Who We Are:

Braviant is a Chicago-based fintech startup that combines breakthrough technology and machine learning to empower underbanked consumers with better credit solutions. Our team of technologists, data scientists and fintech veterans develops proprietary decision algorithms that look beyond a traditional credit score to more accurately assess a person’s true ability and willingness to repay. This next-generation approach to lending is reducing credit barriers and creating a Path to Prime to help the 43% of U.S. adults with non-prime credit reduce their cost of borrowing, build credit history, and achieve better financial outcomes.

The Role:

We are looking for a talented Sr. Manager, Credit Risk to lead a team focused on underwriting, fraud prevention, loan offers / pricing, loss forecasting and portfolio management for Braviant’s consumer lending businesses. The right person for this role will have a blend of technical and leadership skills, a strong background in data and analytics with a bias toward continuous testing and optimization, and relevant experience within the consumer lending industry.

Responsibilities:

• Lead a team of predictive modelers and strategists responsible for the development, validation, maintenance, optimization, and monitoring of decision models and strategies used for underwriting and verification decisions
• Execute on a disciplined growth strategy that properly balances short-term vs. long-term profitability and appropriately mitigates credit risk
• Establish and maintain Credit Policy and Underwriting Guidelines documentation for each of Braviant’s products and business lines
• Implement sampling / testing procedures to enable long-term optimization of approval decisions, offer amounts, pricing and loan terms for different customer segments
• Develop fraud mitigation models, tools and strategies to mitigate losses due to identity theft, synthetic identities, and other types of fraud attacks
• Develop unit-level profitability analysis and loan loss forecasting to track and optimize performance of various portfolio segments such as acquisition channel, customer type (new vs. previous), geography, and risk tier
• Partner with Finance to establish target KPIs (e.g., approval rates, funding rates, and loan terms), forecast loan losses, and explain any variance in actual vs. projected results
• Collaborate with Product and Business Intelligence teams to define and monitor critical underwriting and portfolio KPIs
• Collaborate with Product and Technology teams to build on the existing Analytics infrastructure to support continuous testing / optimization and streamlined implementation of new underwriting models and strategies
• Manage existing Analytics vendors (i.e. credit reporting agencies and other 3rd party data providers) and proactively identify and test new data sources to further enhance decisioning
• Attract, hire, manage and mentor top tier Credit Risk and Portfolio Management professionals

Requirements:

• 5+ years of experience leading a team of predictive modelers / analytics professionals in a fast-paced environment; strong preference for 3+ years of unsecured consumer lending experience
• BA (MA preferred) in Computer Science, Data Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, Economics or other quantitative field, or equivalent work experience
• Knowledge of best practices in Credit Risk, Underwriting, Loss Forecasting and Portfolio Management for unsecured consumer lending products
• Expert proficiency in languages used for data manipulation and statistical analysis e.g. R/Python/SQL
• Hands-on experience with a variety of predictive modeling techniques including logistic regression, boosting, decision trees, and more, and a strong desire to keep skills up to date and explore new methodologies over time
• Knowledge of optimization, stochastic processes, experiment analysis and bootstrapping
• Ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams to solve complex problems and develop pragmatic solutions under tight deadlines
• Relationship builder who can establish trust, confidence and credibility with peers, senior leaders and direct reports
• Motivated by working in a high-growth, fast-paced and iterative environment

Looking for perks?

• 3% 401K employer contribution that is immediately vested

• Health benefits? We’ve got you fully covered.

• Flexible work schedule with results-based culture

• Generous PTO

• Annual professional development allowance

• Fully stocked kitchen

• Casual dress code

• Team building events and happy hours

• Significant career upside as our business grows