Head of Credit Portfolio Management

📋 Description

• • Allica Bank is seeking a dynamic and experienced Head of Credit Portfolio Management to lead and shape the bank's approach to credit risk across its growing portfolio. As the UK's fastest-growing fintech firm, Allica is dedicated to serving established Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), a segment historically underserved by traditional financial institutions. This pivotal role sits at the core of our mission, ensuring robust and data-driven credit stewardship, effective impairment management, and high-quality credit data.
• • The Credit Portfolio Management (CPM) function is instrumental in developing and implementing sophisticated data and model-led strategies. This includes owning the bank's credit modelling capabilities, encompassing IFRS9 models (such as Probability of Default - PD, Loss Given Default - LGD, Significant Increase in Credit Risk - SICR, and economic response models), automated underwriting decisioning models, and emerging credit-linked Generative AI models designed to streamline processes. By integrating modelling with active portfolio management, CPM aims to optimize the bank's risk-return profile.
• • On the portfolio management front, this role will be responsible for defining and maintaining credit risk appetite parameters. These parameters will guide deal appetite, inform impairment reporting, budgeting, and stress testing exercises. The Head of Credit Portfolio Management will also conduct ad hoc deep dives to shape and refine our lending strategy. Operating within a rapidly scaling bank, the CPM function must adeptly balance the need for speed and commerciality with stringent data quality controls and robust regulatory-compliant model management.
• • This senior leadership position is crucial for defining how Allica Bank manages and measures credit risk across various products, geographies, and economic cycles. The core responsibility is to achieve a sensible balance between risk and reward, ensuring that the portfolio's risk profile is adjusted appropriately throughout economic cycles to meet targeted growth and return objectives. The role requires close collaboration with key departments including Finance, Second Line of Defence (2LoD) Credit and Model Risk, Commercial & Distribution, Transactional Credit Risk (Underwriting, Collections & Recoveries), Product & Proposition, and Capital Markets. Regular interaction with Executive Committee (Exco) members is expected.
• • The ideal candidate will be a proven leader in commercial credit portfolio management, possessing deep expertise in the dynamics of commercial lending. Exceptional fluency in data and analytics, coupled with strong people leadership and stakeholder management capabilities, are essential for success in this role. This is a unique opportunity to significantly influence and scale one of the most critical functions within an ambitious and innovative bank poised to become a leader in UK business banking.
• • **Leadership & Strategy:** You will build and lead high-performing teams across two critical areas: Credit Models and Lending Strategy. You will define the strategic direction for credit portfolio management, model development, and credit analytics, ensuring alignment with the bank's overall risk appetite and commercial objectives. A key aspect of this role involves leading engagement with crucial stakeholders such as Finance, external auditors, and 2LoD oversight teams for accurate impairment reporting. You will champion a culture of analytical excellence, data-driven decision-making, accountability, and continuous improvement throughout the team.
• • **People Leadership:** Develop, motivate, and retain a talented team. This role requires a 'player-manager' approach, combining hands-on technical expertise in modelling and analytics with strong people leadership and mentoring skills. You will ensure clear career progression paths, implement rigorous performance management processes, and establish succession planning to maintain team resilience during periods of growth. Driving constant improvement in team workflows and operational efficiency will be a key focus.
• • **Lending Strategy:** Define and maintain comprehensive portfolio-level strategies, including provisioning, vintage management, concentration limits, and Key Risk Indicator (KRI) frameworks. You will set and manage portfolio-level appetite parameters, including concentration limits and other credit KRIs, through annual reviews and ongoing monitoring. Close collaboration with teams responsible for translating portfolio appetite into deal appetite will foster a feedback loop to optimize lending portfolio performance. You will lead impairment forecasting and portfolio stress-testing, providing critical inputs for annual budgets, ongoing forecasts, the Internal Capital Adequacy Assessment Process (ICAAP), investor discussions, and other regulatory assessments.
• • **Credit Models:** Drive the roadmap for model development, retirement, and automation to enhance accuracy, scalability, and speed in decisioning and credit measurement. You will manage the team responsible for the development, deployment, and lifecycle management of the IFRS9 model suite, including PD, LGD, staging/SICR assumptions, Exposure at Default (EAD), and economic response modelling. Oversight of decisioning models for automated underwriting and in-life monitoring is also a key responsibility, as is overseeing specific in-house GenAI credit models for origination and in-life journeys, ensuring robust monitoring and control frameworks are in place. Collaboration with Model Validation (2LoD) is essential to ensure independent validation, backtesting, and model remediation, guaranteeing compliance with governance, audit, and regulatory expectations.
• • **Governance, Risk & Compliance:** Work closely with 2LoD teams on both model monitoring and portfolio management. Ensure all CPM outputs adhere to IFRS9 standards, internal policies, and regulatory requirements. You will coordinate responses to regulatory queries, internal and external audits, and findings from 2LoD reviews.