Business Unit:  Strategic Finance – Commercial Relationship Director
Salary range: Up to Circa £85,000 per annum DOE + red-hot benefits
Location: Hybrid - North East England
Contract type:  Permanent

Our Team

Our commitment to business customers goes back generations. Our dedicated Relationship Directors have local knowledge and experience in the SME market and provide financial insight and support to a wide range of different-sized businesses; whether they are looking to invest in their business, protect their business or reduce exposure to risks. We are looking for dynamic people, who are ready to make a real difference to a successful team focused on growth. Providing a truly complete ‘face-to-face’ relationship model, our Strategic Finance Relationship Directors cater for our customers’ every banking need.  And that is where you come in. If you're passionate about providing a tailored, relationship-based service to our Business customers and are willing to do what it takes to ensure our customers are happy, please read on

What you’ll be doing

Role holders are accountable for managing and growing relationships as part of a portfolio, through face-to-face customer interaction, and the provision and management of lending facilities typically between £1m and £15m.  Activities will include:

• Applying financial skillsets and in-depth market knowledge to fulfil the bank’s strategic growth ambitions by seeking to provide new lending to, and attracting deposits from, new and existing customers. 
• Putting the customers’ interests at the heart of all you do, ensuring the maintenance of the team’s reputation for high service levels, limiting attrition and enabling cross sales where appropriate to meet customer needs and ensure the optimisation of income for the bank.
• Supporting customers, including in the day to day running of their organisations, ensuring a detailed understanding, and sharing specific and/or regional market intel and expertise.
• Monitoring and analysing financial data and regularly viewing customer premises and processes to enable an understanding of performance and risk, including identifying signs of stress and taking appropriate actions to protect the customers and the bank.  Ensuring all policies, procedures and FCA banking regulations are adhered to.
• Ensuring the bank’s visibility in the local marketplace including local networking and attendance of events, with the aim of creating business development opportunities, and ensuring market knowledge is kept up to date. 
• Building and capitalising on relationships with professionals across the market and exercising banking experience and skillsets to review and progress workable opportunities.

We need you to have

Business banking experience, strong business acumen, commerciality, and a technical financial skillset to allow you to assess businesses, analyse financial statements and provide innovative financial solutions which enable Virgin Money to attract new customers, retain existing customers, and compete effectively in the market.  This will include:

• The ability to understand financial accounts, cash drivers and other information to identify opportunities and issues in both new to bank opportunities and in the existing customer base, including proposing actions and/or solutions;
• Experience of presenting financial and other business information, including risks and mitigants, within a clear and well structured credit paper
• Knowledge and understanding of the economic environment, and how these factors may influence business performance.
• An ability to be able to effectively build and maintain relationships with management teams and professionals across business networks.  
• A solid understanding of banking financial products and services, and an awareness of risk management practices
• Aptitude for verbally articulating the banks position or decision in often complex scenarios, including the delivery of difficult messages.
• The ability and experience to cope with a complex and high work demand, and multiple and continually challenging situations.

It’s a bonus if you have but not essential

• A relevant Business Degree or vocational financial services qualification, eg Chartered Banker
• A developed external professional network in the local area
• Experience of working with a broad range of internal contacts and specialists across the organisation

Red Hot Rewards

• Generous holidays - 38.5 days annual leave (including bank holidays and prorated if part-time)​ plus the option to buy more.
• Up to five extra paid well-being days per year​. 
• 20 weeks paid, gender-neutral family leave (52 weeks in total) for expectant parents and those looking to adopt. 
• Market-leading pension.
• Free private medical cover, income protection and life assurance.
• Flexible benefits include Cycle to Work, wellness and health assessments, and critical illness. 

And there's no waiting around, you'll enjoy these benefits from day one.

Feeling insatiably curious about this role? If we’re lucky to receive a lot of interest, we may close the advert early and would hate you to miss out.

We're all about helping you Live a Life More Virgin, so happy to talk flexible working with you.

Say hello to Virgin Money
We’re making great strides towards achieving our ambition of becoming the UK’s best digital bank.  As a full-service digital bank with a heritage stretching back over 180 years, we’re a workforce to be reckoned with, and we're putting the full power of our experience behind disruptive ideas that reinvent the role a bank plays in people's lives. We're customer-obsessed and work tirelessly to deliver on our purpose, ‘Making You Happier About Money.’ This means we're able to do banking differently, and by innovating and working together we can make a real difference by creating memorable moments and red-hot experiences for our millions of customers. Join us and Live a Life More Virgin that empowers you with choice and flexibility in how you work. 

Be yourself at Virgin Money
Our purpose is to make people happier about money, this means seeing and feeling the world as our customers do by creating a workforce that reflects the rich diversity of our customers and communities.  We’re committed to creating an inclusive culture where colleagues feel safe and inspired to contribute, speak up and be heard.  

As a Disability Confident Leader, we're committed to removing any obstacles to inclusion.  If you need any reasonable adjustments or support making your application, contact our Talent Acquisition team careers@virginmoney.com

It’s important to note that there may be occasions where it’s not possible to interview all candidates declaring a disability who meet the essential criteria for the job. In certain recruitment situations such as receiving a high-volume of applications, we may need to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled and non-disabled applicants. 

Now the legal bit
Living A Life More Virgin allows our colleagues to be based anywhere in the UK (if the role allows it), but we'll need you to confirm you have the right to work in the UK.

If you're successful in securing a role with us, there are some checks you need to complete before starting. These include credit and criminal record checks and three years' worth of satisfactory references. If the role is part of the Senior Manager Regime and Certification Regime, it requires enhanced pre-employment checks – we'll ask for six years of regulatory references, and once in the role, you'll be subject to periodic employment checks.