Head of Credit Strategy

Varo Bank; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 240,000 - 360,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity package

Health insurance

401(k) match

Job summary

Varo Bank is seeking a Head of Credit Strategy to own the full credit lifecycle—from originations to collections—while translating risk appetite into actionable guardrails. You will design underwriting for new products, drive data strategy, and own portfolio economics with a focus on scalable growth.

You will lead a team of credit professionals, partner with Product, Finance, and Compliance, and maintain strong governance to protect P&L and the charter.

Qualifications

• 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 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, driving thin-file/near-prime growth with strict unit economics.
• Strategic leadership scope managing credit committees, team development, and P&L impact across consumer or small-business lending (quantitative degree preferred).

Responsibilities

• 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 data strategies using bureau, alternative, and proprietary data.
• Portfolio Performance & Economics: Own vintage performance, delinquency trajectories, unit economics, and loss/revenue targets with Finance and Capital Markets.
• Monitoring & Testing: Stand up early-warning indicators, champion/challenger A/B testing, and 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.
• Team Leadership & Operating Rhythm: Build, coach, and lead a high-performing credit strategy team and represent the voice in product reviews.
• First-Line Governance & Oversight: Proactively resolve policy and control gaps before second-line examiners uncover them.

Skills

Senior credit risk leadership

Credit lifecycle strategy

SQL

Python

Executive communication

Regulatory knowledge

Thin-file growth

Credit committee leadership

Education

Quantitative degree

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.