Director, Credit Risk, Liberty Street, New York, NY

Director, Credit Risk, Liberty Street, New York, NY

Country: United States of America

Your Journey Starts Here:

Santander is a global leader and innovator in the financial services industry. We believe that our employees are our greatest asset. Our focus is on fostering an enriching journey that empowers you to explore diverse career opportunities while nurturing your personal growth. We are committed to creating an environment where continuous learning and development are prioritized, enabling you to thrive both professionally and personally. Here, you will find ample opportunities to connect and collaborate with talented colleagues from around the world, sharing insights and driving innovation together. Join us at Santander, where you are supported by a culture of engagement and a commitment to your success.

An exciting journey awaits, if you are interested in exploring the possibilities We Want to Talk to You!

The Difference You Make:
The Director, Credit Risk leads the design, implementation, and oversight of risk strategies and governance frameworks for Santander’s consumer lending portfolios. This role is accountable for ensuring credit policy, model governance, and decisioning strategies are effectively aligned with risk appetite and business objectives. The Director partners with teams across Credit Risk, Data Science, Product, and Technology to ensure analytical insights translate into sound portfolio management, profitability, and regulatory compliance.

General Responsibilities

• Provide strategic leadership in the design and execution of credit risk management frameworks, policies, and decision strategies.
• Lead portfolio performance assessment and ensure alignment with risk appetite and business strategy.
• Oversee risk analytics, model performance monitoring, and governance of key risk indicators.
• Direct the development and enhancement of credit decision engines and automation capabilities in partnership with technology teams.
• Engage with executive stakeholders to communicate portfolio trends, risk exposures, and mitigation actions.
• Partner with compliance and audit functions to ensure adherence to regulatory standards and internal controls.

Implementation Oversight & Governance

• The Director oversees the translation of business and risk strategies into operational decision systems and ensures governance of all implementation activities across the credit risk function. This includes leading teams that manage the deployment, testing, and validation of decision engine logic, ensuring the precision, integrity, and compliance of automated decision processes.

Strategy Implementation

• Oversee the design and translation of business and credit strategies into decision engine configurations and rules logic.
• Ensure strategic intent is accurately represented in decision platforms through strong collaboration with Credit Policy, Model Development, Analytics, and Technology teams.
• Direct governance reviews of proposed strategy changes to ensure consistency, control, and alignment with Santander’s risk appetite.

Testing & Validation

• Establish frameworks for testing and validating decision logic, models, and strategy deployments.
• Oversee quality assurance processes to verify that system outputs align with approved credit policies and risk frameworks.
• Drive post-implementation reviews and ensure corrective actions are identified and executed in a timely manner.

Performance Monitoring

• Lead ongoing monitoring of decision engine performance, including automation rates, approval trends, and error detection.
• Partner with analytics and reporting teams to assess the business impact of strategy adjustments and model-driven decisions.
• Use insights from performance tracking to inform continuous improvement and portfolio optimization initiatives.

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Coordinate across Risk, Technology, Operations, and Product teams to ensure cohesive delivery of credit risk strategies and system updates.
• Lead discussions on platform enhancements and new capabilities to support evolving risk and business needs.
• Represent Credit Risk in governance forums, audits, and model validation reviews, ensuring transparent documentation and communication of implementation decisions.

What You Bring:

To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Finance, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. - Required.
• Master's Degree in Business, Finance, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. - Preferred.

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• 12+ Years Risk Management, Credit Risk or Internal Audit experience. - Required.
• 12+ Years Financial Industry experience. - Required.
• 12+ Years Consulting - Preferred.
• 3+ Years Experience in software testing or quality assurance roles. Required

• Experience with decision engines such as FICO , Experian PowerCurve, or Provenir.
• Advanced understanding of consumer credit risk, models, lending policies, and/or financial products.
• Extensive experience working in a financial institution or fintech environment.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with attention to detail.
• Strong Proficiency in Excel; familiarity with SQL, Python, or other analytics tools is a plus.
• Ability to independently operate in a complex, matrixed environment; adept at delivering and maintaining productive working relationships across business, functions, geographies and lines of defense.
• Strong risk management principles, methodologies and tools, governance principles and activity preferably in a financial services technology environment.
• Ability to direct, train and guide peers, subordinates and management.
• Ability to strategically generate well supported conclusions based on trend analysis, credit risk due diligence performed, understanding of the Banks risk appetite and assessment of managements capabilities.
• Ability to effectively interact and communicate with senior management across the enterprise.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
  

Preferred Skills:

• Exposure to agile delivery environments and product/strategy deployment cycles.
• Understanding of model-driven decisioning and A/B testing frameworks.
  

Certifications:

• No Certifications listed for this job.

It Would Be Nice For You To Have:

• Established work history or equivalent demonstrated through a combination of work experience, training, military service, or education.
• Experience in Microsoft Office products.

What Else You Need To Know :

The base pay range for this position is posted below and represents the annualized salary range. For hourly positions (non-exempt), the annual range is based on a 40-hour work week. The exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, training, licensure and certifications and location.

Base Pay Range

Minimum:

$135,000.00 USD

Maximum:

$240,000.00 USD

Link to Santander Benefits:

Risk Culture:

We embrace a strong risk culture and all of our professionals at all levels are expected to take a proactive and responsible approach toward risk management.

EEO Statement:

At Santander, we value and respect differences in our workforce. We actively encourage everyone to apply. Santander is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Working Conditions :

Frequent minimal physical effort such as sitting, standing and walking is required for this role. Depending on location, occasional moving and lifting light equipment and/or furniture may be required .

Employer Rights:

This job description does not list all of the job duties of the job. You may be asked by your supervisors or managers to perform other duties. You may be evaluated in part based upon your performance of the tasks listed in this job description. The employer has the right to revise this job description at any time. This job description is not a contract for employment and either you or the employer may terminate your employment at any time for any reason.

What To Do Next :

If this sounds like a role you are interested in, then please apply.

We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible application process for all candidates. If you require any assistance or accommodation due to a disability or any other reason, please contact us at [email protected] to discuss your needs.

Primary Location: New York, NY, New York

Other Locations: New York-New York

Organization: Santander Bank N.A.