Portfolio Strategy Specialist

Business Unit: Commercial
Salary Range: up to Circa £66,000 per annum DOE + red-hot benefits
Location: Hybrid with occasional travel to a hub
Contract Type: Permanent

Our Team

The Strategy team plays a pivotal role in shaping the future of our business by driving proactive management of strategies for Unsecured Existing Customers. This includes optimising limit management, tackling persistent debt, enhancing profitability, and delivering commercial excellence. You'll be at the forefront of assessing the balance between risk and reward within credit strategies and policies, ensuring alignment with performance guardrails. Harnessing the power of data, you'll refine segmentation, strategies, and policy rules to unlock new opportunities for business growth. With a focus on innovation and execution, you'll lead transformative projects that propel our organisation forward. Your expertise will be the engine driving progress and excellence.

What you’ll be doing

• You’ll report into the Senior Manager for Unsecured Existing Customer Strategies and provide input to the wider business as required. No day will be the same as you collaborate with a range of stakeholders to ensure analysis is providing true insight into risks and opportunities.
• As a Portfolio Strategy Specialist, your core responsibilities are; Analysing credit data, present findings from your analysis, and solving problems by creating solutions from the analysis of data. You’ll be a self-starter, using your own initiative to drive enhancements, bring new ideas, and provide ongoing challenge.
• Use your experience and expert judgement in the design and setting of appropriate 1LOD Portfolio Strategies for the unsecured portfolios, ensuring they adhere to the Risk Appetite Statements and applicable regulations whilst allowing safe, profitable unsecured lending growth.
• A solid understanding of the P&L, including application of commercial outcomes to drive success including profitable balance growth.
• Work collaboratively with Risk and Operational colleagues to identify improvements that maintain regulatory compliance, improve efficiency, or provides additional value to the business.
• Lead, on behalf of the Unsecured Credit Strategies manager, the provision of meaningful insight and making recommendations for Senior Management and through representation at relevant meetings and committees.
• Develop and maintain a relationship with the Credit Risk teams at an operational and senior level to ensure that best practice is shared, challenges are raised in a timely manner to constructively shape outcomes and all requests are met.
• Demonstrate maintenance of our internal Governance frameworks, policies and Regulatory guidelines and ensure this framework is embedded in the business to ensure sound risk practices are adopted.
• On behalf of the Unsecured Credit Strategies manager lead the delivery of internal department culture and processes that drive the right customer outcomes.

There are a few essentials you need…

• Strong analytical experience and a proficient in SAS/SQL user. Must also be an expert user of the MS Office suite;
• Extensive experience in the development of credit strategies
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to condense and simplify complex information to brief and influence senior stakeholders;
• Capability to operate effectively with senior leaders, and represent Virgin Money with external stakeholders and stand up to robust challenge;
• Ability to prioritise effectively and manage various management expectations, supporting Senior Analysts and Analysts to do the same, delivering multiple deliverables in a fast-changing environment;
• Extensive experience in influencing change in a positive and collaborative manner and turn ideas into practical solutions;
• Proven experience in challenging other teams work through meetings and discussion forums, using strong influencing skills to deliver Commercial ways of working;
• Excellent understanding of data structure and credit strategies;
• Knowledge, experience and understanding of the wider commercial and risk functions and insight requirements;
• Proven ability to build strong networks and relationships with internal and external parties.

We'd love you to have (but not essential)...

• Understanding of the Legal and Regulatory framework and agenda;
• Understanding of Credit Models and Scorecards.

Red Hot Rewards

• Generous holidays - 38.5 days annual leave (including bank holidays and prorated if part-time)​ plus the option to buy more.
• Up to five extra paid well-being days per year​. 
• 20 weeks paid, gender-neutral family leave (52 weeks in total) for expectant parents and those looking to adopt. 
• Market-leading pension.
• Free private medical cover, income protection and life assurance.
• Flexible benefits include Cycle to Work, wellness and health assessments, and critical illness. 

And there's no waiting around, you'll enjoy these benefits from day one.

Feeling insatiably curious about this role? If we’re lucky to receive a lot of interest, we may close the advert early and would hate you to miss out.

We're all about helping you Live a Life More Virgin, so happy to talk flexible working with you.

Say hello to Virgin Money
We’re making great strides towards achieving our ambition of becoming the UK’s best digital bank.  As a full-service digital bank with a heritage stretching back over 180 years, we’re a workforce to be reckoned with, and we're putting the full power of our experience behind disruptive ideas that reinvent the role a bank plays in people's lives. We're customer-obsessed and work tirelessly to deliver on our purpose, ‘Making You Happier About Money.’ This means we're able to do banking differently, and by innovating and working together we can make a real difference by creating memorable moments and red-hot experiences for our millions of customers. Join us and Live a Life More Virgin that empowers you with choice and flexibility in how you work. 

Be yourself at Virgin Money
Our purpose is to make people happier about money, this means seeing and feeling the world as our customers do by creating a workforce that reflects the rich diversity of our customers and communities.  We’re committed to creating an inclusive culture where colleagues feel safe and inspired to contribute, speak up and be heard.  

As a Disability Confident Leader, we're committed to removing any obstacles to inclusion.  If you need any reasonable adjustments or support making your application, contact our Talent Acquisition team careers@virginmoney.com

It’s important to note that there may be occasions where it’s not possible to interview all candidates declaring a disability who meet the essential criteria for the job. In certain recruitment situations such as receiving a high-volume of applications, we may need to limit the overall numbers of interviews offered to both disabled and non-disabled applicants. 

Now the legal bit
Living A Life More Virgin allows our colleagues to be based anywhere in the UK (if the role allows it), but we'll need you to confirm you have the right to work in the UK.

If you're successful in securing a role with us, there are some checks you need to complete before starting. These include credit and criminal record checks and three years' worth of satisfactory references. If the role is part of the Senior Manager Regime and Certification Regime, it requires enhanced pre-employment checks – we'll ask for six years of regulatory references, and once in the role, you'll be subject to periodic employment checks.