Head of Unsecured Credit

Description

The Head of Unsecured Credit leads a focused team responsible for shaping and executing strategic initiatives across the unsecured lending portfolio. This role emphasizes leadership, innovation in analytics, and cross-functional collaboration to drive business performance and inform executive decision-making. The ideal candidate combines high analytical ability with conceptual thinking and operational awareness to break down ambiguous, complex problems and deliver actionable strategies that drive business performance.

Key Responsibilities / What you’ll do:

• Team Leadership - Managing and mentoring a team of credit professionals, fostering a culture of accountability, development, innovation, and continuous improvement.

• Strategy Development & Monitoring - Developing and implementing strategies for unsecured credit that align with business objectives and risk appetite, focusing on growth, profitability and deepening relationships with our customers while monitoring performance trends and adjusting strategies to optimize outcomes.

• Testing & Innovation - Creating and managing a testing agenda to evaluate new approaches, tools, and models that advance the state of the business along with championing innovation in credit analytics and decisioning frameworks.

• Analytical Excellence

• Applying high-level analytical thinking to identify problems, structure them mathematically, and determine the most effective techniques and data sources for resolution.

• Representing business challenges using appropriate mathematical models and frameworks, ensuring analytical rigor and relevance.

• Improving analytical methodologies and tools used to assess credit risk and portfolio performance.

• Operational Execution & Systems Thinking - Translating analytical strategies into operationally executable plans, considering system deployment, marketing alignment, and financial goals, while ensuring that solutions are not only analytically sound but also practically implementable across connected systems and business functions.

• Executive Communications and Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Working closely with product teams (P&Ls) and second line risk to ensure alignment and execution of initiatives.

• Providing regular updates to executive management on performance, strategic initiatives, and emerging risks.

• Delivering clear, actionable insights that support enterprise-level decision-making.

• Facilitating collaboration across departments to drive strategic outcomes.

How we work is as important as what we do. 

We are intellectually curious, going from data to hypothesis and back; we know the business and are fluent in our data and tools, enabling us to identify insights to tell the stories that drive impact. 

You approach problems with a structured, analytical mindset. Faced with ambiguity, you break down complex challenges into solvable components, identifying conceptual pathways and mathematical frameworks to guide decision-making. You think in models—choosing the right techniques, data, and representations to clarify risk and opportunity. Your solutions are not just theoretical; you consider how they deploy operationally, integrate with systems, and align with marketing and financial goals. You understand the interconnected nature of credit risk, and your strategies reflect a deep awareness of how decisions ripple across platforms, teams, and outcomes. You collaborate effectively, communicate clearly, and drive execution with precision and purpose.

Experience and Skills:

• 10 years of experience in banking/financial services and credit risk management, with deep expertise in consumer credit, credit policy, and quantitative analysis

• Proven leadership in managing teams and driving strategic initiatives

• Strong analytical and conceptual problem-solving skills

• Strong understanding of mathematical modeling, data structuring, and operational implications.

• Experience partnering across product and risk functions.

• Comfort presenting to executive audiences and influencing without authority.

Hours & Work Schedule 

Hours per Week: 40

Work Schedule: Monday - Friday

Pay Transparency 

The salary range for this position is $175,000- $250,000 per year, plus an opportunity to earn an annual discretionary bonus. Actual pay is based on various factors including but not limited to the work location, and relevant skills and experience.   

We offer competitive pay, comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage, retirement benefits, maternity/paternity leave, flexible work arrangements, education reimbursement, wellness programs and more. Note, Citizens’ paid time off policy.

Some job boards have started using jobseeker-reported data to estimate salary ranges for roles. If you apply and qualify for this role, a recruiter will discuss accurate pay guidance.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Citizens, its parent, subsidiaries, and related companies (Citizens) provide equal employment and advancement opportunities to all colleagues and applicants for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, citizenship, physical or mental disability, perceived disability or history or record of a disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity or expression, genetic information, genetic characteristic, marital or domestic partner status, victim of domestic violence, family status/parenthood, medical condition, military or veteran status, national origin, pregnancy/childbirth/lactation, colleague’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other category protected by federal, state and/or local laws. At Citizens, we are committed to fostering an inclusive culture that enables all colleagues to bring their best selves to work every day and everyone is expected to be treated with respect and professionalism. Employment decisions are based solely on merit, qualifications, performance and capability.