Senior Rewards Specialist, Cleo
£96-113k
+ Equity
More information about location
1 day a week in office
AI personal finance assistant
Posted today
AI personal finance assistant
201-500 employees
Posted today
£96-113k
+ Equity
More information about location
1 day a week in office
201-500 employees
Company mission
Our mission is to change the world’s relationship with money.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years in compensation or total rewards roles, ideally within tech or high-growth environments
- Deep experience with market benchmarking (Pave preferred), job levelling, and band design
- Advanced spreadsheet and modelling skills (Google Sheets / Excel), including financial modelling and data visualization
- Strong grasp of equity compensation (options, RSUs, vesting, dilution, refresh)
- Experience running or supporting salary and equity review cycles
- High attention to data quality, structure, and integrity — you think in systems and edge cases
Desirable
- Familiarity with HRIS and performance systems
- Exposure to UK gender pay gap reporting or US comp disclosures
- Experience advising on compensation during scaling (e.g. building roles, adjusting for new markets, defining performance multipliers)
- STEM degree or similar
What the job involves
- We’re looking for a Senior Reward Specialist to join our People team and lead the technical design, execution, and evolution of Cleo’s compensation frameworks
- You’ll be the subject matter expert on salary banding, benchmarking, equity modelling, and compensation analytics, playing a central role in how we scale our reward architecture across functions, levels, and geographies
- This is a high-impact individual contributor role, reporting directly to the Chief People Officer, and working cross-functionally with Finance, Talent, and SLT
- Own and evolve Cleo’s global compensation architecture, including our level-based banding framework (L1–L7)
- Ensure bands are correctly calibrated to Pave data benchmarks, spanning UK Hybrid, UK Remote, and US geographies
- Apply a consistent approach to bands, widening spreads at senior levels, and calibration against internal job levels
- Lead annual benchmarking reviews and proactively recommend changes based on data trends, market shifts, or business needs
- Build and maintain compensation models for budgeting, scenario planning, and business case support (e.g. pay progression, top-up planning, and equity refresh cycles)
- Analyse compa-ratios, band penetration, and pay distribution across teams to identify risks and opportunities
- Work closely with FP&A on compensation forecasting and reward cost planning
- Partner with People Ops to run seamless salary and equity review cycles, including logic setup, systems testing, and calibration readiness
- Ensure data quality and logic integrity across Pave, Lattice, and HRIS systems
- Support executive compensation and LTIP modelling for senior hires and high-impact roles
- Act as a trusted advisor to Talent Partners and Hiring Managers on offer benchmarking, comp placement, and equity mechanics
- Provide training and toolkits to upskill stakeholders in Cleo’s comp philosophy, banding structure, and reward practices
- Contribute to strategic reward projects (e.g. geo-differentiated pay, incentive design, option pool management)
Salary benchmarks
Our take
People are increasingly not satisfied with the products being offered by traditional banks, which have proven slow to react to the needs of younger consumers who expect more from their everyday experiences.
Cleo was one of the first companies to make great use of chatbots that sit within Facebook's messenger app. This chatbot-first approach and Gen Z user base have given it strong virality. It now has millions of registered users, 99% of which are based in the US, leading to a decision to take a year break from the UK market to focus on its US Gen Z customers. And after a successful year in the US its now eyeing up a return to the UK.
Its Series C funding will help the company to double down in the US, where it will make a significant increase in employee headcount, and enable Cleo to maintain and expand its service during an economic downturn.
Financial advice delivered via bots is a crowded space, so Cleo benefits from having a strong brand presence. It has gone for very bold, fun, Gen Z-focused messaging which helps it to stand out from competitors such as Emma, Plum, and Chip.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Jun 2022
$80m
SERIES C
Dec 2020
$44m
SERIES B
Total funding: $137.5m
Company benefits
- Learning and development
- Mental health support
- Agile working
Company values
- Make it Happen
- No bullsh*t
- Learn at Speed
- Bring Good Vibes
Company HQ
London, UK
Leadership
Barnaby Hussey-Yeo
(Founder & CEO)Previously a Data Scientist at Wonga, one of the companies that pioneered the smart use of data for loan decisions. Joined Entrepreneur First where Cleo was formed.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Cleo
Annie Jackson (Head of Talent )
- We’ve set up an internal committee of truly passionate people that are dedicated to ensuring Diversity and Inclusion is embedded in how we all operate as a team. We agree on meaningful actions, and get on with implementing them. We have three main focuses right now, which are:
- 1) Improving SocioEconomic diversity across the company
- 2) Increasing the number of women in Leadership roles
- 3) More community outreach
- Check out our 2022 Diversity and Inclusion report, here: https://web.meetcleo.com/blog/cleo-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-report-2022
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