Job Description

The Role

NEXT is one of the biggest retailers in the UK and over 40% of customers who shop online with us do so using one of our own branded credit accounts.

We are seeking a highly experienced and strategic Head of Credit & Risk to lead our consumer credit and retail lending operations

What You Will Take On

The Credit and Risk team is responsible for analysing all aspects of this lending, which covers 3 million customers with a total of £1.3B outstandings.

In this critical leadership role, your team will use data to drive insight on how we can optimise our customer proposition and business profit.

The team is at the heart of understanding our credit customers and designing, testing and implementing strategy changes to help support growing our business, while ensuring the continued success and compliance of our FCA-regulated offerings

• Portfolio Management: Oversee and strategically manage the £1.3B retail consumer credit portfolio, driving profitability while effectively mitigating risk

• Team Leadership: Lead, mentor and develop a high-performing credit and risk team in excess of 20 people

• Policy & Infrastructure: Define, implement, and oversee the UK Lending Policy and the underlying credit infrastructure necessary to support ‘nextpay’ and flexible credit accounts.

• Risk Strategy: Leverage deep insights into customer behavioural economics to optimise credit risk models, lending strategies and customer payment accounts.

• Regulatory Compliance: Ensure all retail finance and credit operations maintain strict compliance within an FCA-regulated environment

• Financial Management and Accounting: Balance sheet and P&L management including provisioning under IFRS 9 and liaising with external auditors.

What You Will Bring

• Professional Experience: An accomplished credit & risk professional with extensive, senior-level experience in credit and risk management.

• Experience of Consumer Finance: anunderstanding of the modern landscape of retail lending and how it integrates with customer shopping behaviours.

• Scale of Operations: A proven track record of managing large-scale credit portfolios, with experience managing a £1bn+ book being highly desirable.

• Sector Background: Previous leadership experience within a major financial institution or an FCA-regulated retail consumer credit business that offers revolving credit, instalment plans or embedded finance.

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You know Next, but did you know we’re a FTSE-100 retail company employing over 44,000 people across the Next group. We’re the UK’s 2nd largest fashion retailer and for Kidswear we’re the market leader. At the last count we have over 450 stores, plus the Next Online and it’s now possible to buy on-line from over 80 countries around the world! So we’ve gone global!