Lead Risk Manager & Portfolio Owner

FairMoney is a pioneering mobile banking institution specializing in extending credit to emerging markets. Established in 2017, the company currently operates primarily within Nigeria, and it has secured nearly €50 million in funding from renowned global investors, including Tiger Global, DST, and Flourish Ventures.

In alignment with its vision, FairMoney is actively constructing the foremost mobile banking platform and point-of-sale (POS) solution tailored for emerging markets. The journey began with the introduction of a digital microcredit application exclusively available on Android and iOS devices. Today, FairMoney has significantly expanded its range of services, encompassing a comprehensive suite of financial products, such as current accounts, savings accounts, debit cards, and state-of-the-art POS solutions designed to meet the needs of both merchants and agents. FairMoney thrives on its diverse workforce, bringing together talent from over 27 nationalities. This multicultural team drives the company’s mission of reshaping financial services for underserved communities.To gain deeper insights into FairMoney’s pivotal role in reshaping Africa’s financial landscape, we invite you to watch informative video.

The role

We are hiring a Lead Risk Manager & Portfolio Owner to run FairMoney’s Android Quick Loans portfolio in Nigeria. Android is a mature, high-volume and strategically important lending portfolio. This is a mini-CEO role for the portfolio: you will be the delegated day-to-day owner of its commercial, economic, risk and people outcomes.

Job Description

Portfolio economics and business planning

Own Android revenue, sustainable Gross Loan Book growth, risk-adjusted Gross Profit, economic profit and credit-risk performance

Build and own the annual Android business plan and strategic roadmap

Produce the monthly portfolio forecast and maintain a clear bridge between actual performance, budget and prior forecast

Diagnose material variances and drive corrective actions with clear owners and deadlines

Manage Expected Credit Loss, ECL/Revenue, approval and disbursal rates, Average Loan Size, tenure, exposure, FPD, roll rates, PAR, NPL, repeat value and CAC payback

Partner with Finance and Portfolio Economics on loan-level and customer-level NPV, funding efficiency and performance attribution

End-to-end Android credit strategy

Own and continuously improve strategy across

New-to-Bank

low-and-grow origination, first-loan ticket, tenure, pricing and risk controls

Returning

repeat eligibility, behavioural strategy, offer construction and exposure growth

Top-Ups and Internal Consolidation: eligibility, incremental exposure, pricing, conversion and post-event risk

High-risk segments

risk-box clean-up, pricing, short-tenure treatment and exposure caps

Rejected-customer re-entry

controlled requalification using risk, affordability and alternative data

You will own the commercial application of PD cut-offs and calibration, pricing, offers, tenure, exposure limits, affordability, income-source treatment, fraud overlays, MBS treatments and customer-routing logic.

Affordability, experimentation and production delivery

Help formalise and operationalise Android affordability using bank-statement/MBS signals, transaction behaviour, SMS-derived estimates, declared income and repayment history

Translate affordability into amount, tenure, price, exposure, Top-Up and Consolidation decisions

Design controlled A/B, multivariate and champion/challenger tests with explicit hypotheses, maturity windows, success measures and rollback triggers

Measure full unit economics rather than only early risk metrics

Translate strategy into decision-engine rules, parameters and implementation requirements

Own replay, back-testing, validation, staged rollout, monitoring and post-implementation review

Drive cross-functional dependencies through to production rather than stopping at analysis

Delegated decision rights

Within agreed appetite, budgets and authority, you will be empowered to

Prioritise and sequence the Android portfolio roadmap

Approve and launch controlled experiments within agreed thresholds

Scale, pause, modify or roll back strategies against predefined evidence and guardrails

Reallocate team capacity across Android workstreams

Escalate and resolve delivery blockers

You will escalate decisions that exceed delegated financial or risk thresholds, change company-level risk appetite, create material legal or customer-conduct implications, or materially affect another portfolio.

Team and cross-functional leadership

Build and lead a senior Android credit-strategy team with clear workstream ownership

Establish strong weekly and monthly portfolio rhythms

Develop credible workstream owners and at least one portfolio deputy

Reduce key-person dependency through documentation, controls and repeatable processes

Work closely with Decision Science, Product, Engineering, Growth, Finance, Portfolio Economics, Collections, Fraud, Compliance, Legal, Operations and Customer Service

Mobilise these partners around clear briefs, owners, timelines and expected economic impact

Requirements

6+ years in consumer credit risk, credit strategy or lending portfolio management

Proven ownership of a material lending portfolio or product line, including revenue, GLB, risk and profitability

Experience building annual business plans, monthly forecasts and corrective action plans

Strong digital unsecured-lending experience; Nigerian or broader African-market experience is strongly preferred

Advanced understanding of PD, LGD, EAD, vintages, roll rates, IFRS 9/ECL, pricing, offers, tenure, exposure, affordability and NPV

Strong SQL capability and comfort with Python or equivalent analytical tooling

Experience translating credit strategy into decision-engine rules and controlled production changes

Evidence of building senior teams, developing successors and leading complex cross-functional delivery