Head of Enhanced Credit Decisioning

The company

Fast, flexible finance empowers small businesses to manage their cash flow better and seize opportunities - making their business and the economy stronger as a whole. At iwoca, we do just that. We help businesses get the funds they need, when they need it, often within minutes. We’ve already made several billion in funding available to more than 100,000 businesses since we launched in 2012, and positioned ourselves as a leading Fintech in Europe. 

Our mission is to finance one million businesses. We’ll get there by continuing to make our finance ever more relevant and accessible to more businesses by combining cutting-edge technology, data science, and a 5-star customer service 

The role

We are looking for an experienced credit risk professional with a strong analytical background, to lead the team responsible for developing and managing the enhanced credit decision models and processes for our lending portfolio in Germany.

You will work closely with the Chief Credit Officer, the General Manager for Germany, our data scientists, and teams from across the business. You will ensure that our scorecards, and lending strategies targeting the larger and more complex end of the spectrum of businesses we serve are effectively managing credit risk while maximising value creation.

Key responsibilities of this critical role  include:

• Building and maintaining credit risk scorecards, and defining the underwriting requirements, to optimise discrimination and value conversion in the credit assessment process.

• Developing, implementing, and managing appropriate testing to support this optimisation.

• Playing a leading role in building and optimising our lending strategies. A key part of this is providing credit risk expertise to multi-disciplinary projects with the wider team and business stakeholders.

• Setting and managing the agenda for your team aligned to the broader business strategy, and ensuring buy-in from stakeholders and leadership.

• Effectively managing the work conducted by your team to maximise delivery.

• Building the capabilities of your team with a strong focus on coaching and professional development.

The team

You’ll join the Credit Risk team, whose primary focus is managing the credit risk profile of our lending portfolios to support iwoca’s broader business goals and mission. As Head of Enhanced Credit Decisioning for Germany you will be a key member of the team focused on the development of our lending business in Germany.

The requirements

• Strong analytical background: a degree in Mathematics, Physics, Engineering, or similar quantitative field; or equivalent experience.

• 4+ years experience in credit risk and lending strategy optimisation at a traditional or Fintech lender.

• Passion for analytical problem-solving, with a strong track record in developing conceptual frameworks and technical execution. This will include the ability to personally conduct data-driven analysis and guide this work through others.

• Experience using Python is a plus. 

• Excellent understanding of the statistical techniques and machine learning methods used in credit risk analysis and modelling. Guiding the work of data scientists is an important part of this role.

• Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and people management skills.

• Strong commercial instincts.

• Ability to bring structure to own and joint areas of work to rapidly drive results in a dynamic working environment.

• Experience of the German lending market, SME lending, and German language skills are all beneficial.

The salary

We expect to pay from £95,000 to £125,000 for this role, But, we’re open-minded, so definitely include your salary goals with your application. We routinely benchmark salaries against market rates, and run quarterly performance and salary reviews. 

The culture

At iwoca, we look to hire smart, passionate, humble individuals with a growth mindset. We prioritise a culture of learning, growth, and support, and invest in the professional development of our team members. 

We value thought and skill diversity, and encourage you to explore new areas of interest to help us innovate and improve our products and services.

Our friendly and inclusive environment, combined with our flexible work policies, ensures that you'll have the perfect balance between work and life, empowering you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The offices

We put a lot of effort into making iwoca a brilliant place to work:

• Offices in London, Leeds, Berlin and Frankfurt with plenty of drinks and snacks

• Events and clubs, like bingo, comedy nights, yoga classes, football, etc.

The benefits (depending on your location)

• Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership.

• 25 days’ holiday, an extra day off for your birthday, and the option to buy or sell an additional 5 days of annual leave.

• Instant access to emotional and mental health support with our partner, Spill.

• Pension and share options.

• Generous maternity and paternity leave.

• A nursery tax benefit scheme to help you save money.

• Paid volunteering day to support your chosen charity.

• Unlimited unpaid leave. 

• One-month fully paid sabbatical after 4 years.

• Cycle-to-work scheme and electric car scheme.

• Two company retreats a year, we’ve been to France, Italy, Spain and further afield.

• Private GP service for you, your partner, and your dependents.

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer:

• A learning and development budget for everyone.

• Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers.

• Access to learning platforms like Treehouse if you want to learn to code.

Useful links:

• iwoca benefits & policies

• Interview welcome pack