Distribution Operating Model & Roles Lead

Description

The Distribution Operating Model & Roles Lead is accountable for defining, activating, and sustaining how work gets done across Citizens’ branch‑centric distribution ecosystem. This role owns the end‑to‑end operating model and role architecture that translate Citizens’ distribution strategy and cultural ambition into clear roles, decision rights, workflows, staffing models, and branch routines that scale.

Serving as the enterprise owner of the Distribution Operating Model, this leader ensures that the future‑state branch vision is executable in practice - grounded in real branch operations, capacity constraints, and risk requirements - while enabling advisory‑led growth and ecosystem coordination across branches, contact centers, digital, wealth, business banking, and enabling functions.

This role is the single point of accountability for operating model and role design outcomes, with a broad set of pillar leads, SMEs, and consultants supporting execution. Serve as the primary enterprise counterpart and design authority for external partners (e.g., Accenture), ensuring day-to-day alignment, quality of outputs, and integration with internal strategy, SMEs, and field realities.

The core accountability of this role is to own and steward the Distribution Operating Model and Role Architecture, ensuring that:

• Work is organized clearly and consistently
• Decision rights and governance are explicit and practical
• Roles are designed around value, customer impact, and advisory outcomes
• Staffing and routines align to branch archetypes, demand, and capacity
• The model is scalable, sustainable, and operationally feasible

Key Responsibilities

Operating Model Ownership

• Serve as the enterprise owner of the future‑state branch operating model, accountable for how distribution operates day‑to‑day.
• Systematically pressure-test operating model, workflow, and role design assumptions against live branch execution realities, capacity constraints, and workload drivers to ensure feasibility and sustainability.
• Define how work flows across the branch ecosystem, including branch–ecosystem interactions, governance forums, and escalation paths.
• Ensure the operating model enables advisory‑led growth, execution discipline, and cross‑channel coordination.

Role Architecture & Staffing Models

• Own the future‑state role architecture across distribution, including role clarity, accountability, and interdependencies.
• Own a branch-centric staffing framework that translates demand and workload drivers into scalable staffing models by archetype, validated for execution and regulatory expectations.
• Lead role re‑composition for priority branch roles, ensuring expectations align to branch capacity, risk controls, and service models.
• Define and validate branch staffing models by archetype, grounded in workload drivers, demand, and execution realities.

Branch Routines & Execution Enablement

• Design and standardize branch and ecosystem routines (daily, weekly, monthly) that reinforce priorities, coaching, and execution discipline.
• Ensure routines simplify work, reduce friction, and free leader capacity for customers and teams.
• Validate that routines are realistic, sustainable, and embedded into leader expectations.

Governance, Decision Rights & Risk Alignment

• Define and maintain decision rights, governance structures, and escalation paths that enable empowered execution within appropriate guardrails.
• Partner closely with Risk, Compliance, HR, and Audit to ensure operating model decisions are feasible, compliant, and regulator‑ready.
• Surface operating model risks, feasibility constraints, and policy implications for leadership decision‑making.

Enterprise Integration & Stewardship

• Act as the long‑term steward of the distribution operating model, ensuring it evolves with strategy, customer needs, and technology.
• Deliberately orchestrate branch, market, operations, risk, and functional SME input at each stage of design to ensure operating model decisions are informed by real-world execution and control requirements.
• Incorporate lessons from pilots, markets, and execution experience into ongoing model refinement.
• Ensure alignment between operating model, talent systems, performance expectations, and culture.

Leadership & Collaboration Model

This role leads through enterprise influence and design authority, supported by:

• Operating Model & Roles pillar resources
• Consumer and Sales & Service Development Consultants
• Demand sizing, job architecture, performance, talent, and learning SMEs
• Experience & Change and Talent Enablement partners

All supporting roles enable this leader’s mission; accountability for outcomes remains with the SVP.

Success Measures

• Leaders and colleagues clearly understand who owns what, how decisions are made, and how work flows across distribution.
• Roles, staffing models, and routines enable advisory execution without increasing colleague burden.
• Branch leaders spend more time on coaching, customers, and growth, and less on operational friction.
• The operating model scales with minimal exceptions or rework.
• The operating model is viewed as a growth enabler, not a constraint.
• Ensure all operating model and role architecture deliverables meet clear implementation-readiness and adoption criteria across branches and adjacent channels before enterprise rollout.

To thrive as a colleague at Citizens, candidates must demonstrate a strong customer-centric mindset, exhibit persistence and resilience in the face of challenges, and embrace continuous learning to adapt and grow in a dynamic environment.

Hours and Work Schedule: (4 days in office, 1 day remote)

Hours per Week: 40

Work Schedule: Monday-Friday

Pay Transparency

The salary range for this position is $133,280-$250,000  per year, plus an opportunity to earn an annual discretionary bonus. Actual pay is based on various factors including but not limited to the work location, and relevant skills and experience.

We offer competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, maternity/paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs and more. Note, Citizens’ paid time off policy exceeds the mandatory, paid sick or paid time-away policy of every local and state jurisdiction in the United States. For an overview of our benefits, visit https://jobs.citizensbank.com/benefits .

Citizens will not sponsor an applicant for a work visa, such as an H-1B, for this position.

Some job boards have started using jobseeker-reported data to estimate salary ranges for roles. If you apply and qualify for this role, a recruiter will discuss accurate pay guidance.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.