Leon Bernard 51 Langstrath Road, Clifton, Nottingham, NG11 8BW.

Telephone: 07854954376 Email: bernardleo.lb@gmail.com

PROFILE:

A competitive, professional and passionate Team Manager with strong communication skills, who utilises

experience and knowledge to lead development through expert coaching and motivating of his agents and

colleagues, consistently ensuring results are delivered through expert understanding of department and

business needs, in line with KPI’s and business models.

CAREER HISTORY:

Dollar Financial November 2008-February 2015

Financial difficulties Team Manager/ Operation and Strategy Management -Debt recovery Responsible for managing, developing, motivating and coaching a strong team of 28 financial difficulties team agents, driving and improving performance to exceed all targets. Lead the department through change management, embedding the culture of Treating Customers Fairly, balancing the needs of our customers with those of the business in readiness for FCA authorisation.

• Managed and developed team of agents, getting them to understand how to best support customers who are facing hardship/Vulnerable cases ensuring a high level of customer service

• Creation of dialler campaigns in order to improve efficiency, creating a strategy which improved department performance, reporting operationally at board level around department performance

• Representative for Dollar financial when attempting to seek authorisation from governing bodies such as FCA, OFT and Employee representative for consultation period around business restructure

• Strong intrapersonal skills, with the ability to understand how to form durable working relationships at all levels through excellent communication.

• Habitual tasks include coaching, performance planning, 1:1’s, focus sessions, team meetings, department communications, incentives, motivational challenges, call escalations, reporting, return to works, disciplinaries

• Regular development & coaching of agents carried out in line with identifying individual needs, using specific coaching models such as GROW and SMART objectives set and performance management implemented where necessary

• Motivation of agents produced through regular focus sessions and performance reviews, including education around key drivers of department and overall business needs, able to inspire and drive individuals and team members to achieve results in line with KPI’s set

• Directly responsible for success of individual teams leading to having the highest performing team within the department, with numerous separate groups, achieving team target 10 times in the last 12 months

• Strong intrapersonal skills, with the ability to understand how to form strong working relationships at all levels through strong communication

• Improvement of peers through carrying out observations, expert coaching, mentoring, sharing best practice, resulting in a stronger management and department performance

• Development of new managers to the business through role model supervision and communication of new systems and processes

• Team financial targets consistently exceeded through daily, weekly and monthly motivational incentives and driving performance at all levels including incremental & stretch targets

• Service delivery and company compliance needs monitored through regular side by sides, call listening, internal audits and customer feedback through the call escalation process.

• Development of department processes through communication with senior management learning directly from collector and customer experience.

• Clear understanding of FCA requirements, the need to deliver positive customer interactions and having Treating Customers Fairly principles at the heart of the business culture.

• Experience in change management, how do deliver difficult messages and gain agent buy-in through positivity and use of communication skills.

Capital One: Jan 2007-November 2008 Debt recovery supervisor and back office vendor liaison expert. Initial core role of front line debt collection, which soon developed into additional responsibilities when leading the team in the absence of the manager. Furthermore, carried out coaching and motivating new hires and peers to exceed KPI’s. Promotion to back office team resulted in improving the quality of Capital Ones front line associates and making sure all processes were followed and all correspondence was compliant and correctly generated. Enhanced communication with Capital Ones external vendors to drive down errors, improve quality and compliance to generate a better customer experience.

• Learned key skills and experience in coaching and supervision. • Instrumental in building the most successful team within Capital Ones collection department. • Ideas and expert coaching of colleagues increased both quality and results. • Introduced a number of monthly challenges to help motivate and keep colleagues result

focussed. • Achieved highest end of year rating within team and function after 1 year employment. • Handpicked ahead of hundreds of associates for role in back office. • Selected by senior manager as vendor liaison expert, tasked with increasing work quality and

minimising errors of Capital Ones external vendors. Trusted with liaising with senior management in the UK and abroad

EDUCATION/QUALIFICATIONS: GNVQ Advanced Business Studies, South Notts College, Nottingham 2001 - Merit

9 GCSEs , Wilford Meadows School Nottingham, taken in June 1999:

English Language (C) English Literature (C) Mathematics (C) Double Science (C) Geography (C) French (B) P.E (A) History (C)

Fully Qualified first aider

IT Skills – Microsoft: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook. References available upon request.