Adviser Service Journey Lead

About the Business

About the Role

Level: 5/6

Department: Chief Customer & Operations Office

Location: London I Southampton

Contract type: Permanent

The Adviser Service Journey Lead sits within the Chief Customer & Operations Office, reporting to the Director of Customer & Adviser Journeys. Working alongside other Customer and Adviser Service Journey Leads, you’ll lead an allocated multidisciplinary journey squad through a matrix model and play an important role in establishing our journey-led operating model.

As the end-to-end owner of an assigned adviser service journey, you’ll be accountable for its performance, optimisation and future transformation. You’ll continuously improve customer and adviser outcomes, remove friction, create capacity and enhance the commercial performance of the journey, ensuring both digital and non-digital experiences deliver consistently strong outcomes.

You’ll own the integrated run-and-change agenda for your journey, including the operational processes within it, while maintaining a broader focus on end-to-end performance, optimisation and modernisation. While the role oversees operational processes within the journey, it is broader than an operational management role; its primary focus is the performance, optimisation and modernisation of the end-to-end journey. Working within the strategy, investment framework and portfolio priorities set by the Director of Customer & Adviser Journeys, you’ll recommend investment priorities and ensure agreed benefits are realised and sustained.

The role acts as the overall business owner for the assigned journey, continuously balancing customer and adviser outcomes, operational effectiveness, risk management, capacity creation and commercial performance. Success is measured not only through delivery of change, but through sustained improvement in journey outcomes over time.

Key responsibilities

End-to-end journey ownership

• Own the end-to-end performance and continuous improvement of the assigned adviser service journey across digital and non-digital channels, propositions, platforms, processes and teams.

• Act as the business owner and optimiser of the assigned journey, continually improving customer and adviser outcomes, removing friction, creating capacity and enhancing commercial performance.

• Oversee the operational processes within the journey, ensuring they are effective, scalable and aligned to agreed journey outcomes, while formal operational management accountabilities remain with the relevant business functions.

• Own both the day-to-day performance (run) and transformation (change) of the assigned journey, balancing immediate service needs with longer-term modernisation and improvement.

• Maintain a clear view of performance, pain points, risks, controls, dependencies, hand-offs and improvement opportunities.

• Develop and deliver the journey improvement roadmap within the strategic direction and portfolio priorities set by the Director.

• Act as the recognised point of accountability for the assigned journey.

Performance, backlog and delivery

• Own and maintain the journey backlog, translating agreed outcomes, insight, operational evidence, regulatory requirements and commercial priorities into deliverable activity.

• Translate agreed Targets & Measures into one integrated run-and-change backlog, with clear ownership for improving performance over time.

• Prioritise activity within the agreed backlog and delegated authority, balancing immediate service needs with sustainable improvement.

• Lead delivery of agreed improvements and ensure changes are embedded with clear ownership, measures and benefit tracking.

• Recommend investment priorities and develop evidence-based business cases to support portfolio decisions led by the Director.

Adviser outcomes and productivity

• Make it easier and more efficient for advisers and practices to do business with Quilter and serve clients.

• Reduce avoidable contact, repeat administration, unclear hand-offs and unnecessary evidence requirements.

• Improve adoption of adviser tools, portals, digital services and self-service capabilities.

• Work with Distribution, Advice, Product and Operations to address barriers affecting adviser productivity, retention and client servicing.

• For the Help me deliver advice & recommendations journey, focus on the adviser workflow, tools, evidence and support required to develop and document advice. Customer implementation and continued maintenance of the resulting plan sit within the corresponding customer journey.

Journey improvement, digital and automation

• Lead simplification, standardisation and process re-engineering to reduce friction, failure demand, rework, delay and manual intervention.

• Identify opportunities for straight-through processing, self-service, proactive communications, automation and responsible use of AI.

• Actively modernise the end-to-end journey by removing manual processing and legacy workarounds, increasing digital and self-service adoption, and using data, automation and AI to improve outcomes and create capacity.

• Define business outcomes and requirements for technology-enabled change, working with Product, Digital, Data, Technology and Platform teams.

• Validate that delivered changes improve end-to-end outcomes.

Matrix and squad leadership

• Lead a multidisciplinary journey squad and set clear outcomes, priorities and expectations.

• Exercise matrix leadership across colleagues retaining functional reporting lines and professional accountabilities.

• Create alignment across Operations, Technology, Data, Digital, Product, Change, Risk and Compliance.

• Foster curiosity, experimentation and continuous improvement, challenging existing approaches and increasing ambition for what the journey can deliver for advisers and customers.

• Remove journey-level blockers and escalate material cross-journey conflicts, investment decisions and unresolved dependencies to the Director.

Economics and productivity

• Improve the economic performance and scalability of the assigned journey within agreed portfolio targets.

• Deliver measurable improvements in productivity, cost to serve, digital adoption and straight-through processing.

