Principal Lead: Collections Strategy

Woolworths Financial Services; Cape Town; Hybrid; ZAR 200 000 - 300 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading financial services firm in Cape Town seeks a Principal Lead in Collections Strategy to manage a team of analysts. This role involves optimizing collections strategies within a structured control framework and collaborating across functions. The ideal candidate will have over five years of experience in collections or credit risk, strong analytical skills, and a relevant degree. This position offers a hybrid work environment focused on meeting transformation goals.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5+ years in Collections or Credit Risk in a senior analytical role.
• Experience with strategy development and implementation in consumer portfolios.
• Team management experience is beneficial.

Responsibilities

• Support the Head of Collections Strategy with team management.
• Define and optimize WFS Collections strategy.
• Act as a representative in cross-functional forums.

Skills

Collections/Recoveries Strategy Management

Champion/Challenger Strategy Design

Structured Query Language proficiency

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Economics, or related field

Post graduate degree

Tools

SQL environments

Python

R

SAS

Microsoft Office

Job description

Woolworths Financial Services | Full time

Principal Lead: Collections Strategy

Cape Town, South Africa | Posted on 08/08/2025

Woolworths Financial Services, or WFS as it is better known, is a Joint Venture with Absa Bank, that supports the Woolworths retail business by providing in-store credit in the form of the Woolworths StoreCard and offering value-added services including credit cards, personal loans and short-term insurance as well as life insurance linked to other products.

Job Description

Woolworths Financial Services follows a hybrid work structure which requires employees to work from home for the majority of their time with some rotation into office.

MAIN PURPOSE:

To support the Head of Collections Strategy in managing the WFS Collections Strategy, by partnering and leading a team of analysts in ensuring the Collections agenda is clearly defined, optimised and effectively executed within a robust control framework and aligned to relevant policy and legislation. Accountabilities include:

• Defining, optimising and implementing the WFS Collections strategy, covering in-house and early stage outsourced Collections. Develop and maintain world-class analytically-driven strategies to optimise yield performance, by leveraging statistical/modelling techniques to unlock value from enterprise data assets
• Support Collections & Recoveries operational team with analytical insights and reporting, where required
• Measure inputs and outputs of the value chain to gauge strategy implementation accuracy, compliance with standards and identify opportunities to improve processes.
• Select and prepare for execution manual account maintenance and strategy elements, as required by the strategic and operational needs.
• Act as a representative in forums, weekly and/or monthly meetings and enterprise project initiatives, collaborating cross-functionally and managing stakeholders across the business
• As a credible and respected expert within a sub-discipline of Collection Strategy management, generate ideas and offer unique perspectives to optimise complex processes, systems and disciplines
• Lead, manage and develop a team of Collections Strategy analysts

Key Outcomes

• Technical subject matter expertise & thought leadership
• Stakeholder management
• Action orientation & delivery
• Management & team Leadership

Requirements

TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

• Collections/Recoveries Strategy Management
• Champion/Challenger Strategy Design
• Structured Query Language proficiency

BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES

• Intellectual Curiosity – continuous improvement, innovation and ability to deal with change
• Action Oriented – results focus, determination to achieve and deadline driven
• Analytical Thinking – attention to detail, focus on quality and integrity of output
• Team Player – relating, networking and supporting colleagues

QUALIFICATIONS

• Minimum: Bachelor’s degree (3 years) ideally in Finance, Economics, Econometrics, Quantitative Analysis, Mathematics or Statistics
• Preferred: Post graduate degree

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

• Minimum: 5+ years Collections or Credit Risk related experience in a Senior Analytical Role
• Proven strategy development and implementation experience and segmentation analytics on consumer portfolios.
• At least 5 years analytical experience on a consumer portfolio (loans, credit cards, private label cards, etc.) in either credit risk or collections strategies.
• Experience in working in an outsourced environment and effectively implementing solutions using both internal and external resources.
• Beneficial: Team management and leadership experience in an analytical context

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

• Knowledge of financial services industry in a strongly regulated environment for a multi-product, multi-stakeholder organisation.
• Collection strategy expertise across the credit lifecycle including quantifying expected business benefits.
• Understanding of statutory processes and specialized recoveries is an advantage.
• Proven ability in analytics, business acumen and presenting / communicating recommendations across all organisation levels.
• Ability to work with diverse teams to ensure effective implementation of projects.
• Understanding of financial metrics in relation to portfolio management and the associated forecasting thereof.
• High proficiency in structured language analytical software, Python, R, SAS
• High proficiency in SQL environments (data extraction, cleaning and preparation)
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerPoint etc.). VBA or C# for Office applications is an advantage.

Woolworths Financial Services is a proud South African brand, who is committed to transformation. Meeting our employment equity goals will be taken into account in our recruitment decisions.