Location: Hub based! Bristol, London or Glasgow

But you have the flexibility to work wherever suits you best

Team: Operations Shared Services

Salary banding: £84,000 - £105,000

Experience: Expert

Working pattern: Full Time

Reporting to: Alex Gold (Director of Shared Services)

Sponsorship: Unfortunately we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role

Top 3 qualities for this role: Transformational, Financially Astute, Stakeholder Management 

In the words of the team, you should leave your current role for this one because….

You will be surrounded by your team and stakeholders who are all committed to OVO’s values of doing the right thing. You will have the autonomy to put your stamp on the role which brings with it all the excitement of working within a large operation - no day is the same!

Everyone belongs at OVO

At OVO, we are on a mission to solve one of humanity's biggest challenges, the climate crisis. And we know it takes all of us to change the world. That's why we need diverse people from all gender identities, ethnicities, ages, sexual orientations, life experiences and backgrounds to join us.

This role in a nutshell:

As Head of Outsourced Partnerships & Oversight you will work closely alongside our operation:

• To define and execute our outsourcing strategy
• Manage our centralised Quality Assurance function inclusive of 1st line quality checks and 2nd line assurance
• Lead the build of an Operational Risk Management function

You will partner the operation across our Contact Centres, Back Office, Complaints and Metering functions, working to help drive customer outcomes across our control environment.

You’ll be a person with a natural growth mindset and have a keen eye on delivering significant value across Customer Operations through process improvement, innovation, automation, cost reduction and delivering brilliant outcomes for our customers. 

World-class stakeholder engagement is a must, and this role will demand brilliant brokering skills. Internally you’ll work with colleagues at all levels with most of your time spent with the Operational Head of Departments & Directors, alongside Finance, Procurement, Risk & Compliance. This role is a bridging role, helping to enable our operational vision but will also require building trust with business owners and executive leadership teams across a number of diverse outsourced partners globally.

You will have a team of c. 50 people split between managing outsourced strategy, risk and compliance; Quality Assurance; and Risk & Controls. You will also have direct involvement supporting commercial agreements worth c. £70m annually (approx 3k FTE). 

Your key outcomes will be:

Develop our outsourced strategy and deliver the right partner

• This is all about defining our guiding principles around how we use our outsourced partners including work types, geographical locations and the operating models we choose to adopt
• Accountable for all aspects of the outsourced relationship - onboarding, contract creation, adherence to the contractual KPIs (including Quality & Performance), account management, right the way through to termination (where necessary)
• Working hand-in-glove with our operational business Directors to ensure excellent delivery of the balanced scorecard of operational KPI
• Work alongside Procurement to agree commercial terms, onboarding/exiting lines of business smoothly, ramping up/down resources
• You’ll set up new SLAs as we move work between outsourcers and re-contract on a regular basis
• You’ll have overall accountability for a budget of c£70m per annum
• You’ll be responsible for the risk, compliance and oversight of using outsourced partners and managing the contractual relationships
• You will manage Billable hours and the financial performance of each partner looking to recoup service credits where appropriate

Assure quality across our operation

• You will manage an outsource 1st line quality assurance team based out of India working to support c. 5k FTE across multiple geographies and types of work
• You will also directly manage an in house quality assurance team of c. 40 people 
• Work closely with our coaching, training and operations teams to provide useful and actionable feedback/insight helping drive positive outcomes for our customers
• Work closely with Product and Tech to leverage AI and automated quality management systems and tooling
• Own the quality and performance contractual measure across all of our outsourced partners embedding this MSAs & SLAs and governance forums
• Ultimately accountable for our QA methodology, standardising where appropriate to increase audit volume and coverage across the operation

Build and manage risk and controls

• Build out our centralised risk and controls team supporting c. 5k FTE across Front Office, Back Office, Complaints and Metering
• Work alongside our 3rd line risk teams to define and build our our target operating model
• Lead risk and controls assessments across the operation to determine controls effectiveness
• Own our operational risk management framework ensuring risks are identified, logged and tested in the correct way, with regular review points and key controls and regularly reviewed 
• Oversee the management of key risk tools such as hyperproof to give visibility across the operational estate 

You’ll be a successful Head of Outsourced Partnerships & Oversight at OVO if you…

Are passionate about working in a dynamic environment, responding to different demands each day and if you are a change agent; constantly looking to find a better way.

Ideally you will have:

• A positive mindset and a win/win attitude is a must
• Transformational and organisational design experience working across multiple geographies and operating models
• Experience with outsourced partnerships on either the outsourced or the client side
• Skills as a great communicator, a natural colaborator and robust risk, financial and quality management experience
• Experience of stakeholder management at executive leadership level
• Experience of owning budgets of £50-100m per annum
• Demonstrable experience of managing outsourcing risk & compliance
• Experience in monitoring & improving Quality & Performance Metrics and setting up contractual KPIs
• Previous experience working with large scale outsourcing of operational teams of 500+ colleagues
• A people-oriented mindset and energised by a fast-paced environment
• Energy sector experience would be useful

You won’t like this role if you…

• Aren’t keen on building and maturing an operation
• Aren’t keen on travelling to visit our UK and international strategic partners on a semi-regular basis
• Are uncomfortable having open and honest conversations with both internal and external stakeholders

Let’s talk about what’s in it for you

We’ll pay you between; £84,000 - £105,000 (Level 4 Banding), depending on your specific skills and experience. If your expectations are a little different, have a chat with us!

We keep our pay ranges broad on purpose to give us, and you, flexibility to match your experience to our zero carbon mission.

You’ll be eligible for an on-target bonus of 15%. We have one OVO bonus plan that focuses on the collective performance of our people to deliver our Plan Zero goal. 

We also offer plenty of green benefits and progressive policies to help you feel like you belong at OVO…and there’s flex pay.  It’s an extra 9% of your salary on top of your core pay to use as you like. You can take it as cash, add to your pension, or choose to spend it on a huge range of flex benefits. Here’s a taster of what’s on offer: 

For starters, you’ll get 34 days of holiday (including bank holidays). For your healthWith benefits like a healthcare cash plan or private medical insurance depending on your career level, critical illness cover, life assurance, health assessments, and moreFor your wellbeingWith gym membership, gadget, travel and cyber insurance, workplace ISA, will writing services, DNA testing, dental insurance, and more For your lifestyle With extra holiday buying, discount dining, culture cards, tech loans, and supporting your favourite charities with give-as-you-earn donationsFor your home  Get up to £300 off any OVO Energy plan (when you pay by Direct Debit), plus personal carbon offsetting and great discounts on smart thermostats and EV chargersFor your commute Nab a great deal on ultra-low emission car leasing, plus our cycle to work scheme and public transport season ticket loans Want to hear about our full range of flexible benefits and progressive people policies? Our People Team can tell you everything you need to know.

For your Belonging

To find better ways to support our people, we need to listen to each other’s experiences and find ways to build a truly inclusive and diverse workplace. As part of this, we have 8 Belonging Networks at OVO. Led by our people, for our people - so when you join OVO, you can play a part - big or small - with any of the Networks. It's up to you.

Oh, and one last thing...

We’d be thrilled if you tick off all our boxes yet we also believe it’s just as important we tick off all of yours. And if you think you have most of what we’re looking for but not every single thing, go ahead and hit apply. We’d still love to hear from you!

If you have any additional requirements, there’s a space to let us know on the application form; we want to make the process as easy and comfortable for you as possible..