Paul Sweeney

Dynamic C-Suite professional with strong operating, commercial, fast growth and organisational transformation experiences. Passionate about leading businesses into the digital age. Customer-obsessed champion, building first class teams and fast pace cultures.

Consummate results driven Senior Business and People Leader with over 20 years demonstrable experience across Retail, Financial Services and Consumer Credit. 

A tenacious, inspirational, and innovative Leader with a highly strategic mindset, naturally exuding positivity, and encouragement, to galvanise stakeholders and businesses behind a shared vision.

Capable of creating a dynamic and progressive business through identifying and executing strategic direction, delivering organisational transformation and growth, while strengthening and developing senior management. Delivering teams authentically engaged in the business to deliver results; maximising business profitability / shareholder returns, without compromising on customer experience and loyalty.

Group Operations Director
Altius Group Limited October 2023 – Present
Preston (Onsite)
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Group Operations Director and Board member of Altius Group; a market leader in business sales transactions, with 40+ years’ experience facilitating the sale of SME and Corporate businesses
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Responsibility for 40 colleagues managing all aspects of the Corporate sales process for 1500+ clients with a total enterprise value of £700m+
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Restructure of Corporate Sales teams to drive optimal performance while maintaining individual brand centric focus
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Implementation of a Training academy and Graduate programme to formalise and embed robust training and development content and approach
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Introduce formal reporting framework, both MI content, dashboard access and regular meeting cadence to provide business and performance updates to the Board
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Programme lead working with integration partner on delivering successful implementation of HubSpot, concluding the upgrade of the entire business onto a unified system
Management Consultant
Yakara Limited August 2023 – December 2023
Edinburgh (Remote)
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Providing competitor analysis and market research
Expertise
Business restructuring & operating model optimisation
Business transformation & growth
Strategic vision & leadership
FCA & CBI approved senior manager
Delivery of annual budgets & maximising value
Retail, Financial services, consumer credit
Senior stakeholder & relationship building
Paul Sweeney Curriculum Vitae
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End to end business and product offering audit, and identification of opportunities to Increase supplier base / market share
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Review of business operating and governance structure to better align with expectations and requirements of Corporate / FCA Regulated clients
Chief Executive Officer
Oxendale & Co Limited August 2022 – July 2023
Dublin (Onsite) CBI Reference number: P209257 (PCF-1, PCF-8, PCF-17)
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Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) approved Chief Executive of ‘Oxendales’ a subsidiary of N Brown Group Plc, operating exclusively within Ireland. Oxendales is a fashion and home digital retailer with an integrated credit offering (Debtor book €20m+ & annual sales of €32m)
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Leading the Executive Board in a rapid restructure of the Irish business to mitigate trading losses and declining market share, via;
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Producing a 3-year plan with key financial performance deliverables and restructuring the finance team, including adding a NED to the Board with CFO experience
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Formalising the Group / Subsidiary charging mechanisms and supporting inter-company SLAs via a formal Intercompany Service Agreement
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Creation of a Dublin based Marketing team (and e-commerce and digital marketing strategy) – Internal SMEs and external partners, taking control (from UK Central Marketing team) of local marketing, PR, and social media
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Exiting an outsource arrangement in South Africa and rebuilding an agile multi-skilled Customer Experience team in Dublin (cost neutral to the outsource arrangement)
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Commissioned a comprehensive audit of the Financial Services (FS) governance and operational structure and framework resulting in;
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Revised Governance framework and (Board) sub-committee structure and TORs to provide adequate autonomy and escalation points to the local Leadership team / oversight for the Board
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Policy suite created and key processes mapped and SOP’s published
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FS structure strengthened with experienced CBI certified managers and advisers
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Successfully secured 5-year CBI Credit licence
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Credit book increased +7% (Revised credit model and marketing approach of integrated ‘flexible credit’)
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Retail Demand +10% (Brand realigned to target demographic & onboarding new 3rd party brands)
Director of Operations (FCA approved COO)
N Brown Group PLC July 2020 – July 2022
Manchester (Onsite) FCA Reference number: PXS06858 (SMF 24)
Director of Financial Services Operations / MLRO
February 2017 – June 2020
FCA Reference number: PXS06858 (SMF 17)
Consultant
August 2016 – January 2017
