Credit Risk Director

Envision Employment Solutions is currently looking for a Credit Risk Director for one of our partners, a leading Digital Bank!

THE ROLE

We are building a digital bank from the ground up, and credit is its beating heart, the discipline that decides who we lend to, how fast we say yes, and how soundly we grow. As Head of Credit Risk, you will design and own the entire credit risk architecture for a bank that underwrites in seconds, not days, and that makes the overwhelming majority of its decisions through models rather than manual review. You will set the appetite that defines how boldly the Bank grows and the guardrails that keep that growth safe, profitable, and fully aligned with CBE expectations. This is a rare opportunity to write the playbook rather than inherit one, fusing deep credit craft with AI/ML decisioning at scale, and building a portfolio that is both ambitious in reach and disciplined in quality.

Responsibilities

Strategy, Policy & Risk Appetite

• Own the credit risk strategy, policy suite, risk appetite framework, and governance model across all retail and MSME lending products, fully aligned with the CRO's risk strategy and CBE regulatory expectations.

Underwriting & Automated Decisioning

• Define, validate, and govern the underwriting policy, credit scoring models, and AI/ML decisioning engines that power real-time, straight-through lending, balancing approval rates, expected loss, and customer experience.
• Establish a robust model governance and validation lifecycle for all scorecards and ML decisioning models, covering development standards, independent validation, monitoring, challenger frameworks, and explainability.

Portfolio Quality, Provisioning & Capital

• Monitor portfolio quality continuously and run the Early Warning Indicator (EWI) framework, escalating material and emerging risks to the CRO with decision-ready analysis.
• Govern IFRS 9 expected credit loss (ECL) staging, models, and provisioning, and ensure the credit book's contribution to capital adequacy and stress testing is sound under the Basel framework.

Collections, Recoveries & Fraud

• Set and optimize the digital-first collections and recoveries strategy, including segmentation and champion/challenger treatment paths, and oversee credit-related fraud detection, prevention, and decisioning controls.

Governance, Committees & Controls

• Represent Credit Risk in the Board Risk Committee (BRC), Risk & Compliance Committee (RCC), and product approval committees, and manage the policy exception framework with full transparency.

People, Leadership & Stakeholders

• Build, lead, and develop a high-calibre credit risk team, and partner closely with Product, Data Science, Technology, Finance, and Business to embed sound credit thinking into a fast-moving build.

Essential

• 12+ years in credit risk within banking or financial services, with a proven track record across the full credit lifecycle (acquisition, underwriting, portfolio management, collections, and recoveries).
• Prior experience as Head of Credit Risk or an equivalent senior leadership role, with proven ownership of credit policy, appetite, and governance.
• Direct CBE regulatory experience, including deep working knowledge of CBE retail lending and provisioning regulations.
• Strong, applied knowledge of IFRS 9 (ECL and staging) and the Basel credit risk capital framework.
• Demonstrated experience operating in or building automated, digital credit decisioning environments, including scorecards and model-driven lending.
• Bachelor's degree in a quantitative, finance, economics, or business discipline.
• Excellent senior-stakeholder communication, with a record of presenting to and influencing board-level and executive committees.

Preferred

• Digital bank, neobank, or fintech lending background, ideally in an emerging-market context.
• Hands-on familiarity with AI/ML credit decisioning, model governance, and explainability practices.
• Master's degree (MBA, Finance, Statistics, Data Science, or related).
• Professional certification such as FRM, CFA, PRM, or equivalent; complementary credentials (e.g., ACAMS for financial-crime exposure, CIA for audit familiarity) viewed favorably.
• Experience with credit decisioning platforms, scorecard tooling, and analytics environments (decision engines, SAS/Python/R, SQL, and BI or portfolio-monitoring tools).
• Experience standing up a credit risk function from scratch or through a major transformation.

Technical Competencies

• Expert credit risk management across the full lifecycle, from origination strategy to recoveries.
• Credit policy, risk appetite, and governance framework design and ownership.
• Scorecard development and oversight, plus AI/ML decisioning model governance, validation, monitoring, and explainability.
• IFRS 9 ECL modeling and provisioning, and Basel credit risk capital and stress-testing fundamentals.
• Portfolio analytics fluency: vintage analysis, roll and flow rates, loss forecasting, and EWI design.
• Collections, recoveries, and fraud risk strategy in a digital, automated context.
• Strong data and analytics literacy, comfortable interrogating models and data directly, not only consuming summaries.
• Working command of the CBE regulatory landscape and emerging-market retail credit dynamics.

Behavioral Competencies

• Build-from-scratch mindset: energised by ambiguity and white space; creates structure, standards, and momentum where none yet exist.
• Decisive judgement under speed: balances rigour with the pace a digital bank demands, making sound calls with incomplete information.
• Stakeholder influence: earns trust across the C-suite, board committees, regulators, and first-line partners; challenges constructively and aligns competing priorities.
• Commercial balance: protects the bank while enabling responsible, profitable growth, a leader who frames how to lend safely, not simply when to say no.
• Leadership and talent builder: attracts, develops, and retains strong people; sets a high bar with warmth and clarity.
• Integrity and resilience: owns outcomes, communicates transparently, holds the line on controls and ethics, and thrives amid change and shifting priorities.