Director of Credit Risk

📋 Description

• • Lead the Credit & Spend Management tribe as a cross-functional general manager, overseeing 6 to 8 direct reports and guiding embedded product, engineering, data, and design teams across four squads: Charge Card, Lending, Spend Management, and Credit Infrastructure.
• • Build Relay’s in-house credit engine, including monitoring infrastructure and decisioning systems, with the goal of reducing reliance on third-party underwriting over time.
• • Own credit policy and underwriting strategy, including exception handling, manual reviews, and escalations for small business lending decisions.
• • Expand Relay’s lending portfolio from a single product to a multi-product suite, owning performance metrics from origination through charge-off.
• • Evolve the charge card proposition through structured experimentation and data-driven iteration to improve adoption, utilization, and risk outcomes.
• • Own the full P&L for credit and debit products, driving sustainable growth while managing to established risk and capital appetite thresholds.
• • Partner closely with banking partners, capital providers, and internal stakeholders to align on credit strategy, performance metrics, and regulatory compliance.
• • Define the roadmap for credit and spend products, ensuring alignment between product vision, engineering execution, data modeling, and user experience design.
• • Drive outcomes across the entire credit lifecycle—from customer acquisition and application flows to risk monitoring, portfolio management, and collections.
• • Translate risk-sharing agreements with third parties into measurable financial outcomes and operational workflows.
• • Incorporate alternative data sources such as Plaid, accounting integrations, and commercial credit bureaus into underwriting models to enhance decision accuracy.
• • Maintain direct accountability for credit risk performance, ensuring compliance with regulatory expectations and internal risk frameworks.
• • Collaborate with compliance and legal teams to ensure all credit products adhere to applicable financial regulations and banking partner requirements.
• • Act as the primary point of contact for internal and external stakeholders on credit strategy, portfolio health, and risk mitigation initiatives.
• • Champion a culture of ownership, data-driven decision-making, and continuous improvement across the credit and spend management organization.
• • Embed AI and automation into credit workflows to enhance scalability, reduce manual intervention, and improve risk-adjusted returns.
• • Maintain deep familiarity with SMB financial behavior, cash flow patterns, and business fundamentals to inform underwriting criteria and product design.
• • Report directly to the CEO with full P&L accountability for the credit and spend product line.
• • Lead cross-functional initiatives to reduce dependency on external vendors and build proprietary credit infrastructure tailored to Relay’s small business customers.
• • Balance innovation with risk discipline, ensuring product growth does not compromise portfolio quality or regulatory standing.
• • Use real-time data and analytics to identify trends, anomalies, and opportunities for optimization across credit products.
• • Foster collaboration between risk, product, engineering, and design teams to ensure seamless integration of credit functionality into the broader Relay banking platform.
• • Ensure all credit products deliver clarity, confidence, and control to small business owners, aligning with Relay’s core mission of replacing financial guesswork with real visibility.