop the banking-operations team and champion responsible AI, automation, and analytics with appropriate human oversight.Required Skills & Experience: 12+ years in banking operations within banking or financial services, including senior leadership of a banking operations team.Deep expertise in customer service, contact-centre and branch operations, maker-checker controls, physical enterprise, and operational risk management.Proven record building banking-operations target operating models, service standards, control frameworks, and launch-readiness capabilities in a regulated environment.Strong knowledge of relevant CBUAE expectations, consumer-protection requirements, and applicable operational-risk standards.Exposure to AI-enabled service operations, workforce tooling, intelligent document processing, and advanced customer and operational analytics.Qualifications & Certifications (Preferred) Bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, or a related field; relevant postgraduate qualification preferred. Professional certification in operations, service management, or process excellence (for example, Lean Six Sigma) preferred. CBUAE Fit & Proper requirements and any applicable controlled-function eligibility criteria, where required. Ready to join us? Apply today and take the next step in your career.