• Reduce avoidable demand and complexity while maintaining outcomes, service quality and control effectiveness.

• Track financial and non-financial benefits and act where expected benefits are not realised.

• Own the realisation and sustainability of agreed financial and non-financial benefits, ensuring delivery translates into measurable improvements in the live journey.

Insight, standards and outcomes

• Apply adviser insight, complaints, operational data and journey analytics to identify priorities and root causes.

• Use complaints, service failures and feedback to identify root causes, prioritise preventative action and reduce recurrence.

• Work in partnership with Customer Experience & Insight, which owns insight methodologies, experience standards and independent customer outcome challenge.

• Translate evidence and standards into practical backlog priorities and delivery activity.

• Ensure vulnerability, accessibility, inclusion and Consumer Duty considerations are reflected in journey decisions.

Risk, control and governance

• Ensure the journey operates within applicable regulatory, conduct, financial-crime, operational-risk, policy and control requirements.

• Build risk and control requirements into journey design and prioritisation from the outset.

• Use incidents, complaints, assurance findings and control weaknesses to inform root-cause improvement.

• Escalate material risks, adverse outcomes, control gaps and decisions outside delegated authority through agreed governance routes.

• For journeys involving authorisation, supervision, quality assessment or compliance, own the effectiveness and improvement of the end-to-end process. Formal regulatory decisions, independent assurance, professional standards and accountable control responsibilities remain with designated operational and control-function leaders.

Indicative measures of success

• Improvement in adviser satisfaction, NPS and effort.
• Improvement in adviser retention, engagement, productivity and adoption of relevant tools.
• Reduction in complaints, recurring failure points, rework and avoidable demand.
• Improvement in journey completion times, right-first-time delivery and service predictability.
• Growth in straight-through processing, digital adoption and effective self-service.
• Demonstrable reduction in friction, complexity and manual activity, with measurable increases in automation, digital adoption and capacity creation.
• Improvement in cost to serve, productivity and capacity released.
• Delivery of agreed roadmap priorities and realisation of expected benefits.
• Effective management of journey risks, controls and customer and adviser outcomes.
• Stakeholder confidence in journey leadership and cross-functional delivery.
  

About You

• Experience owning or leading a complex end-to-end adviser, service or operational journey, with credible experience across several disciplines such as proposition, operations, customer experience, digital, technology, data and change.
• Strong operational and change-delivery experience, integrating run and improvement priorities.
• Process improvement, re-engineering, digital delivery or service transformation capability.
• Proven ability to lead across disciplines, join up different functional perspectives and make balanced trade-offs in the best interests of the end-to-end journey.
• Demonstrates strong curiosity and constructive challenge, continually questioning current approaches, identifying opportunities and increasing ambition for customer and adviser outcomes.
• Strong data literacy and evidence-led decision-making.
• Commercial judgement balancing outcomes, growth, efficiency, risk and regulation.
• Experience managing backlogs, dependencies and delivery trade-offs.
• Wealth management, financial services or another regulated environment experience is desirable.
• Relevant professional qualifications in operations, change, agile delivery, financial services or process improvement may be beneficial but are not essential.

Inclusion & Diversity

We value diversity and strive to promote inclusivity in all aspects of our culture. We believe in equal opportunities for all, ensuring that no applicant encounters less favourable treatment based on anything but their skills, qualifications, experience, and potential. We celebrate the unique contributions of a diverse workforce and create a respectful, nurturing environment where every colleague can thrive.

Values

Do the right thing: We act with integrity and are proudly committed to going above and beyond in service of our clients and the support we provide our communities.
Always curious: We continuously seek new ideas and knowledge so we’re one step ahead of our clients’ needs. We look for inspiration everywhere and encourage experimentation, recognising that this is how we create brilliant solutions for brighter futures.
Embrace challenge: We aim high to transform our potential into meaningful outcomes. With ambition as our driving force and a steadfast commitment to growth, we succeed for the good of every generation.
Stronger together: Combining our diverse talents, we accomplish more collectively than we ever could do alone. We speak openly, actively listen, and support each other, and constructively challenge and embrace new ideas. We seek empowerment and demonstrate ownership and trust, with the confidence to make impactful decisions.

Core Benefits

Holiday: 182 hours (26 days)

Quilter Incentive Scheme: All employees are eligible to participate in incentive scheme, to incentivise business performance and their contribution.

Pension Scheme: A non-contributory company pension scheme that can be boosted through personal contributions.

Private Medical Insurance: Single cover as standard with options to increase cover to include your partner or children.

Life Assurance: 4x your salary.

Income Protection: 75% of salary, less state benefits, payable after 26 weeks of absence.

Healthcare Cash Plan: Jersey employees only

In addition to our core benefits, we offer a range of flexible benefits to UK employees that you can choose from and pay for conveniently via a salary deduction.