CEO - Consumer Lending Platform

Simple Ventures; Toronto; On-site; CAD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading venture capital firm is seeking a CEO for their new fintech venture based in Toronto, Canada. The ideal candidate will have significant leadership experience in scaling fintech companies and a strong background in managing loan books. This role involves setting the vision of the company, leading fundraising activities, and driving operations while focusing on customer and partner experience.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of senior leadership experience, preferably in fintech.
• Experience in a fast-growing environment.
• Ability to drive results and maintain a positive attitude under pressure.

Responsibilities

• Set the vision for the company and define overall strategy.
• Recruit and lead a team to deliver on the company vision.
• Establish brand and execute go-to-market strategy.

Skills

Leadership experience in fintech

Experience managing a loan book

Customer experience focus

Decision-making skills

Financial analysis

Job description

About Us

About Us — We founded Simple Ventures with the mission of building great Canadian companies. Our thesis is simple: Canada is overlooked and under-appreciated. Most companies around the world ignore Canada because of perceived market size, regulation, language, and powerful oligopolies. As a result, Canadians miss out. We’re funded and supported by Canada’s top leaders including the founders of Wealthsimple, Shopify, Ada, MindBeacon and many more. We identify and vet new company concepts that we have high conviction should be built and scaled in Canada. Our building philosophy is pragmatic. We look for concepts that have positive unit economics and that have a credible path to profitability with an initial Seed investment. Once we have conviction in a new venture concept, we look for a talented operator to partner with to build and scale the company with. We are recruiting a CEO for our next venture.

The Opportunity

We are launching a secured consumer lending platform, designed to empower Canadians to access flexible financing options for high-value purchases in a specific vertical. The venture will redefine the way consumers secure loans by leveraging innovative technology. Our unique advantage lies in established partnerships with financial institutions, a network of industry experts, and advanced go-to-market capabilities. The opportunity is to be the CEO of this new venture, leading the company from inception to scaling a category-defining business.

About you

You ideally have leadership experience scaling a successful fintech company (lending experience highly valuable), and are passionate about capital markets related businesses. As the CEO, you will design, deliver and scale the product, go-to-market, and operations functions of the business. You are a proud operator who sees the big picture yet obsesses over the details.

What you’ll do:

• Set the vision for the company and define the overall strategy from launch to scale.
• Recruit and lead a world class team to deliver against the company vision
• Create and launch the brand.
• Establish and execute the go-to-market and expansion strategy.
• Lead all fundraising activities (including debt and equity) to support growth objectives in partnership with Simple Ventures (SV).
• Drive operations, including full P&L and cash flow management.
• Assist in defining, evaluating and evolving the product roadmap by identifying new opportunities and gaps
• Determine the highest order KPIs and build the plan and team to measure, monitor, and improve them.
• Drive strategy and decision-making across all functional areas, including product, data, contracting, operations, technology, marketing, and finance.
• Regularly partner and communicate with SV and relevant investors and/or Board of Directors.
• Create and sustain a great company culture consisting of clearly articulated values and inspired leadership.

What you’ll need:

Background

• Senior leadership experience: 10+ years of experience, most recently executive-level experience, with a proven track record of success
• Fintech/lending expertise: Strong preference for someone who has scaled a fintech (preferably lending) company, and who has experience managing a loan book at scale
• Experienced radical accountability: Experience in a fast-growing environment and an understanding of the existential threats of the situation with limited resources.
• Track record of success: Demonstration of intellectual curiosity, extreme levels of accountability, and an ability to be incredibly decisive.
• Customer/channel partner experience: Obsession with designing and delivering an exceptional customer and channel partner experience
• Brand: A distinct view of being the "brand owner" and the face of the business, a comfortability in pitching the business to customers, partners and stakeholders such as the Press.

Behavioural Competencies

• Action Orientation: You readily take action on new opportunities with a sense of urgency, high energy, and enthusiasm. You display a can-do attitude, and step up to handle tough issues.
• Resiliency: You are confident under pressure, and maintain a positive attitude despite setbacks or adversity. You are able to grow from hardships, and manage crises effectively.
• Communicates Effectively: You are effective in a variety of communication settings: one-on-one, small and large groups, or among diverse styles and position levels.
• Drives Vision and Purpose: You create organization-wide energy and optimism for the future, articulating your visions in a way that are positive and that everyone can relate to. Creates milestones and symbols to rally support behind the vision and motivate others into action.
• Drives Results: You persist in accomplishing objectives and exceeding goals despite obstacles and setbacks, while also helping others to achieve results.
• Financial Acumen: You use financial analysis and understanding of key indicators to generate, evaluate, and act on strategic options and opportunities, while integrating quantitative and qualitative information to draw accurate conclusions.
• Decision Quality: You make sound and timely decisions that keep the organization moving forward, even in the absence of complete information. You consider all relevant factors and rely on a mixture of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgment when making decisions.