Head of Data Science, Credit Risk Analytics

Cleo; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Health insurance

Sabbatical after four years

Learning and development platform

Pension contributions

Job summary

Cleo is hiring a Head of Data Science to lead credit performance measurement and monitoring within the Risk & Payments pillar. This player-coach role manages a team of Credit Data Scientists and Analysts, balancing hands-on analysis with strategic direction and output ownership.

You will design and maintain credit risk metrics, dashboards, and alerts, and partner with Risk Modelling to translate metrics into actionable policy and product decisions.

Qualifications

• Strong SQL and Python skills, comfortable working directly from the warehouse.
• Track record owning analyses end-to-end from framing the question to shipping a recommended change.
• Hands-on experience with predictive models (credit, fraud, or similar), fluent in AUC/Gini, calibration, PSI/CSI, and drift.

Responsibilities

• Own credit performance measurement frameworks and dashboards to catch anomalies early.
• Bridge model health with business decisions by translating model metrics into policy recommendations.
• Lead root-cause analysis end-to-end on issues like arrears spikes or yield compression with SHAP and feature importance.
• Support policy and decisioning by building evaluation frameworks for changes and elasticity modelling.
• Manage and develop a team of Credit Data Scientists and Analysts, setting priorities and growing the team.

Job description

Most money apps talk at you. Cleo talks back

We're not building another finance app. We're building the world's first AI financial assistant, one that actually understands your money and makes you better at it, and we're changing the world's relationship with money in the process For everyone, whatever their background or balance.

The proof: profitable, fast-growing, a unicorn with over $300M in ARR, and millions of people who now feel differently about their money.

We love original thinkers who challenge the status quo. We move fast, tell the truth, and there's nowhere to hide from good work here. If that excites you more than it scares you, you'll fit right in.

Follow us on LinkedIn for new features and the occasional roast

Meet the team

Here at Cleo we have team of ~135 member in our Borrow Pillar and ~8 dedicated to Credit Policy and Analytics. This function brings together several specialisms, all working toward managing portfolio performance; designing the systems, models, and controls that make lending sustainable. They drive to build and grow a portfolio of responsible EWA & Pay Later products that can scale across markets while protecting users from high cost debt trap.

About the role

We're hiring a Head of Data Science to lead credit performance measurement and monitoring within our Risk & Payments pillar. This is a player-coach role: You'll manage a team of Credit Data Scientists and Analysts, splitting your time between hands-on analysis and leading the team - setting direction, developing people, and owning the function's output.

You'll own the frameworks and metrics that keep our credit products healthy, and drive the deep-dive analyses that explain performance shifts and turn them into action. Key areas of impact:

• Own credit performance measurement - design and maintain Cleo's risk metric framework (arrears, default, yield, LTV, marginal loss), and the dashboards/alerts that catch arrears spikes, roll-rate shifts, and decisioning anomalies early.

• Bridge model health and business decisions - partner with Risk Modelling to translate model metrics (AUC, PSI, calibration, drift) into policy and product recommendations, and diagnose whether performance moves are model-driven, macro, or operational.

• Lead root-cause analysis - own investigations end-to-end (question → analysis → recommendation) on issues like arrears spikes or yield compression, using driver analysis (SHAP, feature importance, decomposition), and present findings to Risk, Product, and Leadership.

• Support policy and decisioning - work with Credit Policy and Decision Science to build evaluation frameworks for policy changes, quantify their marginal impact, and support elasticity/profitability modelling on pricing and limits.

• Manage and develop a team - directly manage Credit Data Scientists and Analysts: set priorities, manage performance, and grow the team, not just direct project work.

What we're looking for

• Strong SQL and Python skills, comfortable working directly from the warehouse

• Track record owning analyses end-to-end - from framing the question to shipping a recommended change

• Hands-on experience with predictive models (credit, fraud, or similar), fluent in AUC/Gini, calibration, PSI/CSI, and drift

• Fluency in credit portfolio metrics (arrears buckets, roll rates, loss rate, yield/marginal loss) and how they tie to unit economics

• Experience directly managing analysts or data scientists - priorities, performance, and people development

• Nice to have: experience with short-term or revolving credit products

• Nice to have: experience with both UK and US regulatory frameworks

What we offer

We offer benefits package built to support you in and out of work. Benefits vary by country and include meaningful equity, comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance, mental health support, a paid one-month sabbatical after four years, a learning and development platform, pension or retirement contributions, and location-specific leave entitlements.
For the full breakdown on what's available in your location, visit our Candidate Hub

What Matters

Cleo's mission is to change the world's relationship with money. We can't do that without building a brilliant, genuinely diverse team - and making sure our hiring process gives everyone a fair shot, running a fair and transparent recruitment process in which every candidate is considered on their metris.

We're glad to make reasonable adjustments at any stage of the process. If there's anything we can do to support you in showing us your best, please let your recruiter or one of the team know.

We may use AI-assisted tools during the recruitment process to take support the team in different ways like taking notes or referring back to conversations. They do not replace the team and all applications are reviewed by a Cleo employee thoroughly!