Head of Credit Underwriting
3 days ago
Wolverhampton
Head of Credit UnderwritingLocation: WolverhamptonSalary: Competitive + BenefitsType: Full-time, Permanent An exciting opportunity has arisen for an experienced Senior Credit Underwriter to play a pivotal role within a growing lending business. This is a senior leadership position responsible for overseeing credit decision-making, managing a team of sanctioners, and working closely with the Head of Business Development to ensure high-quality, compliant lending delivered within agreed SLAs. You will be instrumental in shaping credit policy, improving processes, coaching teams, and ensuring lending decisions reflect both risk appetite and the wider macro-economic environment. • Lead and manage the team of sanctioners, ensuring consistent, robust and appropriate credit decisions., • Act as first-line approval for progressing new loan appraisals and due diligence submitted by BDMs., • Ensure strict adherence to credit policies, funding rules and guarantee scheme requirements., • Review, update and enhance credit policies, procedures and loan appraisal processes., • Keep abreast of macro-economic, political and sector-specific risks, adapting credit policy and training accordingly., • Organise sanctioner availability to ensure SLAs for sanction and release are consistently met., • Provide coaching, training and development to the BDM team on loan appraisals and credit quality., • Support the Head of Business Development with the induction and training of new BDMs., • Provide ongoing training and support to sanctioners to drive consistency and quality., • Work closely with Portfolio Managers to review problem loans, identify learnings, and implement improvements to credit policy and processes., • Ensure loan paperwork is prepared accurately, efficiently and within required SLAs., • Oversee the end-to-end process from sanction through to loan release alongside the Head of Business Development., • Ensure loans are released efficiently and in line with service standards., • At the end of each week, document expectations for sanction and release for the following week. About you:, • Proven experience in credit underwriting within a lending or financial services environment, • Strong people leadership experience, including managing and developing teams, • Excellent understanding of credit risk, loan appraisal and policy governance, • Experience working closely with business development and portfolio management teams, • Commercially astute with the ability to balance risk and growth, • Highly organised with a strong focus on SLAs, process improvement and quality, • Confident communicator, able to influence at leadership level Why Join?, • Excellent company benefits including - company pension scheme, 28 days annual leave, Healthcare cash plan, car allowance and discretionary bonus, • Senior, influential role with genuine ownership of credit strategy, • Opportunity to shape and evolve credit policy and processes, • Collaborative leadership team and growing organisation, • Clear visibility and impact at board/leadership level