Kris Heath

Strategic Leadership: Ownership of a cross-functional Agile Tribe consisting of 5 squads within the UK's fastest-growing fintech

SDLC Governance: Managed the end-to-end delivery of multi-product customer onboarding journeys and data management applications, utilising SaaS core banking integrations

AI Transformation: Architecting Agentic AI solutions and 'vibe-coded' prototypes to refine requirements and increase operational execution speed within an in-house case management platform

Technical Delivery: Scaled the tribe from 0 to 5 squads, delivering a customer data MVP in 4 months and re-platforming deposit onboarding journeys within 3 months. Creating a new self-serve journey for Business Current Accounts in 6 months

Data Integrity: Developed compliance standards and analysis tools to ensure data completeness, accuracy and validity across 3 major migrations

API Strategy: Served as Product Owner for an estate of 400 APIs, managing versioning and lifecycle enhancements across Web, Mobile, and Open Banking channels

Engineering Leadership: Directed a team of 20 back-end engineers to prioritise and deliver functional enhancements for customer and colleague applications

Operational Impact: Enhanced the digital onboarding journey, significantly increasing Straight-Through Processing (STP) rates

SDLC Management: Bridged the gap between business requirements and technical execution, coordinating delivery across 4 digital channels simultaneously

Business Transformation: Spearheaded the build-out of a multi-party onboarding application for business customers to support a major switching programme

Vendor Management: Led third-party engineering resources through the SDLC to deliver a full digital solution in 8 months, ahead of initial expectations

Stakeholder Governance: Managed business readiness by engaging Legal, Compliance, and Operations to ensure regulatory alignment for the final solution

Security Integration: Integrated a Digital ID anti-impersonation solution, enabling businesses to open accounts with minimal manual intervention

Requirements Engineering: Led requirement gathering and documentation for a major bank-wide digital transformation, utilising low-code tools to accelerate build velocity

Technical Bridging: Facilitated discussions between business stakeholders and Front-End engineers, documenting technical "tags" and API integrations into downstream core banking platforms

Regulatory Implementation: Managed the implementation of complex FATCA/CRS regulatory requirements within the digital onboarding channel

SDLC Oversight: Provided timeline expectations and delivery monitoring for complex application journeys involving internal and external service services

Operational Scaling: Oversaw a period of hyper-growth, scaling the business from 15 to 200 employees and increasing the client base from 7 to over 3,000

Multi-Disciplinary Leadership: Managed a team of 45 across Operations, IT, and Facilities, progressing through roles in Credit, Sales, and Collections

Platform Launch: Directly involved in developing the firm's Invoice Finance Solution, ensuring operational security and scalability as the business expanded

Risk Management: Actively managed a portfolio of 60 Invoice Finance customers, ensuring product security and recovery capability

Portfolio Oversight: Maintained a record of zero material losses across the managed portfolio through rigorous auditing and compliance monitoring

Portfolio Growth: Consistently met and exceeded growth targets for an SME portfolio while maintaining strict bank and compliance standards

Relationship Management: Built face-to-face relationships with West Midlands businesses, providing bespoke account management and financial services in a time where banks were removing local relationship managers

Starting as a cashier in a prominent city centre branch, progressed through counter manager to personal account manager, supporting retail customers needs and selling relevant products for the betterment of their financial situations

Branch Operations: Delivered account management for new and existing personal customers, covering cash handling and people management