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A member of the N Brown Group Leadership Team (GLT) leading 350 Manchester based and 250 offshore colleagues, reporting to the CEO. N Brown is a top 10 UK fashion and home digital retailer with an integrated credit offering (Debtor book £600m+ & annual FS revenue of £250m)
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Consolidated the Customer Service & Financial Services division under a single Management structure (reducing year on year Opex costs by 30% / outsource costs by 40%) covering - financial crime, credit control, customer recovery & collections, customer complaints & remediation programmes, payments, debt strategy and sale, MI & data analytics, sales, service, and general enquiries across all channels
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5 consecutive years of reducing arrears via enhanced training with 3rd party partnerships, automating and digitalising the internal and customer facing arrears journey, expanding payment channels and creation of an FS Data team applying propensity modelling to expedite identification of vulnerable customers and minimise delinquency rates
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FCA primary contact, Chair of Steering Committee and owner of operational and governance structure, for all customer remediation campaigns, including PPI, Plevin, Irresponsible Lending, CCA 140A unfair relationship legal claims (£160m+ repaid over 4 years)
Paul Sweeney Curriculum Vitae
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Programme lead to identify and deliver a Complaints Management System. E2E project delivered in under 6 months with Aptean Respond successfully rolled out to 50+ Complaint Handlers
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Chair of Operational, Risk and Conduct Committee (ORCC) which oversees all FS related operational, risk, compliance and internal audit (3LOD) activity
Director of Operations
Axcess Financial March 2012 – July 2016
(CNG Holdings, Inc.)
Edinburgh
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A member of the Executive team with full P&L responsibility for the central operations functions. Axcess Europe was a regulated digital and high street lender, offering alternative financial solutions to traditional banking with products ranging from unsecured loans, foreign currency, pawn broking and cheque cashing (via multiple online brands, 500+ owned stores and a franchise network of 100+ stores throughout the UK)
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Responsible for the Regulated and Retail Operational areas including underwriting, currency, pawnbroking, recoveries & collections, debt strategy and sale, store support, customer service, complaints, property & estate, operational admin & analysis, and change management
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Operations work stream lead for successful FCA authorisation application
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Programme lead for multiple system / software implementations – joint UK / US roll out Complaints Management Solution (Aptean Respond), successful translation of US (Parent Group) loan platform to UK specification, e2e procurement process and roll out of Collections platform - Experian Tallyman and build of online lending platform (co-ordinating with offshore IT support in Peru) – Equiniti Pancredit
Director of Strategy
Centrica April 2011 – March 2012
(Centrica PLC)
Edinburgh
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Debt Programme sponsor, responsible for delivery of c£21m targeted reduction in outstanding Scottish Gas meter debt during 2011
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Developed Scottish Gas (pay as you go energy) debt compliance framework, including recruiting and managing compliance team, creating debt policy documents, and implementing all compliance controls and measures
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Responsible for delivery of OFGEM ‘Ability to Pay’ requirements, from frontline training (onshore/offshore) through to creation and introduction of systems and controls to maintain and demonstrate strict compliance to ATP principles
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Introduced debt metrics to measure, trend and identify gaps/opportunities through the end-to-end debt process from meter exchange to final debt at DCA
Operations Director/Shareholder
OPOS Limited November 2009 – November 2010
Glasgow
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Co-Owner / Director of specialist DCA focussed on B2B & NHS sector clients
Head of UK Operations
Intrum August 2008 – August 2009
(intrum ab (publ))
Liverpool (Onsite)
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Intrum is a market-leading credit management company, with a wide-ranging expertise in debt collection services, which operates in 24 countries in Europe with 10,000+ colleagues.
Operations Director
Stirling Park LLP March 2007 – August 2008
Paul Sweeney Curriculum Vitae
Intrum (Scotland)
Glasgow/Kilmarnock
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Stirling Park are one of Scotland’s largest and most innovative Sheriff Officer and Debt Collection service providers, established since 1924. The firm serve a range of public and private sector organisations, including 14 Local Authorities across Scotland, and many of Scotland’s largest law firms.
Head of UK Operations
EOS Group March 2005 – March 2007
(EOS Holding GmbH)
Livingston/Warrington
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The EOS Group (part of the Otto Group) is an international technology-driven receivables management expert. The company's core business is the purchase of unsecured and secured debt portfolios and its key target sectors are banking, utilities, real estate, and e-commerce. With over 45 years of experience, they operate globally in 24 countries with 6,000 colleagues.
UK Operations Manager
Bill Gosling Outsourcing September 1998 – March 2005
Glasgow/Basingstoke
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Bill Gosling Outsourcing are experts in Outsourcing, Accounts Receivable Management, and Customer Service since 1955, operating in 7 countries with 5,500+ colleagues.

***Not Applicable***