Finance Delivery Partner Manager

About the Role

OUP has embarked on a Finance transformation programme. The current phase involves engaging a long-term strategic partner to deliver core finance operations (RTR, OTC, PTP, and Employee Expenses) on an outsourced basis. Ensuring this partnership delivers the required commercial value and operational excellence requires a dedicated focus on relationship health, performance enforcement, and contractual integrity.

The Finance Delivery Partner Manager is accountable for the commercial, contractual, and experiential performance of the outsourced partner. They ensure that the partnership remains outcome-focused and transparent, managing the end-to-end colleague, customer, and supplier experience of Finance Operations delivery.

As Finance Delivery Partner Manager you are accountable for:

• Leading within Finance to ensure key delivery partners have defined strategies to align to OUP’s goals and deliver business value, which are then tracked, managed and updated.
• Owning the overall health of the OUP–Partner relationships, fostering a transparent and collaborative partnership.
• Establishing and managing effective partner governance and managing partner escalations.
• Validating, authorising, and controlling Partner remuneration based on the achievement of contractual outcomes and at-risk mechanisms.
• Enforcing contractual performance through SLAs and Control KPIs, including the initiation of service credits or penalties where required.
• Owning the end-to-end colleague, customer, and supplier experience, translating feedback into service improvement.
• Leading the commercial assessment and governance of scope changes, including pricing and impact analysis.
• Leading periodic assessments of partner relationships and delivery performance.
• Leading on identification of additional scope for the use of delivery partners within Finance, including supplier identification and selection.

As Finance Delivery Partner Manager you are responsible for:

• Partnership Management
• Commercial & Value Realisation
• Service Performance & Control
• Service Experience Ownership
• Transition & Scope Governance

We operate a hybrid working policy that requires a minimum of 2 days per week in the Oxford office.

About You

• Strategic Relationship Management: Ability to cultivate & maintain strong partnerships.
• Commercial and Financial Acumen: Proficiency in interpreting complex F&A service contracts is desirable.
• Performance Governance and Analysis: Expert skill in monitoring Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Complex Problem Solving and Escalation: Capability to lead teams through issue resolution and governance frameworks is desirable.
• Stakeholder Experience Design: A focus on end-to-end service.
• Change and Transition Leadership: Competence in managing scope variations, commercial assessments, and transition or hypercare phases.
• Strong and effective communication skills at all levels of the organization e.g., functional leaders, Key User network.

Benefits

We care about work/life balance here at OUP. With this in mind we offer 25 days’ holiday that rises with service, plus bank holidays and Christmas closure (3-days) and a 35-hour working week. We are open to discussing flexibility in respect to working patterns, dependent on role. We also have a great variety of active employee networks and societies.

We help make your money go further by contributing to your pension up to 12%, offering loans and savings schemes through our partnership with Salary Finance, in addition to travel to work schemes and access to a wide range of local discounts.

This role comes with the added benefit of private medical insurance and a management bonus.

Please see our Rewards and Recognition page for more information.