Lead Risk Manager & Portfolio Owner

FairMoney

South Africa

Remote

ZAR 1,983,000 - 2,975,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

25 days paid vacation, Sick & Public

Remote (timezone overlap with CET)

Training & Development budget

Paid company business trips

Job summary

FairMoney is hiring a Lead Risk Manager & Portfolio Owner to run the Android Quick Loans portfolio in Nigeria. This mini-CEO role will own commercial, economic, risk and people outcomes for a high-volume lending product.

You will lead portfolio economics, affordability models and end-to-end credit strategy, collaborating with Finance, Data, Product and Compliance to drive growth while managing risk and profitability.

Qualifications

6+ years in consumer credit risk, credit strategy or lending portfolio management.
Proven ownership of a material lending portfolio including revenue and profitability.
Experience building annual business plans, monthly forecasts and corrective actions.
Strong SQL capability and comfort with Python or equivalent tools.

Responsibilities

Own Android revenue, gross loan book growth and risk-adjusted profitability.
Lead end-to-end Android credit strategy across origination, returns and controls.
Translate strategy into decision-engine rules and production changes.
Manage affordability signals, pricing, exposure and NPV attribution.
Build and lead a senior Android credit-strategy team and cross-functional partnerships.

Skills

Credit risk leadership

Portfolio management

Executive communication

Decision making under risk

Strategic planning

Team leadership

SQL capability

Python or data tooling

Tools

SQL

Python

Job description

FairMoney is a pioneering mobile banking institution specializing in extending credit to emerging markets. Established in 2017, the company currently operates primarily within Nigeria, and it has secured nearly €50 million in funding from renowned global investors, including Tiger Global, DST, and Flourish Ventures.

In alignment with its vision, FairMoney is actively constructing the foremost mobile banking platform and point-of-sale (POS) solution tailored for emerging markets. The journey began with the introduction of a digital microcredit application exclusively available on Android and iOS devices. Today, FairMoney has significantly expanded its range of services, encompassing a comprehensive suite of financial products, such as current accounts, savings accounts, debit cards, and state-of-the-art POS solutions designed to meet the needs of both merchants and agents. FairMoney thrives on its diverse workforce, bringing together talent from over 27 nationalities. This multicultural team drives the company's mission of reshaping financial services for underserved communities. To gain deeper insights into FairMoney's pivotal role in reshaping Africa's financial landscape, we invite you to watch informativevideo.

The role

We are hiring a Lead Risk Manager & Portfolio Owner to run FairMoney's Android Quick Loans portfolio in Nigeria. Android is a mature, high-volume and strategically important lending portfolio. This is a mini-CEO role for the portfolio: you will be the delegated day-to-day owner of its commercial, economic, risk and people outcomes.

Job Description

Portfolio economics and business planning

Own Android revenue, sustainable Gross Loan Book growth, risk-adjusted Gross Profit, economic profit and credit-risk performance
Build and own the annual Android business plan and strategic roadmap
Produce the monthly portfolio forecast and maintain a clear bridge between actual performance, budget and prior forecast
Diagnose material variances and drive corrective actions with clear owners and deadlines
Manage Expected Credit Loss, ECL/Revenue, approval and disbursal rates, Average Loan Size, tenure, exposure, FPD, roll rates, PAR, NPL, repeat value and CAC payback
Partner with Finance and Portfolio Economics on loan-level and customer-level NPV, funding efficiency and performance attribution

End-to-end Android credit strategy

Own and continuously improve strategy across:

New-to-Bank: low-and-grow origination, first-loan ticket, tenure, pricing and risk controls
Returning: repeat eligibility, behavioural strategy, offer construction and exposure growth
Top-Ups and Internal Consolidation: eligibility, incremental exposure, pricing, conversion and post-event risk
High-risk segments: risk-box clean-up, pricing, short-tenure treatment and exposure caps
Rejected-customer re-entry: controlled requalification using risk, affordability and alternative data

You will own the commercial application of PD cut-offs and calibration, pricing, offers, tenure, exposure limits, affordability, income-source treatment, fraud overlays, MBS treatments and customer-routing logic.

Affordability, experimentation and production delivery

Help formalise and operationalise Android affordability using bank-statement/MBS signals, transaction behaviour, SMS-derived estimates, declared income and repayment history
Translate affordability into amount, tenure, price, exposure, Top-Up and Consolidation decisions
Design controlled A/B, multivariate and champion/challenger tests with explicit hypotheses, maturity windows, success measures and rollback triggers
Measure full unit economics rather than only early risk metrics
Translate strategy into decision-engine rules, parameters and implementation requirements
Own replay, back-testing, validation, staged rollout, monitoring and post-implementation review
Drive cross-functional dependencies through to production rather than stopping at analysis

Delegated decision rights

Within agreed appetite, budgets and authority, you will be empowered to:

Prioritise and sequence the Android portfolio roadmap
Approve and launch controlled experiments within agreed thresholds
Scale, pause, modify or roll back strategies against predefined evidence and guardrails
Reallocate team capacity across Android workstreams
Escalate and resolve delivery blockers

You will elevate decisions that exceed delegated financial or risk thresholds, change company-level risk appetite, create material legal or customer-conduct implications, or materially affect another portfolio.

Team and cross-functional leadership

Build and lead a senior Android credit-strategy team with clear workstream ownership
Establish strong weekly and monthly portfolio rhythms
Develop credible workstream owners and at least one portfolio deputy
Reduce key-person dependency through documentation, controls and repeatable processes
Work closely with Decision Science, Product, Engineering, Growth, Finance, Portfolio Economics, Collections, Fraud, Compliance, Legal, Operations and Customer Service
Mobilise these partners around clear briefs, owners, timelines and expected economic impact

Requirements

6+ years in consumer credit risk, credit strategy or lending portfolio management
Proven ownership of a material lending portfolio or product line, including revenue, GLB, risk and profitability
Experience building annual business plans, monthly forecasts and corrective action plans
Strong digital unsecured-lending experience; Nigerian or broader African-market experience is strongly preferred
Advanced understanding of PD, LGD, EAD, vintages, roll rates, IFRS 9/ECL, pricing, offers, tenure, exposure, affordability and NPV
Strong SQL capability and comfort with Python or equivalent analytical tooling
Experience translating credit strategy into decision-engine rules and controlled production changes
Evidence of building senior teams, developing successors and leading complex cross-functional delivery
Strong executive communication and the confidence to challenge decisions with evidence

Benefits