About the Role
The Head of Operations is a senior leadership role responsible for driving operational excellence across Ceviant Finance House. You will oversee all core operational units—including credit operations, treasury operations, settlements, internal controls, process governance, and service delivery.
This role ensures that Ceviant operates efficiently, safely, and in full compliance with regulatory standards, while enabling scale in embedded credit, treasury activities, and partner-facing operations.
You will provide strategic leadership to the Operations team, deepen process automation, strengthen risk controls, and work cross-functionally to support the company's liquidity management, credit portfolio performance, and customer experience.
Operational Leadership & Strategy
- Lead the overall operations function, setting direction, priorities, and performance standards.
- Translate company strategy into operational plans, ensuring alignment across credit, treasury, settlements, compliance support, and partner operations.
- Build and manage an operations roadmap that improves efficiency, reduces risk, and supports business growth.
- Provide leadership and coaching to operations staff to strengthen capabilities and performance.
Credit & Loan Operations Oversight
- Oversee the full lending operations lifecycle: onboarding, KYC/verification, documentation, credit approval routing, disbursements, monitoring, collections support, and closures.
- Ensure accurate loan booking, amortisation schedules, portfolio updates, and daily reconciliations.
- Strengthen controls around credit operations to minimize errors, fraud, or leakages.
- Partner with Risk to ensure lending processes align with policies, risk appetite, and regulatory expectations.
Operations Governance, Controls & Compliance
- Establish strong internal controls, SOPs, and operational risk frameworks across all operational units.
- Ensure full compliance with CBN guidelines, audit requirements, internal control standards, AML/CFT processes, and documentation procedures.
- Lead operational readiness for audits, reviews, regulatory examinations, and partner due diligence.
- Coordinate with Compliance and Legal to ensure proper documentation, approval flows, and adherence to regulatory changes.
Process Optimisation & Automation
- Identify inefficiencies, gaps, and bottlenecks across operations and lead process redesign initiatives.
- Work with the Engineering/Product team to automate credit workflows, treasury processes, reconciliations, and compliance checks.
- Introduce dashboards and operational reporting tools to drive data-driven decision-making.
- Champion a continuous improvement culture focused on efficiency, scalability, and cost reduction.
Cross-functional & Partner Coordination
- Work with Finance on reconciliations, financial reporting, settlements, and liquidity management.
- Collaborate with Business Development and Client Experience to support partner integrations, ensure operational readiness, and resolve escalations.
- Coordinate with Risk, Payments, Asset Management, and Group teams to ensure alignment of processes and information flow.
- Serve as the operational lead for new product launches and partner onboarding.
What You'll Bring
- 6–8 years of experience in operations leadership within a financial services, lending, banking, or fintech environment.
- Deep understanding of lending operations, treasury workflows, reconciliations, financial operations, and operational risk management.
- Experience operating within a CBN-regulated institution or similar regulatory environment.
- Strong leadership capability with experience in building teams and driving performance.
- Exceptional process-design, analytical, and continuous-improvement skills.
- High attention to detail, strong documentation skills, and ability to manage multiple priorities.
- Strong communication and stakeholder management abilities.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
- End-to-end process turnaround times (loan processing, treasury settlements, reconciliations).
- Accuracy and completeness of operational processing.
- Reduction in operational risk incidents and audit exceptions. LoI
- Liquidity management efficiency and adherence to treasury controls.
- Automation milestones achieved and process improvements executed.
- Partner satisfaction and effectiveness of cross-functional collaboration.
- Overall operational readiness and compliance performance.