Technology Manager

This is an exciting opportunity for someone who wants to help transform the way financial services serve people in vulnerable circumstances in the UK. At Fair4All Finance we are supporting the development of organisations serving this consumer group through financial investments, development of tools and frameworks, and provision of advisory services to individual organisations.

We have been researching the technology market serving the affordable credit sector and working with some of the key suppliers to the sector. We have recently conducted a survey of technology usage across the sector and published a market report which we are using to help shape our strategy in supporting the sector.

A priority for 2021 is to deliver a technology toolkit alongside partner organisations to help the sector navigate some of the technology challenges and opportunities that they face. The role will involve continuous assessment of the technology landscape, technology developments and innovations including the role of fintechs in the industry. You will lead on the development of some of the tools for the sector, which may comprise webinars, guides and/or templates.

The Technology Manager will work on a day-to-day basis with the Technology Strategy and Innovations Lead and work closely with all members of the Fair4All Finance team. As part of a small team, we’re looking for someone who will integrate well into the team, comfortable meeting with technology practitioners and senior leaders at the financial services organisations that we work with, has an entrepreneurial mindset and is organised and driven to deliver.

This will involve leadership of work within two key capacity building areas:

• Operational excellence and capability: to optimise sustainable IT operating models for providers serving this customer
• Markets, consumer insights and product design: enable well designed solutions that build wellbeing to reach the people and communities we serve

What you'll be doing

Centre of expertise 65%

• Contributing to the overall strategy for supporting technology in the sector
• Leading the delivery of specific modules of the technology toolkit
• Develop some of the tools within the toolkit modules (generally guides or templates)
• Partnering with organisations as part of the toolkit development and delivery
• Providing advice and support to the businesses operating in the sector – suppliers and community finance businesses

Investment due diligence 15%

• Supporting the Technology Strategy and Innovations Lead in performing technology due diligence on organisations in which we are evaluating investment
• Contributing to the ongoing performance assessment of our technology investments

Technology interventions 10%

• Providing specific consulting support to organisations requiring independent review of their technology choices or activities
• Writing reports summarising the output from our intervention and recommendations

Team Support 10%

• Supporting the team with regular feedback, check-ins, and developmental objectives
• Contributing to a healthy and positive team culture, through role modelling in line with our commitments
• Contributing positively to the organisation's aims of diversity and inclusion
• Looking after the health, safety and welfare of yourself and all around you
• Taking on other reasonable duties as appropriate, in line with your skills, knowledge abilities and experience

Who You Are

Essential experience and capabilities include: 

To be successful you will need to:

• have experience related practical application of business technology solutions, ideally as a consultant, designer or developer of business software
• evidence an entrepreneurial mindset and ability to develop innovative solutions
• have a good understanding (practical or academic) of open architectures and use of APIs to deliver flexible business solutions
• have a good understanding and passion for staying up-to-date with technology evolution and innovations
• be an excellent project manager delivering outcomes to a specified timeframe at a high quality
• evidence strong oral and written communications skills and ability to articulate complex messages using both PowerPoint and Word as communications tools
• share our passion for our mission to increase the financial resilience of people in vulnerable circumstances

Personal characteristics:

• be comfortable challenging the status quo and energised by designing solutions
• be able to deal with complexity and uncertainty and work under your own initiative 
• be keen to adopt innovative and creative approaches to problem solving with multiple stakeholders
• be great at listening to people who you will be working alongside or providing consulting services to
• enjoy innovative and experimental ways of team working
• seek continued learning and development, and enjoy developing others
• seek continued learning and development and enjoy developing others
• be a brilliant team player – take the initiative to support colleagues and suggest solutions
• be great at building relationships at all levels

What it means to be part of the Fair4all Finance team

Values

We are Inclusive

We want to work in partnership with others who have experience and expertise and share what we have; we do not want to duplicate work done by others

We are Transparent

We are open and invite contribution in all we do

We are purpose orientated

The needs of people in vulnerable circumstances are at the heart of everything we do

We have a service mentality

We operate with humility and provide a practical commercial service to those seeking to improve financial inclusion

We are agile and innovative

We iterate potential solutions rather than designing for perfection

We work holistically

We seek to understand the problems we are trying to solve from both the viewpoint of the whole system and the individual effected