Van Jaff

Lead Learning & Workforce Development for State Street Corporate Audit, partnering with senior leadership to shape capability, culture, and future workforce development across a global audit population. Responsible for aligning learning priorities to business transformation, workforce capability, and organisational needs.

Key Achievements

• Lead enterprise learning strategy spanning technical, behavioural, leadership, and workforce capability development.
• Partner with executive stakeholders to identify capability gaps and create learning solutions aligned to business priorities.
• Develop and implement transformation learning initiatives that integrate future skills, data literacy, and practical AI application into audit workflows, alongside planning and executing global organisational conferences.
• Developed structured learning pathways aligned to role level, capability maturity, and workforce planning.
• Designed competency frameworks aligned to professional standards and career progression.
• Established governance and oversight for learning compliance and mandatory training tracking.
• Chair Talent, Learning & Culture initiatives supporting succession planning, capability development, and engagement.
• Facilitate leadership, behavioural, and manager capability workshops across global teams.
• Lead strategic learning projects from scoping and design through implementation and evaluation.
• Partner with analytics teams to monitor programme engagement and learning effectiveness.

Global Senior Learning Manager for Citi’s Internal Audit, responsible for designing and implementing a transformative learning strategy to upskill a global audit population of 2,500+ employees. Led a high-performing team of four VP/AVP direct reports, with full oversight of L&D budget, stakeholder engagement, and cross-functional program delivery.

Key Achievements:

• Strategic Alignment: Managed $1M+ learning budget to support Citi’s transformation goals, addressing technical and leadership gaps across audit.
• Leadership Development: Launched programs on emotional intelligence, communication, and coaching, driving strong engagement and embedding competency framework.
• Governance & Compliance: Implemented L&D policies aligned with QA and regulatory expectations, embedding competency model to guide development.
• Vendor Management: Delivered high-impact training in collaboration with SMEs and vendors, achieving $200K in annual savings through membership and professional qualifications optimisation.
• Evaluation & ROI Dashboard: Built productivity and insights dashboard with Data Analytics to track impact of programs and auditor productivity.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Designed Citi’s first audit-focused stakeholder program, improving control culture, professional competency, and business alignment.

Senior Learning & Development Manager, London (VP) Relocated to the UK in a global L&D role for Barclays Internal Audit (BIA), with concurrent support of the US L&D BIA function. Delivered global learning, coaching, graduate, and new hire programs, reporting to the Global Director of Professional Practices.

Key Achievements:

• Learning Pathway Redesign: Remodelled learning journeys for 650+ audit staff, including VP and Director career programs. Delivered classroom and WBT content, and facilitated an eight-week global virtual program, Coaching Careers Online.
• Achieved a significant uplift in talent management and succession planning, resulting in two VP promotions.
• Strengthened VP-level strategic thinking, leadership, and audit technical knowledge.
• 360 Evaluation & ROI Analysis: Delivered in-depth 360 evaluations through surveys, feedback forums, and automated systems. Produced clear data insights to identify development gaps and measure leadership ROI.
• Capability Development: Delivered bespoke training for teams covering key areas such as feedback, building trust, delivery mindset, and navigating difficult conversations. o Partnered with functional leaders to co-create issue-based sessions.
• Developed technical acumen through “Responsive Training” on regulatory topics.
• Applied coaching accreditation to elevate early careers engagement. Graduate & Intern Programs: Continuously enhanced global graduate and internship pathways initiated in earlier role.

Head of Learning & Development, New York (AVP) Promoted and transferred to lead L&D for Barclays Internal Audit (BIA) across the US and Mexico. Oversaw global new joiner and graduate programs, managing a team of five direct reports.

Key Achievements:

• Americas L&D Function Build: Established the Americas L&D from the ground up, streamlining systems, processes, and reporting frameworks.
• Designed and launched award-winning online learning portal for audit methodology training.
• Introduced best practice training needs analysis and career pathways. Acted as Scrum Master to embed Agile change learning across the audit function.
• Recognised by Barclays’ CEO for leading academy programs that won external awards.

Team Leadership & Development:

• Coached and developed a high-performing team; secured multiple promotions and exceeded senior leadership expectations.
• Completed in-house coaching accreditation and coached teams.

Talent Programs:

• Developed BIA’s first high-potential talent program and addressed gaps between AVP and VP levels.
• Coached two AVPs to promotion. o Launched and led the first internship and graduate programs in the Americas.

Retention & Feedback Culture:

• Delivered a 15% uplift in junior talent retention through an innovative feedback focused project with senior leadership support.
• Reverse Mentoring: Appointed reverse mentor to the Head of Barclays US Legal Counsel in a firmwide collaboration on feedback culture.

Learning & Development Manager, London (AVP) Appointed to lead global training, graduate, and new entrant programs.

Key Achievements:

• Graduate Program Implementation Launched first graduate talent pipeline and co-led the BIA graduate program for the UK and USA. Partnered with HR on assessment, onboarding, and line management oversight for 16 audit graduates.
• Team Coaching & Development: Worked with cross-functional SMEs to deliver internal and external coaching and training. o Identified coaches and managed end-to-end delivery including feedback, evaluation, and interventions.
• Cost Saving & Delivery Quality: Improved training quality while delivering £120K annual savings by bringing programs in-house and reducing supplier dependency. o Achieved £35K annual savings by implementing SharePoint-based delivery and integrating Learning Management Solutions.
• Guest Auditor Program Implementation: Led enterprise-wide initiative to build leadership capability through cross-functional rotation, shifting perceptions and promoting enterprise knowledge.
• CSR Contribution: Devised a best practice CSR strategy and was recognised by the Barclays CEO for positive impact in the CSR space.

Held earlier roles in Project Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Retail Banking, building strong foundations in stakeholder engagement, programme coordination, operational delivery, and people development.