Laura Colrain
Giffnock,Scotland
Summary
Business change professional with over 20 years of experience in financial services.
Expertise in aligning business needs with technical solutions to achieve organisational goals and objectives. Focussed on delivering enhanced customer outcomes and driving overall business success.
Overview
22
22
years of professional experience
Work history
Senior Business Analyst (8 month contract)
Virgin Money
Glasgow
04.2025 - 11.2025
- Supported payments transformation programme with assessment of potential solution options.
- Fostered relationships with stakeholders to ensure project alignment with business goals.
- Facilitated stakeholder workshops to gather requirements and align project objectives with business strategy.
- Evaluated business processes to identify gaps and areas for simplification/improvement
- Collaborated with payment products owner to define comprehensive business requirements.
- Produced various programme deliverables including detailed option papers to inform and guide decision making around complex issues
- Engaged with solution architect to develop effective designs aimed at reducing technological change and operational impact.
- Championed adoption of agile methodology ensuring alignment with business epics and user story development in Jira.
Business Architect
Lloyds Banking Group
Glasgow
08.2014 - 03.2025
- Facilitated initiatives within business architecture team to support alignment of project designs with organisational strategic objectives.
- Conducted thorough evaluation of business operating models to enhance design of target operating models.
- Assessment of impacts on operating models and business capabilities for various change initiatives.
- Coordinated with payment products owner owner to analyse and prioritise backlog of requirements, ensuring alignment with project goals.
- Facilitated discussions among project teams and project stakeholders to identify risks, issues and operational challenges followed up with proposed mitigation and future resolution opportunities.
- Supported project teams in producing comprehensive options papers to facilitate informed strategic design decisions.
- Analysis of complex business challenges to identify route causes and drive management decision making through insightful data analysis.
- In collaboration with product owner, devised simplified new business model to align to upgraded workflow tool for payment investigations, enabling further automation of processes, reduced SLAs and improved customer experience.
- Key contributor in design and successful migration of payment flows to new ISO20022 payment platform.
- Led business design for SWIFT Global Payment Initiative to enable tracking of International payments, establishing close working relationships with solution architects & key stakeholders to ensure successful delivery.
Business Analyst
Lloyds Banking Group
Glasgow
04.2004 - 08.2014
- Shadowed operational colleagues to gain a clear insight into business processes whilst identifying areas for improvement.
- Conducted interviews with colleagues and facilitated stakeholder workshops to establish clear business objectives and elicitation of requirements.
- Created detailed business cases, including cost/benefit analysis, to justify investment in new initiatives.
- Participated in risk workshops to identify, assess and mitigate potential risks and issues.
- Accurate documentation and storage of project deliverables enabling full traceability.
- Simplified complex data into understandable presentations facilitating better communication and engagement amongst teams.
- Produced comprehensive user guides and ran training sessions to facilitate successful project delivery.
- Volunteered to coach and mentor junior analysts in payment terminology and project lifecycle to further their development.
Education
Certified Business Architect (ISEB) - Business Architecture
British Computer Society
Glasgow 03/2016 - 04/2016
International Diploma in Business Analysis -
British Computer Society
Glasgow 08/2014 - 09/2014
Certificate in Modelling Business Processes -
British Computer Society
Glasgow 10/2012 - 11/2012
Certificate in Requirements Engineering -
ISEB
04/2009 - 05/2009
ACIBS - International Banking & Finance
Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers
Glasgow 08/2000 - 01/2002
Skills
- Business analysis and root cause identification
- Business process modeling and re-engineering
- Requirements gathering and elicitation
- Stakeholder engagement and management
- Risk assessment and mitigation
- Process improvement strategies
- Excellent communication skills
- Experience in Agile and Waterfall methodologies
- Microsoft Office proficiency
Interests
Family & Friends
Foreign travel
Health & Fitness: walking, yoga
Reading & Learning
Timeline
Senior Business Analyst (8 month contract)
Virgin Money
04.2025 - 11.2025
Business Architect
Lloyds Banking Group
08.2014 - 03.2025
Business Analyst
Lloyds Banking Group
04.2004 - 08.2014
Certified Business Architect (ISEB) - Business Architecture
British Computer Society
03/2016 - 04/2016
International Diploma in Business Analysis -
British Computer Society
08/2014 - 09/2014
Certificate in Modelling Business Processes -
British Computer Society
10/2012 - 11/2012
Certificate in Requirements Engineering -
ISEB
04/2009 - 05/2009
ACIBS - International Banking & Finance
Associate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers
08/2000 - 01/2002