Product Owner - Finance Systems Change Team

at  Nationwide

Operating at the heart of Nationwide’s Finance Systems team – you will lead a team which will have a material impact on Finance, through change, efficiency, and risk reduction.
You will understand the needs of the business teams through partnership to drive value add change, create efficiencies, bolster system integrity, and reduce risk. You will be accountable for the implementation and maintenance of technology and key regulatory deliverables and ensure they are fit for the future.
You will lead the Finance Systems Change team to support Finance’s use of Peoplesoft, Board, FPSL, QRM, Autorek etc through control, integrity, resolution, and delivery of enhancements. You will manage the demand backlog for change in Finance Systems, ensuring that outcomes are aligned to strategic objectives and teams involved are aware of priorities. You’ll work closely with multiple teams across the Function to support the growth and development of our business through project activity, focusing on developing and improving our processes.
This role is a great way to gain exposure to Nationwide and make a material impact to Finance. In short, this position places you at the centre of the key drivers of our business, giving visibility of both the customer and funding elements of our business, as well as exposing you to diverse teams across Finance.
Leading a highly skilled cross functional delivery team you’ll develop and improve the way we deliver change across Finance, ensuring we drive value from our technology investments. You will maintain and implement systems which are key to business decisions as well as leading on projects to ensure Nationwide keeps pace with a constantly changing business landscape.
This is a particularly exciting time to be joining the world of Finance change. With multiple simplification projects, Board exploitation, and integration exercise on the horizon it’s a fantastic opportunity to gain an in-depth knowledge of both our technology and core business processes such as risk management.
We are happy to consider flexible working approaches to help you perform at your best.
The working hours (per week) for this role can be between 30 and 35.
At Nationwide we offer hybrid working wherever possible. More rewarding relationships are supported through our hybrid approach, bringing colleagues together across our UK wide estate, whilst also supporting generous access to home working. We value our time in the office to solve problems, to learn, and to feel connected.
For this job you’ll spend at least two days per week, or if part time you’ll spend 40% of your working time, based at either our Swindon, London, Northampton or Bournemouth offices. Whilst these locations are where we are primarily looking to fill the role, if you’re an internal applicant based in a different location, we would welcome your application and if successful, your hiring manager will provide further details on how this could work for this specific role. You can also find out more about our approach to hybrid working here.
If we receive a high volume of relevant applications, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so please apply as soon as you can.

ABOUT YOU

As a minimum requirement, we’ll need you to have…

• An understanding of the end-to-end activities of a Finance function
• Prior experience of owning & maintaining a backlog of change and working in an agile environment
• Experience in Finance systems and associated technologies, implementation, consulting and leading on change deliverables
• The ability to lead a team of developers/programmers and project resources on stretching objectives
• Advanced relationship management and stakeholder management skills, including the ability to provide constructive advice and challenge to senior stakeholders
• Experience of initiating and sustaining collaborative ways of working between technical, governance, business, and consultancy teams
• Proven ability to take on, and exceed targets consistently and to take ownership for results

Our Customer First behaviours are all about putting customers and members at the heart of how we work together. You can strengthen your application by showing the behaviours that resonate with you, and how you might have already demonstrated these.

• Say it straight - This is about being honest and direct with good intent and saying what needs to be said in the room. It’s also about being clear, precise, and using language that we and, importantly, our customers and members can understand.
• Push for better - This is about aiming high and constantly looking for better in how we work together and serve our customers and members.
• Get it done - This is about prioritising what will have the greatest impact, being decisive and taking accountability for delivering on the end-to-end outcome.

We know applying for jobs can sometimes feel like you’re sending an application into a black hole. We review each application individually. So, it’s a good idea to call out your most relevant experience on your application to give yourself the best chance.

Leading and shaping the Finance Systems Change Team, making a material difference to Finance, through change, efficiency, and risk reduction. You will become a Finance Systems SME in the truest sense, understanding front to back operations.
Actively participating in regular DA/Steering Co meetings, helping shape the direction of Finance from a technological and operational perspective while representing Finance Systems to the Chief Investment Officer and Third parties.
Inspiring a cross-functional team of Business Analysts, programmers and business SMEs to problem solve to find the optimum solutions to business problems and partnering with business, data, and other community delivery teams to ensure deliverables are defined properly with appropriate acceptance criteria to ensure final outputs are of the right quality.
Working in close collaboration with controls functions to ensure their requirements are understood and are met through solutions proposed and that controls are in place to continually ensure adherence to these requirements you will constantly prioritise a mixed backlog of work that will include new feature development, iterative improvement to existing processes.
Provide thought leadership and subject matter expertise on how change will be implemented into our business teams, anticipate problems before they occur; identify possible causes and work with the team to identify, select and implement the most appropriate solution.
Play an active part in your broader team, working with and supporting others to be the best they can be.