Head Of Operation at Prodigy Finance

Why this is an amazing opportunity

This role is perfect for an inspiring operations expert who wants to experience first-hand what it is like to be part of an energetic, extremely fast-growing company.

The sense of impact and reward will be huge. You will help to build a business which makes a very real difference in the world. Be a part of delivering socially responsible financial services to tomorrow’s leaders; make it possible for students from more than 100 countries to obtain the finances to fulfil their dream of studying at the world’s top universities and schools.

We are a non-hierarchical team; this means that you are going to get exposure to all aspects of our business immediately. You’ll own the role and its responsibilities and will work closely with the broader team. The opportunity to gain as much accountability as you can handle, and to have a huge influence on scaling the company, is completely in your hands.

Our team is very international and very sociable; you will interact with stakeholders in the business around the world on a regular basis. Being an organisation that’s passionate about education, we place a high value on learning and personal growth.

One of our goals is to build one of the top FinTech teams and cultures anywhere in the world. This means putting a lot of time into ensuring we only hire people with exceptional potential, and creating the best working environment possible. If you want to work somewhere where you're learning from some of the best brains in Fintech, this would be a good fit.

Why join Prodigy Finance

• Be a part of a pioneering global growth company.
• Experience the excitement and learn from being part of an incredibly fast-growing young company. No kidding - 2x growth. Happening right now!
• Be pivotal in scaling the business by identifying smart solutions and partners with tech at the heart of it.
• Enjoy the agility and flexibility offered by a startup culture. A sociable, relaxed and friendly work environment (with a serious coffee culture where you can wear shorts to work).
• We will help you make your mark. Make a real impact on the business and experience a steep learning curve with huge opportunities to grow and develop.
• Gain an inside perspective on the functioning of a venture-backed Fintech startup, backed by one of the top European VCs, learn day-to-day management and build functional expertise.
• Build a platform that helps to make a very real difference in the world.
• Receive a competitive salary and share options in the company. Since you will be playing a key role in making us successful, it is only right that you share in the rewards of our success.

What you will do in the role

• You will be responsible for leading and managing the end to end student loans value chain: originations, underwriting, fulfillment, disbursements, collections and process improvement. Your remit will also extend to Investor bond operations. On both student and investor operations you will be managing business as usual whilst planning for longer term and scale. 
• You will work closely with the tech team to bring ease and beautiful simplicity to our customer experience and will collaborate with the senior management team to scale our operations function in line with our broader strategic vision.

Key responsibilities are to:

• Develop and own the multiple facets of the operations strategy and ensure that they are executed in a consistent and compelling manner with a clear focus on the customer. You will establish and ensure the implementation of target goals for the function and establish/monitor the function’s annual budget.
• Lead and manage a total operations team size of ±32, including 5 direct reports – Originations Manager, Disbursement Manager, Collections Manager, Process Improvement Consultant and Investor Operations Manager.
• Identify and build meaningful external/outsourced partnerships; ensure that agreed service levels are maintained, that all operations targets are achieved and then improved.
• Drive improvements, cost efficiency, functional effectiveness and continuously seek new ways to improve the operations value chain and the customer experience.
• Ensure that student loan policies, procedures, services, products, delivery channels and documentation as well as that investor bond procedures and documentation meet FCA regulations (and any other relevant regulations).
• Take ownership for the collection efforts for our loan portfolio working with borrowers to reduce the number of past due accounts and to minimize the defaults.
• Continue to drive best-practice using leading edge customer service techniques and continuous functional development (gaining insight from the industry and from international markets) which enables us to react to changes in a way that maintains competitiveness.

Who we are looking for; track record must haves

• Degree qualified or equivalent.
• Significant leadership experience of operations management and customer service functions.

• Proven track record of leading for a customer operations function where you are fully accountable for the entire customer journey.

• Demonstrable experience in developing and executing strategies for scaling customer volumes by orders of magnitude, not just incremental steps.

• Proven track record as an outstanding team leader with experience of building and driving high performing teams.

• Experience of successfully managing multiple stakeholders and outsourced partners in order to implement projects with a strong tech bias.

• Demonstrable experience in developing internal and external SLAs, holding your team and others to account through these SLAs.

• Strong credit, verification and back office experience in a financial services environment; ability to read and interpret documents such as credit bureau reports, debt to income ratio reports, policy and procedure manuals.
• Master of Microsoft Office, ZenDesk (or any other CRM system), Workflow, SLAs and process maps.

Experience that would be nice to have (but we’ll trade off if everything else fits).

• MBA qualification highly desirable
• Ideally customer experience responsibility gained within a consumer lending environment with both originations and collections accountability.

• Ideally experience of working in a tech based environment, using technology to improve and scale up processes.

• Prior experience of leveraging industry relationships in any of the lender/financial services/BPO industries to help deliver outsourced solutions over time.

• Appreciation of risk, compliance and legal controls for consumer lending would be advantageous as you will be working closely with these functions.

• Well connected to the financial services ecosystem, knowing where products and processes are evolving to (for e.g. payment solutions, credit or analytic decisions, automation of services).

The Prodigy Finance fit; attributes which run true in everyone at Team Prodigy

To be an A player at Prodigy Finance, you need to possess – in spades - the following attributes:

Innovative + Smart

Be curious enough to want to know more, think out the box, maybe even break the box, show initiative and be smart about it to find implementable, impactful solutions.

International + Accountable

Push yourself to be better every day. Work with others across the world, be resilient, add value and then hold yourself accountable. Encourage and celebrate each other.

Energetic + Fun

Sense of humour = survival. Bring energy and fun. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Work hard and find the time to play. We’re in this together.