Head of Credit Strategy

Varo Bank; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Varo Bank is seeking a Head of Credit Strategy to own the end-to-end credit policy, pricing, and portfolio growth. You will translate executive risk appetite into actionable guardrails for originations through collections, partnering with product and data science.

You will lead design and underwriting for new products, leveraging bureau and alternative data, while maintaining solid P&L impact and regulatory alignment.

Qualifications

• Senior leadership in credit risk for large cards, consumer banks, or fintech.
• Ownership of full credit lifecycle, from originations to portfolio management.
• Strong data querying skills with SQL and Python for portfolio analysis.

Responsibilities

• Define and manage risk policy across origination, pricing, and collections.
• Lead credit design and underwriting for new products with data strategies.
• Own vintage performance, delinquency, and unit economics in partnership with Finance.
• Build early-warning indicators and run disciplined testing and policy tweaks.

Skills

Credit risk leadership

Data fluency

SQL

Python

Executive presence

Regulatory expertise

Education

Quantitative degree

MBA or PhD preferred

Tools

SQL

Python

Bureau data

Job description

Varo is an entirely new kind of bank. All digital, mission-driven, FDIC insured and designed for the way our customers live their lives. A bank for all of us.

About The Role

The Head of Credit Strategy is the senior owner of how Varo originates, prices, manages, and grows consumer credit. You will set risk appetite into action: underwriting and pricing policy, limit and line strategy, account management, collections strategy, and the economics of every credit product we launch or scale.

This is not a pure modeling seat and not a second-line oversight seat. It is a first-line credit leadership role for someone who has run large consumer (and ideally small-business or commercial card) books at an issuer or scaled fintech—and who can still get into the data when a vintage breaks or a test needs a call.

You will partner with Product, Data Science, Finance, Fraud, Compliance, Collections, and the bank’s second line to grow access to credit without blowing up the P&L or the charter.

How You'll Make An Impact

• End-to-End Policy & Strategy: Define and maintain risk policy across the full lifecycle, translating C-suite risk appetite into actionable guardrails for originations through collections.
• Product Launch & Design: Lead credit design and underwriting logic for new products while establishing FCRA-compliant data strategies using bureau, alternative, and proprietary transaction data.
• Portfolio Performance & Economics: Own vintage performance, delinquency trajectories, unit economics, and loss/revenue targets in partnership with Finance and Capital Markets.
• Monitoring & Testing: Stand up early-warning indicators, champion/challenger A/B testing, and a disciplined cadence of policy adjustments to safely drive growth.
• Dynamic Risk Adjustments: Determine when to tighten or loosen policy based on macro and portfolio conditions, communicating trade-offs to executives in concise, decision-ready views.
• Team Leadership & Operating Rhythm: Build, coach, and lead a high-performing credit strategy team while serving as the primary credit voice in product reviews and executive forums.
• First-Line Governance & Oversight: Provide rigorous internal challenge to proactively resolve policy and control gaps before second-line defense or regulatory examiners uncover them.

The Skills And Experiences You'll Bring

• 12+ years of senior credit risk leadership at a major card issuer, consumer bank, or scaled fintech (e.g., Chase, Capital One, SoFi).
• Full credit lifecycle strategy ownership covering originations, account management, portfolio reshape, and vintage performance management.
• Deep data fluency in traditional bureaus, alternative data, and hands-on querying (SQL, Python) to interrogate the book directly.
• Executive & board presence to clearly defend policy changes and risk strategies to the C-suite, board, or regulatory examiners.
• Regulatory expertise operating within bank, ILC, or bank-partner framework environments.
• Expanded credit access experience, successfully driving thin-file/near-prime growth while maintaining strict unit economics.
• Strategic leadership scope managing credit committees, team development, and P&L impact across consumer or small-business lending (quantitative degree preferred).

For cash compensation, we set standard ranges for all US-based roles based on function, level, and geographic location, benchmarked against similar-stage growth companies. Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors as well as candidate experience and expertise and may vary from the identified range.

Varo is an equal opportunity employer. Varo embraces diversity and we are committed to building teams that represent a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

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