Manager Business Account Opening

About the role

The Business Account Opening Manager leads the centralized business account opening function and owns implementation and performance of the credit union's business account opening platform. This role participates in discovery and insights work to define current-state processes and requirements, the vendor review process, and the business case for the recommended partner. The Manager leads a small team of account opening specialists, ensuring quality and cycle time, reducing errors, improving new business account retention, maintaining proper documentation and compliance, facilitating handoffs to Treasury Services, and serving as an expert resource to branch teams.

Responsibilities

• Business Account Opening Platform Selection & Implementation
  • Lead current-state discovery and insights work: document the end-to-end business account opening process across branch, treasury, and centralized channels; quantify error types, root causes, cycle time, rework volume, and abandonment points.
  • Translate insights into a prioritized, weighted requirements set covering onboarding workflow, document collection, beneficial ownership and CIP/KYC/BSA validation, entity type handling, e-signature, core and online banking integration, exception routing, and audit trail.
  • Own vendor relationship in partnership with Procurement, Information Security, Compliance, and IT; manage vendor Q&A, response timelines, and analysis.
  • Build and present the business case for the recommended partner to executive leadership, including total cost of ownership, implementation effort, quantified error-reduction and retention benefit, staffing impact, risk mitigation, and ROI metrics.
  • Serve as business owner for implementation post-selection, partnering with IT, the vendor, and Learning & Development on configuration, testing, conversion, phased rollout, and training design; ensure sequencing remains compatible with the pending online banking platform decision.
• Centralized Account Opening Operations
  • Manage the centralized business account opening function, including workload distribution, queue management, and prioritization against established service level agreements.
  • Establish and maintain standardized account opening procedures, checklists, decision trees, and reference materials that produce consistent execution across all entity types and complexity tiers.
  • Define and manage handoff protocols, decision rights, and escalation paths between branch staff, business development, Treasury Management, and the centralized team.
  • Review complex, high-risk, or exception account applications and make approval or escalation recommendations.
  • Own the new business member onboarding experience through activation, and manage capacity planning to support business member growth.
• Quality Assurance & Error Reduction
  • Design and operate the quality assurance program for business account opening, including pre-funding validation and post-opening audit.
  • Analyze error trends and root causes; develop targeted corrective actions and partner with Learning & Development on training interventions.
  • Track and report quality metrics including error rate, QCD error rate, first-pass yield, cycle time, account closure ratio, and member satisfaction.
  • Partner with Compliance, BSA, and Risk Management to ensure adherence to CIP, KYC, beneficial ownership, and applicable federal and state regulatory requirements.
• Team Leadership & Development
  • Lead, coach, and develop a small team of account opening specialists; conduct performance evaluations and manage performance.
  • Serve as a hands-on player-coach, carrying a portion of complex and escalated account opening volume directly, particularly during the build period and at peak.
  • Lead recruitment, selection, and onboarding of team members as the function scales; recommend staffing levels based on volume, complexity mix, and service level targets.
  • Partner with Learning & Development on the business banking certification program, including content validation, pilot participation, and competency assessment for account opening staff.
• Stakeholder Partnership & Reporting
  • Partner with Business Banking, Retail, Treasury Management, Compliance, IT, and Learning & Development to align account opening design with member-facing commitments and operational capacity.
  • Represent centralized account opening in change management activities and communicate process and system changes to affected stakeholders.
  • Prepare and deliver reporting on account opening performance to senior leadership.
  • Perform other job-related duties as assigned.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Business or related field preferred, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 5+ years of experience in business banking, deposit operations, or business account opening/onboarding within a financial institution.
• 2+ years of direct people leadership experience, including leading a small team in a hands-on capacity.
• 2+ years of demonstrated experience leading a system, platform, or vendor selection process, including requirements definition, RFP management, structured evaluation, and presentation of a recommendation to senior leadership.
• 2+ years experience designing or materially improving an operational process with measurable quality and cycle-time outcomes.
• 2+ years experience implementing a digital account opening, onboarding, or comparable banking platform preferred.
• Demonstrated knowledge of related state and federal banking/credit union compliance regulations, and other Credit Union operational policies.
• Demonstrated knowledge of business entity types, business account documentation requirements, beneficial ownership, and CIP/KYC/BSA requirements.

Skills

• Ability to build a defensible business case from operational data, including error analysis, root cause, cost quantification, and benefit modeling.
• Ability to facilitate cross-functional evaluation panels and drive alignment among stakeholders with competing priorities and no direct reporting line.
• Ability to hold vendors to scripted demonstrations and objective scoring criteria rather than a standard sales presentation.
• Ability to build standardized procedures, controls, and documentation from an unstructured current state.
• Ability to make forward progress and sequence decisions while related organizational and platform decisions remain unresolved.
• Exceptional oral, written, and interpersonal communication skills, including presentation to executive leadership.
• Exceptional organizational and time management skills.