Director of Growth & Distribution – Personal Savings

At OakNorth, we’re on a mission to empower the UK’s most ambitious businesses. Since 2015, we’ve lent over $21bn across the UK and US, helped create more than 58,000 new homes and 36,000 jobs, and supported hundreds of thousands of personal savers — all while operating in one of the most highly regulated environments in financial services.

Our products sit at the intersection of innovation, customer outcomes, and regulatory scrutiny. Getting that balance right is non-negotiable.

The Role

We are looking for a Director, Growth & Distribution to lead and scale customer acquisition for OakNorth’s Personal Savings business.

This is a senior commercial leadership role responsible for building diversified, scalable acquisition channels that bring high-quality savers and deposits to OakNorth. The role spans direct digital growth, affiliate ecosystems, brand partnerships and selected distribution platforms.

A key focus of the role is expanding OakNorth’s acquisition mix beyond rate tables and any single dominant channel, while ensuring growth remains capital-efficient, compliant and aligned with treasury funding requirements.

You will report directly to the Chief Product Officer and operate as a peer to Product and Engineering Directors, Operations Directors, and as a close partner to Finance and Treasury.

What you will be doing::
Direct Growth Strategy & Execution

• Own the direct customer growth strategy for Personal Savings, with clear targets for volume, cost of acquisition and customer quality.

• Diversify OakNorth’s acquisition mix by identifying and scaling new channels, including:

• Affiliate ecosystems and comparison platforms

• Brand partnerships and consumer platform integrations

• Introducer and referral programmes

• Paid and organic digital acquisition

• Work closely with Product and Engineering to optimise the end-to-end acquisition journey, improving:

• conversion across acquisition funnels

• onboarding and funding rates

• early-life engagement and retention

• Establish clear performance management across acquisition channels, grounded in strong growth economics and data-driven experimentation.

Partnerships & Distribution

• Develop and scale partnerships that drive meaningful customer acquisition and deposit growth.

This includes:

•

• Building brand and platform partnerships that introduce high-quality savers to OakNorth

• Expanding and optimising affiliate and introducer ecosystems

• Maximising the performance of existing distribution channels (e.g. savings marketplaces and wealth platforms)

• Lead commercial negotiations and partnership structuring, balancing:

•

• deposit volume and stability

• acquisition economics and pricing discipline

• operational and regulatory complexity

• Own ongoing partner performance management, including growth, economics, risk and relationship health.

Leadership & Team Management

• Lead and develop our growth marketing specialists and partnerships team.

• Set clear objectives, accountability and development plans, and build a culture that is commercial, data-driven and outcome-focused rather than channel-led

Cross-Functional Leadership

Work closely with:

• Product & Engineering – to ensure acquisition and partner needs are built cleanly into product roadmaps.

• Finance & Treasury – to align growth plans with funding requirements, balance sheet strategy and pricing constraints.

• Operations, Risk and Compliance – to ensure the Personal Savings product is designed and operated in a robust, compliant and scalable way, aligned with regulatory expectations and sound conduct risk management.

• Act as a senior leader within the Personal Savings unit, contributing to overall strategy, prioritisation and decision-making.

What You'll Bring::
• Senior leadership experience in growth, distribution or commercial roles within retail banking, fintech, savings/investments platforms, or adjacent regulated environments.

• A proven track record of building and scaling customer acquisition channels beyond a single dominant source, including affiliates, partnerships and new growth initiatives.

• Experience structuring and managing commercial partnerships that drive customer acquisition, including affiliate ecosystems, brand partnerships and introducer models.

• Strong commercial judgement, including an understanding of acquisition economics, pricing discipline and volume trade-offs.

• Experience working closely with product and engineering teams in highly iterative environments to improve conversion, onboarding and customer engagement.

• Confidence operating in regulated environments, with a clear understanding of what cannot be compromised for growth.

• The ability to operate at both strategic and hands-on levels.

What Success looks like:

• A materially more diversified acquisition mix with reduced dependency on any single channel.

• Scalable affiliate and partnership ecosystems delivering high-quality savers and deposits.

• Strong performance across both direct and partner acquisition channels.

• Clear visibility and control over acquisition economics.

• Strong, credible partnerships with Product, Engineering, Operations, Finance and Treasury.

• A high-performing, commercially sharp growth and partnerships team.

Benefits and Perks::
• Equity. We want people to have a stake in the business so that all our interests are aligned.

• 25 days holiday

• Personalized benefits – opt-in to what matters to you

• Subsidised Private Medical Insurance with Bupa

• Enhanced maternity and paternity leave

• Wellbeing and social events

• Support causes that matter to you – Volunteering time off

• Salary sacrifice schemes (Cycle to work, nursery, gym, electric car scheme)