Head of Home Finance Operations

Role Purpose

Operations & Governance

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for Home Finance Operations across dual locations, ensuring consistency, control, and risk alignment.
• Own the end-to-end operational lifecycle including booking, disbursement, post-disbursement servicing, collections support, and account maintenance.
• Ensure full compliance with CBUAE regulations, internal policies, and Shari’a Board directives, always maintaining audit-ready operations.
• Design and maintain robust SOPs, control frameworks, KRIs, and escalation mechanisms to minimize losses, errors, and customer complaints.
• Act as the primary operations owner during audits, regulatory reviews, and Shari’a inspections, ensuring timely closure of observations.

Digital Transformation & Process Excellence

• Lead automation and digital transformation initiatives across the Home Finance lifecycle in line with global banking best practices.
• Identify process inefficiencies and control gaps; implement sustainable, scalable solutions reducing TAT, manual intervention, and operational risk.
• Partner with IT, Digital, and Data teams on system enhancements, UATs, integrations, and workflow optimization.
• Drive straight-through processing (STP), digital documentation, and data integrity initiatives.

Customer Experience & Service Quality

• Champion a customer-centric operating model ensuring transparent, timely, and compliant customer journeys.
• Reduce friction points and complaints through process simplification, proactive communication, and service quality monitoring.
• Embed service SLAs, quality assurance, and root-cause analysis frameworks.

Portfolio & Business Enablement

• Support one of the largest Home Finance portfolios in the UAE, enabling high sales volumes through strong operational capacity planning.
• Ensure operational readiness for new products, regulatory changes, and strategic business initiatives.
• Provide data-driven operational insights to senior management and governance forums.

Stakeholder & Governance Management

• Serve as a key operational partner to Business, Credit, Risk, Compliance, Shari’a, Legal, IT, Finance, and External Vendors.
• Lead cross-functional forums ensuring alignment between business growth, risk appetite, and operational capability.
• Prepare and present operational MI, risk dashboards, and performance metrics.

People Leadership & Capability Development

• Lead, develop, and inspire high-performing, multi-location teams with clear accountability and ownership.
• Drive performance management, succession planning, and capability development aligned with future skill requirements.
• Foster a culture of integrity, continuous improvement, compliance, and accountability.
• Specialist Skills / Technical Knowledge Required for this role:
• Executive-level leadership across multi-location operations
• Deep expertise in Islamic Home Finance operations and Shari’a compliance
• Strong operational risk, control framework, and governance experience
• Digital transformation and automation leadership
• Advanced stakeholder and senior management communication skills
• Customer-centric mindset with focus on service excellence
• Ability to manage complex, high-volume and high-value portfolios

Qualifications & Experience

• 10–15+ years of progressive experience in banking operations, with strong exposure to Home Finance Operations.
• Proven background in Islamic Banking and Shari’a-compliant products and operations.
• Demonstrated experience managing large operational teams and complex portfolios in the UAE market.
• Track record of leading digital transformation and large-scale operational change programmers.