Senior Credit & Customer Operations Leader

The Core Group; Sandton; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

The Core Group through iStore Finance is seeking a senior operations leader to own the full customer operations journey—from manual credit assessment and onboarding to servicing, support and arrears collections. This hands-on role requires leading through managers, building operating disciplines and aligning performance, risk, compliance and customer experience with business growth.

You will drive process improvements and automation while ensuring regulatory and audit readiness across key SA

Qualifications

• 10-15 years' experience in financial services or consumer credit operations.
• Senior operations or management experience leading multiple functional managers.
• Experience across lending, credit assessment, fraud, compliance, CS and/or collections.
• Understanding of SA regulatory environment: FICA, NCA, POPIA, NCR.
• Fraud risk management skills and detection systems are essential.
• Comfort with loan management systems and MI/reporting platforms; advanced Excel is helpful.
• Bachelor's degree in Business/Finance/Risk Management is advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Lead Risk Operations, Customer Support and Collections Managers for delivery.
• Set SLAs, quality standards and performance metrics across operations.
• Own end-to-end customer operations journey from onboarding to arrears collections.
• Track turnaround times, quality, CX and cost-to-serve; address gaps.
• Drive process improvements and automation with Product/Data/Systems.
• Oversee manual credit decisioning, fraud controls and policy effectiveness.
• Ensure compliance with FICA, NCA, POPIA and NCR; manage audits.
• Escalate unresolved issues and drive corrective actions.
• Represent operations in strategic portfolio discussions; manage capacity/risk impact.
• Maintain consolidated MI for Executive: iStore Finance.

Skills

Leadership

Operations leadership

Credit risk management

Regulatory compliance

Stakeholder collaboration

MI reporting

Analytical thinking

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Finance/Business

Tools

Loan management systems

Credit decisioning tools

MI reporting platforms

Job description

The Core Group through iStore Finance is seeking a senior operations leader to own the full customer operations journey—from manual credit assessment and onboarding to servicing, support and arrears collections. This hands-on role requires leading through managers, building operating disciplines and aligning performance, risk, compliance and customer experience with business growth.

You will drive process improvements and automation while ensuring regulatory and audit readiness across key SA