Job Vacancy at Prodigy Finance - 2 Positions

Job description

What you will do in the role

• Due to our continued growth and success, we are looking for an experienced manager to look after the credit risk of our growing students loans portfolio. This person will be fully accountable for setting Prodigy Finance’s credit risk management policies and practices.
• The ideal candidate would be pragmatic and results focused, knowing how to work with a highly educated, mobile and rapidly growing customer base, originating from over 118 countries.
• Prodigy’s portfolio is at inflection point in a few dimensions: exponential growth in new students, a fast-growing repayment book and an increasing amount of transactional level data; which makes it an exciting time to join the team in order to take credit risk practices to the next level as well as carry on building some necessary foundations in the credit risk space.

The role will be focused on and responsible for key credit risk areas such as:

• Portfolio credit risk management
• Collections strategy analysis, setting and optimisation
• Impairment methodology, calculation and maintenance and migration to IFRS9
• Vintage analysis and deep dives
• Customer segmentations, PD modelling and other required statistical methodologies
• Developing, coaching and growing the nascent portfolio credit risk function
• The role will require strong influential and interpersonal skills with other credit risk functions to include the Originations Credit Risk Manager and Collections Operations Manager, as well as with all other EXCO-level functional heads. This role will serve as an important contributor to the Credit Risk Committee. It will report into the Chief Risk Officer and will be considered a senior role in the Prodigy global team.
• Importantly, this individual should devise strategies that will ensure we treat customers with respect, and courtesy; and equally importantly in line with FCA guidelines of CONC, TCF and other codes of conduct and ethics (e.g. CSA).

What you need to be great at:

• People management, day to day motivation and effective leadership of a team
• Team player with the ability to establish positive working relationships across various functions. You understand that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
• Passionate about customer experience, you strive for operational excellence and are able to apply best practices within a financial services environment with a compliance mindset
• Driven, energetic and ambitious and not afraid to get your hands dirty. You have strong attention to detail, and the ability to switch between the big picture and day to day operations
• Target focused with strong control over SLA and metrics management
• Biased to action; create ideas, think outside the box, be a problem solver and solution finder, be proactive, use initiative to develop and improve
• Able to diagnose issues, find the necessary data, analyse the alternatives, and engage in a methodical problem solving process
• Aligns and prioritises actions and resources in advance to achieve the best possible outcomes
• Start-up DNA; resilient, 80/20, carpe diem, gets things done, adaptable to change, huge capacity for hard work in a relentlessly fast paced environment
• Very strong analytical and conceptual abilities

Who we are looking for; track record must haves

• Extensive private sector financial services experience – ideally across retail financial products, geographies and macro-economic cycles
• Proven credit risk experience with focus on delivering world class results
• Track record of team leadership and people management with positive outcomes of high performing teams
• Experience working within a heavily regulated environment and a focus on compliance
• Ability to work with internationally located teams
• Strong customer service experience
• Data mining or statistical experience

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

• Experience/familiarity with UK legislation would be highly advantageous
• Start-up experience. Sometimes the earth moves beneath your feet at Prodigy Finance so you've got to be comfortable with ambiguity, able to wear lots of hats, and adapt easily as you set up processes and frameworks for us to grow into. If you haven’t worked in a start-up before, you need to show us that you have a real desire and potential to be successful in a young, high-growth, non-corporate company.
• 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.

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Job description

Specific responsibilities will range across:

• Signing off of new courses
• Develop new and/or improved risk policies
• Write specifications for automation of risk scorecards
• Test systems
• Provide all areas of the business with portfolio performance data
• Analyse portfolio performance data and produce reporting packs
• Assist the business during audits of the portfolio and credit decisions
• Make daily Credit Committee decisions according to policy
• Perform ad-hoc analysis on the portfolio and credit decisions for management
• Produce Credit metrics monthly
• Update the Credit policy from time to time
• Conduct market research on best practices as well as exit salaries for graduating students
• Provide insight into data requirements from various sources such as our internal borrowers, schools careers departments, online, external data agencies
• Manage multiple stakeholder interests, including investor relations, operations, school relations and product development
• Analyse portfolio performance and provide key insights. Suggest process, model and system improvements
• Liaise with auditors of SPV structures with regards to loan portfolio data and credit performance issues
• Provide specialist input and ownership of risk system improvements, delivering detailed improvement specifications to the product development team. Support the development of new product lines, providing key economic and risk inputs into business development cases

What you need to be great at

• Strong attention to detail; logical, systematic, relentless focus on 100% accuracy and an obsession for error-free, perfectly presented documentation and communication
• Explaining complex technical concepts, in concise and simple language to people who do not have a statistical background
• Being able to think creatively especially when it comes to dealing with new business development areas where no or very little data is available
• Structured, highly organised, able to multi-task and project manage; can correctly prioritise multiple issues and process data from disparate sources
• Being able to remain calm and collected under pressure
• Outstanding analytical thinking capability; highly numerate, advanced technical skills
• Problem-solving aptitude; able to make logical conclusions, anticipate obstacles, and consider different approaches to setting up and continuously improving systems and processes
• Ability to work autonomously without micro-management, in a rapidly changing and often ambiguous environment; possess the self-motivation and inner drive to set and deliver against tight deadlines. Breaks down tasks and problems into manageable components independently and is able to design and execute work plans, in order to deliver on the overall objectives
• Start-up DNA; resilient, gets things done, 80/20, carpe diem, adaptable to change, huge capacity for hard work in a relentlessly fast paced environment

Who we are looking for; track record must haves

• Strong experience in a Risk/Quantitative Analyst role within a consumer credit environment
• Statistics Degree/background/ability to conduct statistical analyses such as logistical regression, linear regression, time series analysis, random forest, etc.
• Experience in working in an environment where data is limited and/or imperfect
• Ability to handle and interpret incomplete data
• Strong Excel skills
• Strong statistical and data mining coding skills e.g. SAS, WPS, SQL
• Excellent communication skills
• A high degree of computer literacy, particularly MS Excel, Word and Outlook

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

• Credit bureau knowledge highly beneficial
• International experience highly desirable
• Start-up experience. Sometimes the earth moves beneath your feet at Prodigy Finance so you've got to be comfortable with ambiguity, able to wear lots of hats, and adapt easily as you set up processes and frameworks for us to grow into. If you haven’t worked in a start-up before, you need to show us that you have a real desire and potential to be successful in a young, high-growth, non-corporate company