Business Relationship Director - Agriculture

Join us as a Business Relationship Director, where you will be part of the Northern Agriculture team, responsible for managing relationships with both large and small agricultural businesses and Landed Estates. You will facilitate, guide, and support clients with their borrowing and purchasing needs, helping them to achieve sustainable growth and long-term success. Through meaningful, diverse, and sustainability-focused conversations, you will build trusted relationships while identifying future opportunities. Carrying out this role you will play a key role in driving growth, strengthening our presence, and expanding market coverage across Scotland.

To be successful as a Business Relationship Director - Agriculture, you should have experience with

• Ability to travel independently, as the role involves spending significant time with clients in rural locations.

• Proven ability to build and maintain trusted, long-term client relationships.

• Considerable understanding and knowledge of the agriculture sector and its unique challenges.

• Confident, self-motivated, and driven mindset, with the ability to work independently while contributing effectively as part of a regional team.

Some other highly valued skills may include

• Proven experience in confidently preparing, hosting, and facilitating events for both new and existing clients.

• Excellent networking skills, with the ability to build and maintain effective relationships with key stakeholders such as Rural agents, Accountants and solicitors.

• Up-to-date knowledge of current government policies affecting the agriculture sector and an understanding of their impact on the market.

• Background in finance or banking, with experience in managing client accounts.

• Demonstrable lending experience, ideally within an agricultural industry.

This role can be based in Aberdeen, Marischal Square or Edinburgh, Princes Street. However, both locations will involve regular travel to client sites in rural locations.

Purpose of the role

To establish and nurture profitable partnerships with both corporate and individual clients. It's the bridge between the bank's offerings and clients' needs, ensuring mutual benefit and long-term success. 

Accountabilities

• Management of client relationships to identify the clients financial goals, challenges, and risk tolerance to support the analysis of data obtained from various sources, including the investment portfolio and cash flow, to identify trends, insights, areas for improvement and additional services to support client needs.
• Research and understanding of the client's industry trends, regulatory landscape, and competitive environment to inform strategic recommendations.
• Design of customised solutions that address the client's specific needs and objectives, incorporating a range of products and services from the bank's portfolio.
• Communication of the value proposition of proposed solutions, justification of recommendations, and negotiation of terms that are beneficial for both the client and the bank.
• Provision of guidance to clients to support their financial decisions, offering expert investment advice, risk management and wealth management strategies support, and updates on market trends to ensure a positive and continuous relationship.
• Assessment of financial, legal, and operational risks associated with client relationships, and implementation of measures to minimise potential losses.
• Documentation of all client interactions, transactions, and agreements to ensure transparency and auditability, and communicate findings effectively to support product development, service offerings, and the overall bank strategy.
• Monitoring of client satisfaction, revenue generated, and other relevant metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of relationship management efforts.

Vice President Expectations

• To contribute or set strategy, drive requirements and make recommendations for change. Plan resources, budgets, and policies; manage and maintain policies/ processes; deliver continuous improvements and escalate breaches of policies/procedures..
• If managing a team, they define jobs and responsibilities, planning for the department’s future needs and operations, counselling employees on performance and contributing to employee pay decisions/changes. They may also lead a number of specialists to influence the operations of a department, in alignment with strategic as well as tactical priorities, while balancing short and long term goals and ensuring that budgets and schedules meet corporate requirements..
• If the position has leadership responsibilities, People Leaders are expected to demonstrate a clear set of leadership behaviours to create an environment for colleagues to thrive and deliver to a consistently excellent standard. The four LEAD behaviours are: L – Listen and be authentic, E – Energise and inspire, A – Align across the enterprise, D – Develop others..
• OR for an individual contributor, they will be a subject matter expert within own discipline and will guide technical direction. They will lead collaborative, multi-year assignments and guide team members through structured assignments, identify the need for the inclusion of other areas of specialisation to complete assignments. They will train, guide and coach less experienced specialists and provide information affecting long term profits, organisational risks and strategic decisions..
• Advise key stakeholders, including functional leadership teams and senior management on functional and cross functional areas of impact and alignment.
• Manage and mitigate risks through assessment, in support of the control and governance agenda.
• Demonstrate leadership and accountability for managing risk and strengthening controls in relation to the work your team does.
• Demonstrate comprehensive understanding of the organisation functions to contribute to achieving the goals of the business.
• Collaborate with other areas of work, for business aligned support areas to keep up to speed with business activity and the business strategies.
• Create solutions based on sophisticated analytical thought comparing and selecting complex alternatives. In-depth analysis with interpretative thinking will be required to define problems and develop innovative solutions.
• Adopt and include the outcomes of extensive research in problem solving processes.
• Seek out, build and maintain trusting relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders in order to accomplish key business objectives, using influencing and negotiating skills to achieve outcomes.

All colleagues will be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Values of Respect, Integrity, Service, Excellence and Stewardship – our moral compass, helping us do what we believe is right. They will also be expected to demonstrate the Barclays Mindset – to Empower, Challenge and Drive – the operating manual for how we behave.