We are hiring a Director of Marketing Operations to own the systems, data, processes and controls that make OakNorth's marketing function effective and scalable, and to operate as the named operational delegate of the SMF holder for financial promotions and customer communications.
The role enables marketers embedded in Lending, Business Banking and Personal Savings to hit their growth targets by giving them best-in-class infrastructure, clean data and short cycle-times. It also owns the regulated comms control framework for OakNorth Bank Plc.
This is a high-impact role combining strategic leadership with operational excellence
What you’ll be doing
Set the strategy & plan for marketing operations
- Define and own the long-term MarTech roadmap and execution aligned to OakNorth’s commercial objectives.
- Establish a clear operating model across marketing, sales and product handoffs.
- Lead prioritisation of systems investment, tooling decisions and integration strategy.
- Partner with the Design & Brand lead to enforce brand and tone-of-voice at the systems level.
Own commercial systems architecture
- Oversee the architecture and optimisation of Salesforce, HubSpot, Iterable, Apollo and associated data platforms.
- Drive improvements in attribution, lead routing, lifecycle automation and reporting across the BU funnels.
- Ensure systems are integrated, scalable and operationally resilient (PRA SS2/21, FCA/PRA Operational Resilience PS21/3)
- Reduce operational risk and eliminate single points of failure across the stack.
Own customer communications infrastructure
- Set governance standards across transactional, lifecycle and marketing communications.
- Own the marketing preference centre and suppression infrastructure (UK GDPR, PECR, soft opt-in, cookie consent).
- Deploy lifecycle journeys that move retention and engagement, particularly in Personal Savings.
- Maintain the operational boundary between marketing comms and servicing/regulatory comms.
- Build vulnerable-customer routing and Consumer Duty outcomes monitoring into the comms stack.
- Operate the complaints-traceable-to-comms feedback loop with Customer Operations.
Lead web and digital operations strategy
- Own vendor selection and management for the marketing stack, including planning and managing budgets
- Own CMS strategy & migration and the governance of content: approval gating, version logs, staged environments, role-based access, rollback.
- Optimise web conversion across PS, BB and Lending pages in close partnership with growth marketers in each Business Unit.
- Own web performance, accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA), hosting, incident response, tag governance and analytics.
- Own cookie consent and PECR compliance on the website estate.
Drive performance insights, pipeline design and commercial intelligence
- Define the commercial reporting framework across marketing.
- Own pipeline design, stage definitions and marketing-to-sales handoffs.
- Improve attribution and revenue visibility across the funnel.
- Ensure leadership has clear, reliable and decision-ready performance insight.
- Track performance metrics for marketing initiatives alongside quality and compliance KPIs
- Ensure data integrity, reporting accuracy and rigorous data quality standards across marketing systems.
- Implement scalable processes for reconciliation, forecasting support and commercial reporting.
- Partner with Technology and Product to shape CRM enhancements and roadmap priorities.
Operate financial promotions and regulated comms governance
- Own the financial promotion approval workflow end-to-end across the Bank.
- Maintain the Marketing Compliance operating model in line with relevant regulatory frameworks
- Operate as the named operational delegate of the SMF holder, with effective controls and documented procedures.
- Partner with 1LOD & 2LOD risk experts to maintain the Marketing Risk & Controls matrix.
- Own affiliate channel governance: vetting, content pre-approval, ongoing monitoring, contractual conduct standards.
- Lead financial promotion training for marketers and BU stakeholders.
Champion innovation and automation
- Achieve AI-driven productivity gains across marketing workflows.
- Introduce scalable automation across the marketing workflows for efficiency, while maintaining quality guardrails
- Own and operate the AI-in-marketing policy: pre-publication review on customer-facing content, prohibited use cases, content provenance logging, periodic QA.
What we’re looking for
- 8+ years in marketing operations; 3+ years at Director / Head of level.
- Deep expertise in managing a marketing stack at scale: CRM, marketing automation (HubSpot, Iterable or equivalent), CMS, consent management, attribution, analytics.
- Hands-on experience in a UK FCA/PRA-regulated firm.
- Strong commercial acumen and experience enabling frontline teams through systems and data.
- Excellent lateral leadership skills, i.e. influencing without direct authority and ability to drive cross-functional alignment.
- Comfortable balancing strategic leadership with hands-on ownership when required.
Desirable:
- Operationalised AI in customer-facing marketing in a regulated context.
- Revenue Operations experience in B2B SaaS
- Affiliate channel governance.
- Third-party risk management in a regulated firm.
- US lending or international expansion exposure.
- Operational Resilience operating experience.
Why join OakNorth
- Operator role at the centre of a regulated bank's marketing function.
- Direct working partnership with C-suite and SMF holders.
- Diverse product set across lending, business banking and personal savings, UK and US.
- Operationalise AI in a regulated context.
- Competitive salary, bonus and benefits.
About OakNorth
At OakNorth, we’re on a mission to empower the UK’s most ambitious businesses. Since 2015, we’ve lent over $18 billion across the UK and US, helped create more than 58,000 new homes and 36,000 new jobs, and supported hundreds of thousands of personal savers — all while fuelling the UK economy. We offer a highly valued Personal Savings product for consumers with high customer satisfaction rates (joint no 1 on TrustPilot ratings), and have recently launched a Business Banking proposition for ambitious, growth businesses. OakNorth is now scaling its operations in the United States across Lending, Business Banking and Personal Savings.
Benefits and Perks
- 25 days holiday
- Hybrid role
- Personalized benefits – opt-in to what matters to you
- Subsidised Private Medical Insurance with Bupa
- Enhanced maternity and paternity leave
- Wellbeing and social events
- In-house Barista Bar in London office
- Support causes that matter to you – Volunteering time off
- Salary sacrifice schemes (Cycle to work, nursery, gym, electric car scheme)
