Head of Commercial & Operations (UK) - SaaS / Fintech / Payroll

Fintech Payroll | High-Growth | Global Reach | Change & Transformation Leadership
Ready to build, transform and scale business brimming with untapped potential?
Let’s do a quick compatibility check…
• This is not a role for someone looking to maintain the status quo.
• It is not a role for someone who prefers stability over challenge, or consensus over decisive action.
• It is not a role for a caretaker, a delegator-from-a-distance, or someone waiting for the perfect conditions before making change.
This is a role for someone who sees opportunity where others see complexity; someone who thrives on transformation; and wants to leave a visible, measurable mark on a business trusted by global organisations to deliver in highly regulated, deadline-critical environments. It suits a leader who is comfortable working through operational complexity, diagnosing issues firsthandstepping into imperfect situations, bringing structure to ambiguity, and building high-performing teams and systems from the ground up, turning inconsistent delivery into clear, repeatable ways of working.
We are a scaling payroll technology business operating at the intersection of technology, service, and compliance. Our platform is strong, our market is growing, and our ambition is clear. Now we need a senior leader to take ownership of our UK operation and elevate it into a high-performing, commercially driven, and operationally excellent unit.
With strong momentum and clear potential, this is an opportunity to step in, take control, and shape the next phase of growth - embedding discipline, raising standards, and building a platform for sustainable operational and commercial success.
If you’re currently operating in a senior operations, commercial, or general management role within a SaaS or service-led business, and you own delivery, people and performance, and real business outcomes - we’d love to hear from you.
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The Role at a Glance
Head of Commercial & Operations (UK)
London / Hybrid
Competitive Salary Package + Bonus + Leadership Opportunity
Company: Multinational business with established international operations supporting complex, high-volume payroll environments
Your Skills: Highly experienced, senior operations and commercial leader who has led complex service businesses through transformation and scale.
The Opportunity
You will take full responsibility for the UK operation, leading a team of around 35 and overseeing a multi-million-pound revenue stream. The business has solid foundations but requires sharper execution, stronger systems, and consistently high customer service standards.
Your mandate is clear: transform performance, embed accountability, and build a scalable engine for growth. Within twelve months the expectation is to stabilise operations, embed discipline and accountability, and materially lift delivery consistency so the business is positioned to scale and driven by process, data, and strong leadership.
This is a rare opportunity to step into a genuine “fix, build, scale” role where your impact will be both immediate and lasting.
What You’ll Be Doing
At the heart of the role is hands-on operational transformation. You will work directly with teams to diagnose issues in payroll and service delivery, redesigning processes to materially improve accuracy, consistency, and efficiency. Alongside this, you will elevate the customer experience, shifting the business from reactive service delivery to a proactive, high-quality client offering that builds trust and long-term relationships.
A critical part of your remit will be building a true performance culture. You will introduce clear KPIs, implement weekly accountability rhythms, and ensure that underperformance is addressed quickly and decisively. The goal is to replace ambiguity and “busyness” with clarity, ownership, and measurable outcomes.
You will also take a hands-on approach to leadership, spending time inside the operation in the early months reshaping and strengthening the team where needed, developing key individuals, and ensuring the structure both supports day-to-day execution and is fit for scale. Once operational confidence is established, you will begin to establish a more structured commercial capability, supporting pipeline generation, enabling growth, and ensuring the business is set up to capitalise on market opportunity.
What Success Looks Like
Success in this role is not subjective. It is measurable, visible, and business-critical. Within your first year, operational performance will be significantly improved, with higher accuracy, greater efficiency, and a more streamlined cost base. Customer satisfaction will rise to consistently strong levels, reflecting a more reliable and proactive service.
The team will operate within a clear framework of accountability, with performance tracked, managed, and improved in real time. The business will no longer rely on reactive fixes and short-term interventions but will instead run on efficient systems, repeatable processes, clear ownership and strong leadership disciplined execution. Alongside this, the foundations of a commercial engine will be in place, generating consistent pipeline and supporting future growth.
About You
You are an experienced operational and commercial leader who has already delivered meaningful transformation in a SaaS, fintech, or service-led environment. You are comfortable leading teams of scale and have a track record of improving performance by reducing cost, increasing quality, and implementing better systems.
You are not purely strategic: you are hands-on, execution-focused, and comfortable being close to the detail when needed. You know how to operate in environments that are evolving quickly, where not everything is fully built, and where leadership requires both clarity and resilience. You are confident in making difficult decisions, addressing underperformance, and holding people to high standards, while still building a culture that people want to be part of.
Above all, you take ownership. You do not wait for direction - you create it, and you act decisively.
Why Join?
This role offers a level of ownership, influence and impact that is increasingly rare. You will have the opportunity to shape how the UK business operates, influence its future direction, and build something that stands as a clear example of transformation done well.
You will be working in a business that is ambitious, growing, and evolving, where strong leadership is recognised and results are valued.
For the right person, this is not just another role, but a defining chapter in your career – a rare opportunity to take real ownership and have a lasting operational and commercial impact.
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